Member Info for Joewilliam

Why sell just to buy back in soon and likely at a higher price? It doesn't make any sense as the picture is gradually improving.

Its the time to average down your buy price, not sell.

Hi Aby, where'd you read that?

It ends in 2025, and is expected to be in the 50-100m loss range per year until then. Unfortunately Centrica was saddled with this in the 80s or 90s, and has had to wait until it ends. Once it does end though it'll be a huge boost to earnings for shareholders.

The current downward trend is industry wide at the moment so that's what's causing the current slide. Centrica currently has more than its market cap in cash, and on top of that businesses that can easily generate 500-1bn per year in operating profits. It also has strong scope for growth this decade within the home solutions, business solutions, and trading.

Market sentiment is poor for Centrica and has been for years, it'll take some stellar results for that to change. But I'm certain it will, and until then I'll continue to keep buying.

I think its a mistake, on Centrica's website and the trading update they said it'd be 22nd July

Centrica have a 20% stake in the entire Nuclear fleet not just 3 stations?

I read that Neptune Energy may be planning a float, and possibly a merger with another North Sea operator. If there was a buyer for Spirit, I think Neptune would be a good bet.

Centrica has £2-3bn in cash on hand, I highly doubt that they were will going bust anytime soon.

Chester, where was the share buy back mentioned? Its usually on the resolutions but this is done every year, I haven't seen intention to buy back shares other than to cover the share award schemes.

Energy supply is structurally flawed at the minute because of the price cap and too much competition. No one currently makes money in energy supply, but that will change in the future because it has to, either through the removal of price cap by government or market consolidation (which we're already seeing).

The servicing side of the business is an important staple, steady earnings, but low growth.

A catalyst isn't needed so much as the services and supply needs to be managed well. But luckily for Centrica investors there is a catalyst and scope for substantial growth in earnings, the trading and solutions businesses. Managing and trading others energy assets is becoming very profitable for Centrica. And to capture the green wave, we have the solutions business.

Spirit and Nuclear will never be huge earners and their recovery values may decline, but when they're sold we'll at least be able to pay down a chunk of the debt/Invest in any further opportunities. In any case, at the current market cap this is a bargain play.

Whether or not buybacks boost the share price is irrelevant, what matters is that as owners our share of the company increases.

I've not read about the previous pension issue before Dinen, thanks for telling me about it I'm going to look into it to get more in the know.

What did he lie about? I watched the committee hearing and I believe there was debate over when the S188 notices should be issued, but I would of thought lying to a committee would land one in a spot of bother.

That's true, no one will be happy having their T&C's cut. You can rarely compel people to take a cut for the sake of a company, unless bankruptcy is imminent. So in absence of a negotiated settlement I believe many will carry out their work begrudgingly afterwards, which is not ideal. There is 1000 engineer apprentices now though that the T&C changes have allowed Centrica to take on economically.

In the results presentation, O'Shea said the change is about salvaging the directly employed model for engineers. He said under previous terms it was currently more favorable economically to pay contractors rather than directly employed engineers.

It's just market consolidation because too many poorly capitalised companies were given licenses to sell energy. Nabuh energy was likely almost out of business like Robinhood.

I think we'll get our boot up to 80p prior to 10p earnings per share, once the bad news has receded, profits return and there is some growth. The PE multiple could easily hit 20 or more at some point, given our exposure to the energy transition.

The customer numbers for energy supply have been pretty steady for H2 with next to no losses, which is a big turnaround. On top of this, our energy supply is profitable albeit a small profit. The structure of the energy supply market means that the majority of businesses are loss making, so we can expect further market consolidation and perhaps government will remove the price cap in the next few years. With BG's leading position this part of the business can only improve from here on out given the incredibly difficult circumstances for all players imo.

If they'd retired any bond debt we would have been able to tell by now, at least I think so. Since Centrica would need to buy back their bonds on the open market, and companies usually release an RNS about this offer.

They would be able to retire bank debt depending on their agreement with the banks. And they do have a callable bond that can be called in April, but these are only at 3% interest off the top of my head, so the cash would be better off being utilised in the business than retiring this imo.

It went below 30p intraday during April, I was watching the carnage in real time

Yeah I agree, dividend should have been scrapped long ago, it was insanity how long it had been kept at such unsustainable levels. Conn was effectively cannibalizing the company to meet dividends and capital expenditure, as well as taking too long to address the competitive pressures in energy supply. Though he did understand the importance of the energy transition for the business at least.

Carlos, I think in terms of strategic direction our foothold in business energy solutions is going to do great off the energy transition. The business solutions business is not yet profitable, but it will be interesting if/when it becomes profitable. We have a global footprint, and the financial clout for this to be Centrica's jewel in the crown within the next 10 years.

He's only been at Centrica around two years and CEO for less than half that so we can't blame him for the damage done to the business over the years, but I think we can agree he's already taking the difficult decisions that were avoided in the past.