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While I am surprised that AST finally seem to have got funding for their claim against Slovenia, there is as usual a serious lack of information given.
1. When will the case be brought?
And more importantly.
2. What percentage will EYNO take of any award granted by the court?
The company has to know the answer to question number 2, otherwise an agreement could never have been completed. So why is this information being kept secret from the shareholders?
"Very positive. Do you hold the LSE listed shares? If so, is there a still a withholding tax applied on dividends?"
AUY LSE listed shares are taxed at 15% whether they are in an ISA or not. And as Noel says you will not be able to reclaim any tax if they are held in and ISA or personal pension.
Well I have read through the AGM/EGM resolutions, and the 25p to 1p share reorganisation is not mentioned at all. As if the earlier RNS was not vague enough, they don't even offer you a clear vote on this.
It is obviously wrapped up somewhere in the 3 Special Resolutions, so I will vote against all three. I am not prepared to vote for something that I do not understand, and HOC cannot be bothered to explain.
I have read through the lengthy explanation for the 25p to 1p share reduction, and sadly I am none the wiser. It smacks of dodgy dealings trying to be covered up / corrected by Smart Alec accounting tricks.
Like Panks2007, I am minded to vote against this unless it is explained more clearly.
For someone who claims to be a "word person" you have a very poor understanding of the English language Oldblue.
AST are very careful with their RNS wording. Therefore the inclusion of "automatic" will not have been a mistake. It is quite obvious to me that the contract extension was granted automatically.
The ongoing bad relationship between AST and Slovenia should also give you a clue. Do you really think that Slovenia would have extended AST's contract if they had a choice?
Oldblue,
I am sorry if my previous post was too difficult for you to understand.
I was not asking if you were an AST investor. We all know you are not. You told us so a couple of months back. Remember?
I was simply replying to your rather ignorant post below:
"hope you guys hold shares/had shares or are actual investors seems theres a new button you have to click on to view RNs which you have to state that you are an investor.....be really silly to click on it if you wernt..."
And as I said, LSE are asking you to confirm that you are a Private Investor. They are not asking if you are an AST investor. This feature has been there for a years or two, there is nothing new about it.
Many potential punters read these boards first before deciding to invest. Which is not a bad idea when so many AIM listed company's RNS's are ****e.
Sorry Oufc, I missed that comment in the RNS, and focused on this.
"Following the purchase, the Company will have 2,234,306,027 Ordinary Shares of £0.01 each in issue, of which 306,358,058 Ordinary Shares are held in treasury."
Gavaster,
I too dislike share buy backs, as the shares are usually cancelled once purchased, as in this example from Shell.
"The purpose of the share buybacks is to reduce the issued share capital of the company. All shares repurchased as part of this arrangement will be cancelled."
However, these PAF shares are being held in Treasury as far as I can see. So they could later be sold back to the market at a profit, or issued to staff and directors as part of a bonus scheme, while causing zero dilution.
"Bed and Breakfasting only works if you don't buy back the asset for 30 days."
The simplest way around this is to sell the shares in your trading account and buy them back into an ISA or SIP. As there is no tax on SIPs and ISAs the 30 day rule does not apply.
You can do this immediately with a Bed & ISA transaction if your trading account and ISA are with the same company.
Alwaysup,
IMO it does not matter if the directors take a 25% pay cut, or simply suffer a delay in being paid the extra 25%. As the legal funding is never going to happen, it makes no difference.
AST have been trying for years to find someone stupid enough to fund their legal dispute against Slovenia. I would not be surprised if EYNO had decided it was not for them, but were being paid by AST to go along with the pretence.
Jeremyruttl, No it is far from obvious to me.
If Blackrock had borrowed 24m shares on 25th Feb and promptly sold them for around £7 per share, then they could have made a mint by repurchasing the shares at today sp and then returning the shares to their owner.
However they did not borrow these shares, they purchased them. These were not financial options, but real shares. On that day the sp opened at 682p and closed at 798p. So it is not unreasonable to assume that Blackrock paid around 700p each for their newly acquired 24 million shares.
If they sold these shares now, they would make a huge loss.
Cost of purchase - 24m shares x £7 = £168m
Value if sold now - 24m shares x £1.5 = £36m
Loss to Blackrock - £168m - £36m = £132m.
Personally I'd be surprised if the trader is still employed by them.
" There's even a reasonable chance black rock bought those shares to short he **** of them themselves"
Jeremyruttl,
That makes no sense to me! You borrow shares to short them, you do not buy them until you choose or need to return them. How exactly will Blackrock make a profit on shares bought at c 700p?
The Thinker, are you sure that the US is the largest holder of gold bullion?
A few years ago Germany asked to audit the gold that was being stored for them by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The request was denied. As a result of this refusal Germany asked for the return of one fifth of their 1500 tons of US stored gold. The FED asked for 7 years to return this fairly meagre 300 tons. An amount that was less that 5% of the gold that the NY FED claimed to be holding in it's vaults. In the first year the FED returned a pathetic 5 tons to Germany.
It may be a complete coincidence, but the US gold vaults have not been fully audited since 1954.
The Slovenian government have been frustrating AST's attempts to get the gas out of the ground for over 10 years. The green lobby have objected to any form of fracking, while the Environmental Agency have taken forever to award the necessary permits, only to cancel a few weeks later. Legal challenges in Slovenia have rumbled on for years, but their courts never sided with AST. Even now an EIA is still required before any pressurising will be considered, and production can resume.
The license held by AST's partner (a Government owned company) has expired, and the temporary extension runs out in 20 months time.
I do not doubt that Slovenia see the value in this, but I do not believe that they will allow AST or any other foreign company to benefit. They want it all for themselves! They have stalled and prevaricated for 10 years. What is another 20 months to them?
A large oil/gas company may see the benefit in acquiring a large gas field and a £50m tax deductible loss, but will they really want to do battle with a hostile and corrupt government?
Who in their right mind would want to buy this company?
They may be sitting on a massive gas field, but what is the chance of actually extracting the gas?
1. The Slovenian government have insisted on an EIA, which has not been done.
2. Following that a permit to re- pressurize the wells must be issued.
3. The license is up for renewal in Nov 2023.
4. Our partner (Gov owned) Geoenergo is aiding another company suing us.
5. Arbitration proceedings with EYNO announced in May 2021, still not started.
Sorry but I cannot see anything here that would attract an oil and gas major.