Member Info for LevsInvest

Not going to string this out into a long thread to choke up the board as a certain rampant ramper would do, but I had five minutes over lunch, so here goes.

1. The biggie. 2023 FY results. No reason to believe that shouldn’t be with us next week.

2. The other biggie. Finance news. Other opinions exist, but considering the rift this caused in Government, there’s not a popsicle in hells chance IMO that this will happen before the General Election. My prediction would be a UKEF decision August / September.

3. Award confirmation of the Falklands contract. We’re not going to get deals like this over the line until we have visibility on finance.

4. A business rationale for Marine Services and the ferry ops. I don’t expect anything / much on this in the upcoming annual report, we’ll probably have to wait until this time next year before we find out what JW and AR have spent their pocket money on and why it’s a benefit to the company / its shareholders.

5. Details on accounting practices. The November RNS promised that the board had asked the auditors to look into how revenue was logged, as part of the warning sales could miss target by 20%. When this was promised, I was thinking a couple of months. Can’t remember who the auditors are but someone is kicking the can down the road on that.

6. Details on pay award. We’ve heard from the union, but zilch from the BoD. Was this agreed before Islandmagee decision?

7. Future of gas caverns. In the Monday RNS we were promised an update once they’ve had a proper look at the decision. How long does that take? Given past performance on updating shareholders, I anticipate this at some point in the mid part of the 22nd century.

8. Feel free to add any I’ve missed.

So my prediction. We’ll get the 2023 results next week, which will underperform the £80m lower expectation (like last year did) but we’ll have some hundreds and thousands (remember them 80’s kids) sprinkled over the top of that turd in the shape of a woolly statement that we’ve already hit target for 2024. Which of course we won’t know is real until September interims. Or later.

This is indeed good news and will hopefully repair some of the fractured relationships we’ve heard about with unions but more importantly workers.

The Unite statement also alludes to the pay award being backdated to January. Would convention dictate that this happens in the upcoming pay package (ie next week)? If so, perhaps there is a rabbit waiting patiently in a hat somewhere.

To risk mixing a metaphor, it would appear he’s busying himself rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. 🚢

I think you’ve lost moral authority to offer advice here BC. Maybe time to get a new profile and tone it down a bit so what you say comes across as a bit more believable 😅

Maybe Arun’s dipped his hand in his pocket!

It’s clearly someone getting out on the way down. The other buys around then were tiny in comparison, who has £300k to splash on a coin-toss?

Not brilliant news on the ferry front either Si as according to the booking site, they’re not accepting booking until mid July now.

Makes a change from getting all the bad news on a Friday I guess.

Isn’t an RNS meant to calm the markets? That statement just makes things sound worse. :/

Come on Woody, get your top team on it for a 7am update tomorrow explaining that you’ve always had a plan in case this happens. And maybe announce finance at the same time.

BC, I don’t know your background (although I gather from others that you’ve had to create a new profile because you were banned last time) but your posts make me want to scratch my own eyes out. Surely this board should be for sharing useful information and opinion, looking back at today it’s just been a constant stream of verbal diarrhoea. Could you perhaps consider a hobby to keep yourself occupied of a weekend? If you post one more time saying ‘Eight reasons why Harl is going to be worth 8billion pounds next week’ or some other tripe then I’m going to scream.

There seems to be many predictions on this board based on little more than gut feeling. Nothing wrong with that, it’s all a game of chance at the end of the day, but I prefer to deal with facts. A few statements published in an FT article this afternoon, with the caveat of doing your own research / risk etc etc:

Wood told the Financial Times on a visit to the Belfast yard last week that he remained hopeful of clinching the export development guarantee before the July 4 general election, despite splits among ministers last month.

…

“All the commercial banks are lined up ready and waiting to go and I see no reason why a decision can’t be made fairly soon,” Wood said.

…

Wood said he remained “fairly optimistic” but that if the guarantee was not granted, “what you have to do is change your strategy and instead of the growth projection you want for export projects you have to look at what you can do for the various funding lines”.

…

"We do have a year-end deadline for the debt repayment, but you know, everything's negotiable. If we aren't there by then [December, then we have to go and renegotiate, but I hope we are there by then," Wood said.

I’ve tried to pick out the sections pertinent to financing (removing connecting paragraphs etc).

As you were.

Si’s post was a fair observation. Making the point that speculative optimism doesn’t necessarily equate to reality. All the data pointed to a sell but many worked themselves into the view it was a buy. Good call Si - this board needs more posts based on reality.

So these new articles of association were signed on 21st May, three days after JW claimed that it was already ring fenced on 18th May? What utter claptrap. They’ve messed up (again) tried to pull wool over eyes (again) and tried to fix retrospectively in the hope no one notices (again).

If we are to believe that 90% of 2024 revenues are already secured then I find it bizarre that we know more about 2024 revenues than 2023 revenues.

All we have on 2023 is the Trading Statement from November, advising that they were asking auditors to look into how revenue is recorded (no update on what the auditor outcome in that is/was). Full text below.

My expectation is that *if* 90% of 2024 is in the bag, a portion of this is going to be made up of deferred 2023 income, which will be revealed in the full year accounts (that the BOD are hoping will be post-finance so no one remembers 2023).

“Given the multi-year and complex nature of some of the contracts under which the Company is working, the Company has commenced discussions with its auditors at an early stage to ensure that all parties are in agreement with the method of accounting for revenues throughout the duration of a build programme. The Company believes that it is taking a prudent approach to revenue recognition and remains comfortable with the market's expectation of £100m revenue for this financial year. However, the Company notes that a different approach to revenue recognition, whilst not changing the overall value of the contract, could lead to a range of £80m-£100m of revenue for this financial year, with any balance deferred until 2024. The Company will make a further announcement when the audited position for revenue recognition has been settled.”

The rules regarding communicating during an election are one thing, but what some haven’t seemed to consider, is that the way politicians and political parties behave during elections change fundamentally - irregardless of the rules. They are simply thinking about the short term and what is best for them now.

Does getting the UKEF deal over the line on the last two days benefit the Tories, coming across as the great saviours? Of given the extent of talk of a ‘row’ does agreeing a deal now just feel like they have rushed a policy through, despite concerns. Does that in fact make them look weak, not strong?

What happens if no deal and working capital becomes an issue as highlighted in that FT piece? I have no doubt that HARL will not be allowed to fail, but what is the mechanism? Further extend loan from Riverstone? Nationalisation? Fire sale to a competitor? Gov’t would probably be happy with any of those.

The last two might sound extreme, but I’m trying to make the point that IMO, bets are off as the rules of engagement have changed. I wouldn’t be surprised if an election has caused an additional headache for JW and Co. But equally, wouldn’t be surprised by UKEF announcing going ahead at any point before the 4th July, as they are arms length.

As for ‘purdah’ - the period where comms and policy announcements are severely restricted, that started at midnight Friday:

General elections have a number of implications for the work of departments and civil servants. These arise from the special character of government business during an election campaign, and from the need to maintain, and be seen to maintain, the impartiality of the Civil Service, and to avoid any criticism of an inappropriate use of official resources. This guidance takes effect from 00:01 on 25 May 2024 at which point the 'election period' begins. The Prime Minister will write separately to Ministers advising them of the need to adhere to this guidance and to uphold the impartiality of the Civil Service.

Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/664f56b74f29e1d07fadcdd3/GENERAL_ELECTION_GUIDANCE_2024.pdf

Four figures when I bought in, anyway… :/

Yes, a holder (low four figures, does that disqualify my opinion?).

Does anyone have a transcript (or highlights) of what our great leader had to say in his speech today?

Re: General Election, pros and cons. Tories won’t want to appear soft by agreeing with a deal (some at least) have reservations about, but it must be tempting to just sign off support and make it Labour’s problem.

GLA.

Maybe it’ll come down to some accounting quirk then as I can’t see much interest in a trade sale for a company that is leasing a ship, outsourcing crew, has no record of income generation, and significant unanswered questions about its business case and viability.

X - I’m not twisting anything and I don’t even think we’re really disagreeing all that much on the points we made.

I wish you well.

If you properly read my post I didn’t say that we ‘owe Riverstone £200m’. I am well aware of what the current finance deal is and the ball-park of what is to be repaid. So a substantial portion of what HARL is asking UKEF to underwrite will go on paying back Riverstone, which is entirely compatible what my post.

And it doesn’t matter that the Oxford dictionary definition is of ‘subsidy’ it matters what the U.K. Government’s (and other’s) lawyers interpretation of subsidy is in this context.

There seems to be a trend creeping in on this thread that ‘we don’t need UKEF’ - well we do if we want a reasonable loan interest repayment rate. Are others really happy to pay a much higher commercial rate because of some vague promise of returns on a passenger ferry service at some unspecified point in the future?

Didn’t think so.