Member Info for LLucan

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1005138/standard-chartered-gets-go-ahead-for-milestone-mainland-china-securities-firm-1005138.html

I do not mind the name now. I did at first.
Apparently ABRDN works well in Asia and particularly China which is of course where all the future growth will be.
The "west" is a mature market. The market does get bigger so you just steal market share from a competitor.
China is a hugely growing market so there is plenty for everybody without needing to steal market share.

Even with a TO off the table for the time being this share is still a stonking buy, IMHO. I have high hopes for the results a divi and or a further share buy back this year.
Bill Winters has turned out to be just what SC needed. A safe pair of steady hands.
As Bill has stated, SC will do well when interest rates start to rise.

I suspect many short holders will start closing before the shares go ex div begining of April. Otherwise they will have a cumalitive £7.5 million to pay out just to hold the shorts.

Everything is going well, beats all expectations and the the share price still goes down 1%.
It is a quality invetment and I am in for the long term.

The primary reason is that provided the dividend can continue which is Abrdn case it seems it can continue for many years then if the share price does fall; a short term investment can become a long term investment and you can still come up smelling of roses.

Does anyone know when the so-called special divi will materialise?
Yes.
There is no special divi. The £300 million from the Phoenix sale is being used to buy back chare capital instead of a special divi.
Share capital is reduced by about 8%. It means to keep the divi at 14.6p the company will only need to make £300 million a year!

I am reasonably relaxed about this holding and believe that it has good prospects. I know it is not a popular opinion here but share buy backs in my opinion are a good use of capital at these depressed prices. I wish they would do more. It means the divi can be higher in the future.
1) Abrdn has £1.7 billion in listed investments. Phoenix HDFC Indian fund manager.
2) Abrdn gets nearly 100 million from divi income every year from these investments.
3)ii I believe was a good buy and a good direction for Abrdn to go.
4) I do not see the divi falling from 14.6p per year for many years.
5) The BOD keep their cards close to there chest abnd do not give out much info on the company. I have no doubts they have more plans to announce.
I do not think the company is in terminal decline. we are fortunate in that the BS is so strong that it gives them time to react and whether the current storm.

abrdn are buying back appox 180 million shares over the next 11 months. So about 750,000 shares bought back every trading day. Average volume is 8 million a day so it shoud have a very positive impavt on the share price.

At the current price a share but back is a very sensible move. Overall it will redfuce th number of shares in issue by 8% plus at the current price. I would say a good call.

ABDN gets £150 million a year from its investment in Phoenix. it owns appox 10% of the share capital. Divi is 50p a year.
It has now got £70 plus million a year from its ii investment. so that is £220 million. It has a 700 million pound investment in India. So it does not need to make that much from its asset managemnet business to cover the annual divi of £320 million.

These are not normal times and these are not normal trading days. Fundamentally is is a sound company with good prospects. It is the BOD "way" to only report the minimum. The next time we will here from them will be the half year report. The company has a viable strategy (ii) to boost income. It has Investments in HDFC (AMC) in India worth 700 million at todays rate and Phonix in the the UK worth 680 milion at todays value. It has no debt and a billion in the bank.

No The sell oprtion works as follows.

A person buys a share. eg you. You are entitled to any dividend or benefit of ownership.
The share is usually held by a nominee. So you do not phusically register the share in your name, although you can.
A hedge fund comes along and thinks the share is going to fall in value so the middleman who is holding your shares
says if you are so convinced it is going to fall in value sell the shares now and buy them back in say 6 months.
So the middleman sells the hypothetical shares now knowing that he holds your shares which he can buy back in 6 months. If the company pays a dividend in that 6 months the options holder has to pay the didvidend to the middleman who the shares. In 6 months time the sell option holder closed the contract and the middleman goes top the market to buy shares on behalf of the option holder so that he can give back the shares that he had borrowed and sold 6 months ago.

I may be cynical but it seems to me this share is being manipulated by the market makers, city, powers that be.
I am in for the long haul since I think the divi is well coverred and sooner or later quality will shine through.

If you are the holder of a short on a share then you have to pay any dividend the compnay pays to the shareholders to the original owner of the share. You have just borrowed the shares.
Holding shorts for the long term can be costly.

Marshall Wace have lost a lot of money on their short. They are actuallly reducing it now.
They shorted at a price lower than the current price and have had to pay out all the divis since Oct 2018

"We've been warning about the lack of investment," Suhail al Mazrouei said in an interview in Abu Dhabi, Bloomberg reported. "That lack of investment is catching up with a lot of countries."

https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/saudi-arabia-warns-world-running-150830734.html

New blow for Serious Fraud Office as second Unaoil conviction is quashed.
Maybe Petrofac should ask for a refund of the fine.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/blow-serious-fraud-office-second-174825099.html

https://www.abrdn.com/corporate/media-centre/media-centre-news-article/proposed-acquisition-of-interactive-investor

GLG Partners and Citadel Advisors are shorting 2.25% of the stock,
Personally I think that is quite brave of them.
1) They have to pay any dividend which is currently 14.6 p a year.
2) There is also either a special divi or a buy back which will push the price up.
3) abrdn owns 10.4% of Phoenix which is £600 million and has another £1.9 billion in other holdings not least its large Indian listed holding.
4) It also has nearly £1.8 billion in cash in the bank as at 31 December.
5) It has a startegy and will buy II for circa £1.49 billion without any capital raise.
6) II will is profitable to about £60 million a year and growing.

I do not lose much sleep over this company and am happy to be a long term holder.