Member Info for Lutra

The press is full of stories questioning stock market values in general and recommending that people take profits off the table or at least top-slice. So I guess its no surprise if there are a lot of pi's only too happy to continue to sell down at these prices

A sale at £30m would imply an uplift of about £17m over current balance sheet value, equivalent to just over 2p per TPG share.

Operating profit of £5m on £20m turnover (at last annual accounts) is not to be sneezed at!

Hmmm.... Not sure what to make of the potential disposal mentioned in this morning's RNS. I'm glad that they are going to carefully study the options. I wonder if news was leaking yesterday, to cause the drop in SP? On the one hand it is good for the company to focus on a strategy and if marine engineering doesn't fit with that, then so be it. On the other hand I wonder if it's the physical engineering that lends credibility to upstream activities....

yellowf1, it would seem strange to me if the ship had been loaded before doing its sea trials. Also, the dock it was moored at in Birkenhead looks as if it is largely used for ships to be temporarily laid-up, rather than as a loading quay. My betting would be on all materials for ExtremeE being in a warehouse at whatever port will be used for loading.

Tugs are in to get her!

Thordon, you are correct, but the figures are presented on a like-for-like basis, so the contribution of the engineering group has also been removed from the previous-year figures used for comparison. I'm not sure if that helps allay your fears?

Just to add for info, the hydrogen tanks being developed by Hexagon Purus (who I believe have an agreement with Toyota) are carbon fibre rather than metal, so it may be the carbon footprint of carbon fibre production rather than steel production that will be the relevant metric for the tanks in some vehicles.

That figure is a bit misleading, though, as a lot of it is general COVID support available to all industries, that happens to have been spent by companies that are deemed to be fossil fuel users - such as the cruise industry. In my view we need these companies to survive COVID and be around to convert to non-fossil fuels over the next decade, rather than simply driving them out of business today and leaving the employees on the dole.

Bilbo, thanks, that's interesting. Presumably the "soaking" process will be producing Hydrogen, which I guess they can either sell or put back into a fuel cell to off-set some of the electricity use? Could the latter be used to slightly alleviate the power supply bottleneck?

National Trust????

that's !

Well, that'd the factory announcement through!

MPO818, if you can go anywhere in UK for 450-500 miles range, then I rather suspect you are in the North West of England and not in the North West of UK as you stated. 450 mile might get me down to you, but not a lot further!

JaiBabaSwami - £2.10
jimmynan - £1.50
Chippyjo £3.25 (£1.50 will be Feb 21 jimmyN)
Heath23 £2.50
Guitarman18 £3.50
AFiCionado £ 4.80
Bananaman2 £3.00
RiskyBusiness £1.90
Meggiesdad £5.00
Athansius £2.00
Lutra £1.60

Marley, not always a bad thing. You would expect a premium to the current price, but that might not be as much upside as you could see from holding longer-term. You might be given shares in a bigger company, paying dividends. Or you might see a cash offer that ends the holding completely. Or perhaps a mixed, shares plus cash offer. The real drawback would be if there was a dip in share price and an offer was calculated around the dip price, even if a premium was offered, it could be less than recent holders had paid. I'm not predicting any of this to come about, though, but it is a risk that needs to be acknowledged.

YellowF1, you are correct to highlight the role of the BoD, and they are hopefully also shareholders. But a business like this could be a target to be taken private by institutional investors or by a private equity firm. That might give the BoD a much simpler life , without them being subsumed into a corporate engineering entity.

While I very much hope that all these predictions come true, what are the risks of a bid coming in at a level that is lower than these? If the ii's have indeed been buying into AFC, they are likely to be much more attracted to a fast turn around than the pi's and an offer price that would be attractive to them might be much lower than the rest of us would consider appropriate. A bid at, say, £1.25 or £1.50 in the first half of 2021 might look very attractive institutionally, but not necessarily help us to realise the potential that we see in this share. I've had my fingers burned in the past when a good company has been taken private by institutional investors against the long-term interests of the smaller holders.

...around here, what used to be local biomass for the woodburner (the brashings from timber extraction) is now bailed and taken off to be turned into pellets, to be burned at 17% efficiency in an ex-coal power station. I'd much rather see it left behind to contribute to soil fertility for the next tree crop and fire-wood scavenging for the locals!

Just an Uncrossing Trade, best ignored.