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Auson had numbers of total stock on loan increasing during sep from 4,22 % to 5,37 %. Total short positions on the Stockholm exchange has changed from 1,35 % to 1,45 % during the same period. So the short selling is done on the UK exchange? Maybe AB should cancel that then...
It is not at the Swedish exchange the short selling has taken place, as I have said earlier the total short selling here is basically unchanged during last month. The increase in stock loans is probably from short selling in the UK. I note what your sentiment is though.
Kraken,
I still think there is selling pressure from Sweden. So far today 3,2 million shares traded, same as in the UK. It was usually averaging 70 % of UK:s trade and was supposed to be declining. Avanza net selling has stopped the last few days but there are a lot of retail holdings in other places too. The selling seems to be absorbed reasonably well, no need to go further down in sp as I have said earlier, but a damper it still is.
Stevo,
Well the inevitable thought is that then AB must be running the Malaysia operations for the benefit of the Malaysian government and not for the share holders. I have no reason to doubt your numbers so I am a bit shocked. It seems a no win situation and makes me wonder why the company has agreed to such a lousy proposition.
Short positions have gone up slightly, from 1,35 % to 1,44 % (1,7 million shares). Not sure if it was yesterday or the day before. Source: Finansinspektionen
Avanza has gone below 3% holding per 27th sep. The Insurance company, so should be the retail part. Source: Enquest regulatory press release.
Auson,
But that implies that the heating was via gas earlier, no? And question then would be what net cost is now compared to earlier? When I installed my Nibe 4120, I cut electricity costs in half. I do however buy into Romarons arguments that insulation, weather, etc makes it a different calculus in the UK.
Harbour is were it was the 5th, Centrica up 10 %, Tullow down 10 %. We are down 17 %. Yes, I know it is hard to compare, different timings of reports, etc, etc. But still, if E claims that delisting news does has not influenced the share price, what do they reckon has caused the immedieate repricing when they told the market? Do they really feel their report was that bad? Or do they just want to downplay it?
Auson,
Interesting stuff. That implies that AB did have some knowledge about how much of float (22,8%) was owned locally when he said 10-15%. Okey, if they now know it is 15 %, how do they figure out the retail number (7,5%)? There are several insurance companies listed as owner, but it is very common for retail to hold shares through insurance company account, whereby the insurance company is legal owner but the retail trader is the beneficiary and controls the shares. It is also very common that just those types of accounts are more restricted regarding owning foreign shares, as well as moving that capital. Hence, they would be more likely to be forced sellers than an ordinary retail trader, while it could look in owner lists as if it is institutional holdings.
If we take the 7,5 % as the real retail figure (I believe it to be higher for the reasons just mentioned) then it amounts to 141,5 million shares.
Number of shares traded i Stockholm since and including the 5th of sep, up until 13:00 local time today is 60 million shares.
And why they believe that the retail selling has not influenced the share price is beyond me....495k share net sold from Avanza (supposedly retail) today so far of 1,3 million total. There has been big net selling from Avanza every day starting on the 5th.
Update: As soon as I wrote the post with my hypothesis about absorption of selling, there was 200 k more shares traded in Stockholm in 15 minutes which were obviously not well absorbed... buyers did not step up and price did not hold. Okey... we will see. If there is a very smart buyer, it helps to wait a bit to scare out some retail blokes. Or there might not be the buyer I hoped for.
I noticed yesterday, that there was a very slow pace to the trading until bigger sell orders started to appear on the order books. Now, these were very effectively absorbed by buyers, and as far as I could tell those buyers did not lift a finger until there was some volume to be had from the sell side. In the end, there was about 3 million shares traded in Sweden, and net selling from avanza (supposedly retail sellers) was 1,1 million of that. Price held firm in the end after having been up slightly most of the day. Today there has been an even slower start with 277 k shares traded in Stockholm at 11:30 local time (10:30 GMT) and only 16 k shares net sold from avanza (15 min delay in quotes). The share price has been a bit weaker than yesterday. I hypothesise that this will continue until some bigger selling orders appear on the order book, at which time the buyer will once again step forward and soak it up. This will continue until we break out upwards above 2:10 SEK/15:10 p (appr) at which point the race up towards 2:50 SEK/18 p, might be on if the buyer still wants more. There is a bit of hope to that hypothesis as well, but it does seem like clever accumulation to me.
Runner,
Just waiting for transfer is only a matter of a few more months waiting, but it is not all that clear to me that it is that easy. I asked the company (CB) on Tuesday last week about how it actually is done and if it is possible from different types of accounts that are plentiful but which they might not know the restrictions of. Reminded him today, still no answer.
I am thankful for the many posts in this thread, I feel a discussion on the topic was needed.
I think I will rest my case for tonight (possibly) but from tomorrow onwards it might be that the floggings will continue until morale improves.
Mrc,
Buy backs immediately is just one option, and while I don't claim to be the activist investor who could chose the exact right measures, considering that a few million pounds worth would probably send a signal worth much more in the market, I think it would be money well spent. And I don't say that AB is incompetent either, he has as has been said, steered the company through rough times. But there seems to have been an underlying very very long time scale for when the share holders will be rewarded. If you are not one of the directors that is, then it seems that he is all for rewarding with options as soon as possible and all the time. Oh, and Swedish shareholders have been shafted... twice. So there are some plus and some minus.
Mrc,
Yes, I as it currently stands, my purchases are under water, which I believe many other on this board can relate to.
And yes, if I were in the position as an activist investor I would force the company to take measures to unlock value. The definition of unlocking value is to bring about measures that the market actually values, not only the other way around. That would be considered bad by the market by its very definition. The break up value of the company could for example be very well be much higher than were we are at now. Now, AB would say that it does not work that way (courtesy of Romarons question) but that is because he thinks so. Do you think that he would still be employed as boss if he did not have such a large share holding? We have waited a very long time and management decisions have to be much more share holder friendly pronto. That is what I am saying, and I do believe we have to raise or voice now.
With activist investor, I do not mean in the sense the word activist mostly is in the headlines currently. I mean an investor who buys into a company to change how it is being run, and to unlock underlying value. I think most of us think there is a lot of underlying value in Enquest that is not reflected in the current share price. One way this could change is if an activist investor bought into the shares. If there ever was an opportunity for this to happen, it would be now. The delisting news did not change the value of the company, and this is for example reflected in Barclays reiteration of their price target 22 p last week (I think it was). But the price fell and made an immediate reflection of coming selling pressure from Sweden. An activist investor could buy a lot of shares without putting up the price a lot, and put a lot of pressure on management to unlock value. Selling of assets (for example EP), start rebuying of share, etc, etc. Of course, AB could not be sure to keep his control of the company and his role, in such a case. The best way to make sure this does not happen, would of course be for AB to immediately start putting in place those same type of measures to unlock value. I do not think his way of running the company has been share holder friendly, and I can not understand the very lavish remuneration for directors which have been getting millions and millions of options in the company, while their own purchases of the stock (apart from AB himself) have been almost non-existent. I think there should be put a lot of pressure on the company to change this mindset.
Maverick,
Yes, I also feel the pressure is building and a breakout to the upside would make sense as it would confuse the most participants and probably have people chasing to not get left out of the rise. As I have said before, the fall on report day priced in the whole delisting situation immediately and since then the OP has gone up quite a bit.