The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
No materials on the icsid site to understand the issue straight off.
For what its worth , my take without knowing any of the details is : Icsid are notorious for taking years to come to a decision as evidenced here, by which time the actual stock price , Company finances and investor interest can take a big hit and with no guarantee of success it is a long road to grind. Here at least the Sealion field, is a significant asset that is not related to the case and is being prepared for FID. If there is no other assets to generate revenue then the drain on finances can be brutal .
Unless there is a settlement , it's a very risky thing to bet on an arbitration result.
Don't let me put you off , lol , but be aware of the costs and timescales involved.
GL
bluedefender , a very good post to remind us that times indeed have changed, what was sexy once is not any longer.
i remember the sp being 30p pre sealion drill and and as low as 10p, i bought some £500 worth that day, had about 50k shares when it £5 plus, watched it go down to £2 before i sold.
i spend a lot of my time trading crypto and it really does open your eyes with regards to trading. one thing i have learned through experience is take your profit.
i've said all along, om is the reason why i have a significant position , the case is won and if var ( tribunal) does not **** it up , we as shareholders are being or will be given a safety net on this investment imho.
my hopes are firmly pinned on navitas.
i remember a very learned oil industry poster on an old site ,ii?, who said he was out of rkh the pmo deal was announced . he said pmo were not up to the job and that it would be a big surprise to him if they could pull it off and he was right. i sold mine shares as well as i could see what he meant.
now i have a son who has invested in rkh and i tell him : we are now approaching the time when all sorts of nonsense will happen on the chat boards, mm and ii's will all be at it .
remember why you invested, sealion, and if it's not 80% - 100% still the case, de risk some on any positive news and take a little profit .don't forget to have a strategy in place and don't rely on anyone else.
times may have changed, but taking some profit hasn't.
not trying to teach people how to trade, but it is based on my experience.
some decent posters here and a shame if you don't make the most of the factual posts given to you on a plate.
gla,
I exercised as well today after the call earlier to broker.
Initially I was going to wait till positive news to elevate the sp further, but the call made my mind up for me . Had thought about the best way to maximise the warrant value to my holding for a while.
This is Not intended as FA, just my thought process / action that I took today .
Just thought the best way would be to : Sell whatever sp % gain is from 9p to today (43%) at the time of sell .
Lets take a round number , Say you have 50000 warrants
So total warrants taken + 43% of that total . E.G: Say 50000 ( to cover warrants) + 21500 shares (43% of 50k ) = sold 71500 shares.
Therefore profit locked in on 50k warrants .If the sp falls then buy from the the balance from the 21500 shares sold.
Risk - sp keeps going up.
On the other hand the warrants bring down the average of my RKH holdings plus the benefit of the sp going up while having a lower average.
Should the sp retrace between e.g. 8% to 10% , I buy and my average goes down further.
If sp goes up I keep that amount for trading the dips in the sp to further bring my average down ( hopefully by trading carefully. lol).
Had been thinking what RAB and Aedos would do in light of no material news , would they drive the price down by taking profits and then exercise the warrants they hold ? so that played a part in it , rightfully or wrongly.
Any thoughts ??
GLA
Just been a long call to my broker Interactive Investor (II) to get a heads up on timeframes for exercising the warrants.
II had an automatic function to exercise the warrants previously, today I just noticed in my account that they were not showing. Spoke to II and it seems that they can only be manually entered for exercise , by them only .
There are no timelines given and if you do exercise them via a call, money must be in your account.
As we know they are exercised monthly via RKH ,so past a certain date in the month , they will not be exercised by the end of that month , again no date given when that would be .
I am speaking only of Interactive Investor, other brokers may still have the automatic exercise function or you may have to phone.
May be an idea ,even if you are not looking to exercise or not till November / December to contact your broker and confirm the way you need to exercise them and the time/ dates they use .
GLA
Search - Navitas Management on their website - those with Sealion Project connection (few more people added here alone since I last looked ) - go to LinkedIn profiles and see their contacts - should help find a few contractors have been added to the Sealion project team in the UK alone.
Also find a few used to be with Murphy Oil on the team, Ian Ramsey ex MO as well as the Project manager,
Thomas Stensgaard .Thomas leads the project team for the Navitas Operated greenfield Sea Lion Development
Aleks Armstrong ; Vice President Subsurface,
Or Margalit , Senior Analyst and project finance
Stephanie Blyth :Operations Engineer
Tom Nguyen :Legal & Land Manager
There is a lot of new blood joining NP, seems like since Ramsey joined, a month later specific project people were recruited and in the last month or two at least a couple of specialist engineers have been recruited , may be more , as contractors and full time for the UK team .
Not checked the FIG side of it ,but Finance and legal personnel have joined the Sealion project under a year ago.
Sure some of our "ferrets " on here can find more.
This is the closest I have felt in confidence to the development of Sealion since it's discovery, no guarantees as we know, but the significant amount of resources being expended, so quickly, to move this along is noteworthy.
XMTMAN's post it worth reading a few times - many options for financing being explored and a possible partner to enter near FID.
GLA
GLA
Seems some on here are missing, intentionally or otherwise, the point I was trying to make :
Ex CEO has experience of Arbitration success and running a significantly larger Co' and the COO brings expertise and proven know how of managing 3 FPSO and one Subsea projects, replacing a chairman and director who did not .
Their ousting by an investor activist fund should work in RKH's favour as they will be keen to make sure they are successful to redeem themselves with OM and Sealion.
BB3,
Fair point BB3,
Problem is that "closed periods "for director buying shares is always a great mystery in the aim market.
Whatever we think of their previous episodes re Cairn and the outcomes, the specific experience they both bring relating to Arbitration and FID / FPSO is why they are here.
How has Capricorn fared since Jan23 2023 ? Sp was around £5.50 on the day they resigned.
Https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23485794.capricorn-saga-illustrates-clarity-rear-view-mirror/
Lunchalot : "Sell " !!
But the parable of hindsight at Capricorn doesn't end there.
Having won the battle to oust Mr Thomson and his retinue at the beginning of February, Palliser's board of directors pulled the plug on the deal with NewMed, opting instead for their own strategic review. But if the war was to get the best return for shareholders, that has arguably been lost.
At the end of March, BP and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) announced plans to buy half of NewMed, which by then would have been in the process of absorbing Capricorn. The $4 billion net asset value of NewMed implied by the bid is some way ahead of the $2.6bn estimated by Palliser when it was campaigning against the tie-up between Capricorn and NewMed.
As one Capricorn shareholder who supported Palliser told Reuters on the condition of anonymity, "in hindsight we would have taken the shares from the NewMed merger, but we didn't know BP/ADNOC would offer a 70 per cent premium (for a stake in NewMed) ... hindsight is a beautiful thing".
Morning all,
RKH have submitted their proposals and if I'm reading it correctly, the stay is lifted pending documents are sent to Italy and Italy have within 5 working days thereafter to object.
I think the account is more than likely set up, if not, it can be set up within 30 days, though having submitted proposals to the panel , I expect this is a formality.
When and if Italy object to any proposal relating to the arrangement for the escrow account ONLY ,it still allows RKH to amend the setup easily.
The stay is as good as lifted, this would allow RKH to sell on the award on a firmer footing and a higher return were the stay not lifted.
I believe what this also does is put Italy in a poor negotiating position going forward were RKH to sell the award.
IF, RKH were to sell the award and the process is 18 months long whilst attracting interest at 1m euro per month, the award would be well north of the 250m it is now , plus likely legal costs piling up .
So, were RKH to "announce" that they would consider selling the award to an entity, that entity would very likely to be more than happy to draw out the proceedings till the very last, they would be in no rush with interest piling up every month, the overall cost to Italy then would be much higher than the actual award as it stands .
This is one possible way to speed up any settlement.
This leaves RKH in a position to play hard ball in any negotiation , either with Italy or those wanting to buy the award.
RKH lawyers have proved to be very smart and this is standard tactics in arbitration to obstruct and delay. They would and should be ahead in their plans to extract the maximum award now.
The funders , Harbour , will themselves likely make an offer now the stay is lifted as they are also fully aware of the basis of Italy's annulment request. This would create some competing bids for the award and leave RKH in a position of strength .
I guesstimate there will be more news between 10 and 30 working days from now.
GLA
Should RKH enforce , another thing to consider (for ROI) is that the assets seized would also cost them money e.g seizing assets that generate revenue in themselves, that revenue would also be lost and add to the cost of the ward indirectly.
Paul,
Good point re kicking the enforcement can down the road, cost would not be incurred till then , though the threat to ROI of enforcement is there all that time.
It's also possible that the annulment legal costs could be awarded against ROI when the final decision is made ,if the panel deem the legal action had no merit and that it was not bought in good faith, depending on their reason for bringing it, e.g Jurisdiction , which has been settled by the previous panel as not applicable to this arbitration.
ROI's game has been to drag this out for as long as possible, so RKH need to make a decision as to wether to enforce or not, that offcourse is dependent on lifting the stay.
Should RKH want to pressure ROI then go ahead and enforce but at a legal cost to carry out the action, should enough warrant holders exercise, then that cost would be mitigated with the funds from warrants. Importantly it can avoid dilution for all in case further funds are raised.
A positive announcement on Sealion or the lifting of the stay should give holders confidence going forward to do so.
The annulment brought by Italy seems to have caused a strain in the finances after the next 12 months, where further funding MAY be required at some stage . Seems ROI's non action and the boards decision to fund annulment legal costs leave RKH ok financially for at least 2Q's before funding could be raised.
They seem to be "stressing " in the results that the $5m warrants are still outstanding to be exercised and that if they were exercised then further funding would not be required as they would cover the legal costs.
I myself have not yet exercised them , but will now do so as and when the stay is lifted , thus giving me confidence that interest will accrue till Q1 2024.
Also bodes well for RKH when the panel's orders are ignored by Italy, as they were given to protect ROI in the event that the award were annulled and RKH were unable to return the assets. The panel therefore would have no reason to stay the award and the interest accrued would resume. $1.25m per month !
That decision would be enough for me to exercise my warrants much safer in the knowledge that the most likely outcome is a favourable decision for my investment while also providing the company with funds from my warrant purchase.
So, should the Arbitration panel lift the stay (very likely imho ) and should there be a material development on Sealion then I would be comfortable with taking the warrants and should say half ($2.5m ) worth of the holders do the same then a significant sum will be available to the company coffers and dilution, could / may ,be avoided. The anticipated costs for legal fees and enforcement are around $2m as per results announced today.
Not financial advice of course just my take on the current situation.
GLA.
https://www.acerislaw.com/costs-of-icsid-annulment-proceedings/
Begs the question why RKH "is currently paying all legal costs associated with the annulment." ?
I would have thought the annulment costs ,bar legal fees ,are borne by ROI. This suggests ROI will have to cough up ALL legal fee's for the annulment as well.
My layman's take - Arbiters are saying to Italy that come Q1 will NOT be the time RKH go about enforcement .It's now.
They have called ROI's bluff and now it's put up or shut up. Either put money into an account or RKH can go after Italy's assets and cause hopefully huge embarrassment to their Govt'.
Cyan2,
The agreement was carried out many years ago, if you had said they you get an award of euro 25m , whilst at no cost to you to fund the action, you would agree it's a good offer.
Seems that aeons down the line , the state of Italy would rather default on an International law finding it culpable of violating the ECT as concluded unanimously by a panel which included their own arbiter.
As you can imagine, there were so many figures bandied here as to the size of the award, the size is beyond most everyone's hopes.
Therefore 3m euros in the great scheme of things is nothing if the annulemnt is denied.
The same law allows Italy provisions to challenge , should Italy get the award annulled then fine, you can argue it's not a great deal with the lawyers who remember argued the case and won.
So lets wait for the annulment result before tearing apart the deal which was most likely made in the good faith that the award will be paid.
Till the award is annulled or not , it is a moot point as to whether its a good deal or not imho.
The cost of one of the is over £8B for 300mbo .
https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/457603/oil-majors-share-of-uk-production-poised-to-grow-boosted-by-jackdaw-and-rosebank/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Energy%20Voice%20-%20Daily%20Newsletter%202022-11-04&utm_term=Energy%20Voice%20-%20Newsletter
https://www.acerislaw.com/costs-of-icsid-annulment-proceedings/
Costs will be high ,who pays depends on the Ad hoc panel, but an unsuccessful applicant tends to bear ALL costs.
Mirosol,
Firstly and importantly that treaty was BIT between GB and India , not ECT or under ICSID.
The point is , Arbitration lawyers learn from these cases and plan accordingly to make sure they can get their clients money by seizing state assets .Cairn used Air India , Why not , Italy's newly formed(2021) state airline is ITA. " Italia Trasporto Aereo S.p.A., trading as ITA Airways, is the state-owned flag carrier airline of Italy. It is fully owned by the Government of Italy via the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The airline flies to over 41 scheduled domestic, European, and a few intercontinental destinations."
That's just one example of what they can seize. They fly 3 routes to the USA and they are a prime asset for seizure imo .
International law does not care a jot if a judgement's been made and there are no mitigating circumstances for Italy.
Think the RNS clearly stated they will not give any notice after the 120 days to act, you can be 100%t they will do that.
King and Spalding have tons of offices in US to file the claim and they want the bonus in their coffers now that they have won, as do we.