Member Info for Mulder

Hope to see a 15p open Mon AM

Given your experience then which of the 3 water companies do you rate most highly? I would rank them in the following order purely based on fundamentals and their balance sheets: - 1. UU 2. Pennon 3. Severn Trent I believe it was Severn Trent that received a take over offer 2-3 years ago?

So after being up by 1.75p at one stage today it closes up a measly 0.25p and therein lies the problem with shorters and the 'illegal control/manipulation' they have on the SP. FCA market abuse team - what are you doing? Reward for failure and blind as a bat.

1. Hope people are holding on here until we see a more reasonable SP. 2. Make no mistake insider trading is rife - in every way. The surge prior to an M&A RNS ('chatter' in the city), conversely the fall prior to a bad RNS. Fund managers have regular meetings with the hierarchy. Every now and then an M&A will catch shorts out e.g. Home Retail Group, Berendsen, Spire. 3. Who has got a response from IR and is willing to share?

I assume it is an innocent question. Last year EPS was 64p At the current SP this gives a P/E of around 12 You can't get much more defensive than water can you? These type of shares usually trade on P/E's in the high teens, perhaps even 20. It hit 1066p just a few months ago - this is all down to fear over what Ofwat may or may not do with water companies. There was a time when water companies were in high demand and receiving take over offers...

Mediclinic closed quite a bit down today (4%) which could imply a higher offer is coming Monday. Scan those weekend papers!

Also allows Hospital Corporation of America to step in. I believe they have until 5pm on Monday to put up or shut up. As usual watch for the weekend leak/city 'whispers'

What do others make of the forms 8.3 and 8.5? No deal would mean they are locked out of another offer for a while, alienate Spire and its major shareholders e.g. Spire, loss legal fees and costs + waste everybody's time!

This hit 1066p (!) just a couple of months ago.

Looking through those forms from the past few days it seems most have adopted a long position and reduced the short positions. I could be wrong of course and they are a nightmare to read. �1.3Bn from �1.2Bn gives around 325p which would get the job done IMO

Marks & Spencer shares flourish after reports of Qatar takeover bid Rumours of �8bn takeover bid pushed retailer's shares to a 28-month high but sources have played down the speculation Marks & Spencer shares hit a 28-month high on rumours of an �8bn takeover by the Qatar Investment Authority. M&S could be attractive to the Qataris thanks to its �8bn property portfolio. It owns 65% of its stores. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/mar/18/marks-and-spencers-shares-qatar

UU made an operating profit of �606M last year and the current liabilities = �690M so this is just 1.14x EBITDA P/E of 12 for a water utility is madness.

Best balance sheet also. Takeover anyone? Multi year low price.

https://www.dispatchtribunal.com/2017/11/16/trillium-asset-management-llc-has-7-52-million-position-in-shire-plc-shpg.html Have a look at the chart especially Q3 2017 - institutional buying ++

Who knows - they could be in a closed period? Time will tell.

After hours 146.77 Up another 1.5% A lot of buying at the close in the US Roche issue out of the way now. New CFO news + spin off finalisation due before the end of next month. FT also raising takeover rumours again.

My guess is sneaky insiders have known about this Roche approval for a while - explains the daily drop in SP recently. #roguemarket

1. Most of Shire�s advance came in the minutes before Roche announced that its potentially game-changing treatment for haemophilia, Shire�s biggest market by revenue, will in the US be required to include a boxed safety warning on its label. 2. Another explanation for Shire�s strength came in a Bernstein sector note, which argued that, while consensus expectations are still too high, the stock is looking increasingly good value. 3. The demand also gave traders an excuse to retread takeover speculation: Shire is 41 per cent cheaper in US dollar terms since October 2014 when AbbVie was forced to abandon a $55bn takeover.

Looks like Goldman have increased their stake here by 1% - Fruitster is this to do with Ashley again? Another down day in a buoyant market!

What are you hearing from your sources notgreedy? A 6% rise can't be based on nothing, surely not?? PS. What happened to your short today?