Wow!24 Feb 2012 12:04
Right then....
RE: the announcement on the 21st. The BB was empty on the day (still is lol), and the trade screen showed only 13 trades over the whole day... Gained half a percent. Pretty much a non-mover and gained no interest... Or did it? Seems I wasn't the only one to take notice.
Yesterday saw another RNS and also some delayed trades from the 21st. Another 8 trades, totalling a whopping 16,300,000 shares (20% of the entire shares in issue!), at an aggregate price of £12m. An absolutely huge day and could(?) explain why the price didn't move with such a huge order on the books - it was stuck there to fill the order. Or perhaps because the actual disposal doesn't take place til later this year (H2?).
Now then, 16,300,000 shares were purchased and the RNS told us Damille Investments now hold only 3m more shares than they did previous to that day. That leaves 13.3 million shares as yet unaccounted for... AFAIK, It's 100% certain we are due another holding RNS today as there is a 3 day maximum limit on delayed trade reporting???
First of all, let's drill down into the share holdings following this news. A breakdown of the 82m shares in issue follows (85m on the fundamental page is wrong - Blackstar bought and removed 3.75% of the shares in issue):
• Damille Investments - 8,820,000 - 10.75%
• Damille Investments II - 3,180,000 - 3.87%
• EP Cayman - 6,989,671 - 8.51%
• Bankers Investment Trust - 3,258,033 - 3.97%
• Schroders PLC - 7,978,397 - 9.72%
• Rand Merchant Bank - 8,199,899 - 9.99%
• Directors - 19,686,003 - 23.98%
That totals 87% owned by IIs and Directors (17% holder(s) yet to be announced), leaving only 13% of the shares available. God knows how many of these are held by PIs... So it seems we're getting a bit short on those shares, any news now will potentially have a magnified effect on the SP.
Now, with the share holdings out of the way, let's see what the news actually means:
Blackstar are going to sell 50% of their shares they hold in Litha, to Paladin. Since their original purchase, Blackstar have seen their investment in Litha grow in value by ~5 times in 5 years. Paladin are looking to acquire Litha so Blackstar's remaining shares look hopeful to grow further at an accelerated rate once this has taken place.
The sale of Litha shares will raise £16.6m in cash for Blackstar (plus £0.4m transaction fee) totalling £17m. This cash is going to be used to pay off credit they recently recieved from a bank, which in turn was to purchase a 28% chunk of MVG in Jan. Blackstar previously wanted to buy MVG in it's entirity but MVG shareholders blocked the bid in Dec. In a way this was good news, as it means we got an 8-16% discount on the MGV NAV compared to what we would have got for acquiring the entire company.
MGV, I haven't really researched, but are currently planning to carry on their "unbundling strategy" to generate revenue for shareh
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