Member Info for Nobby31

Does everyone remember this? I know Saipem has been through the mill financially but this contract was going to be worth upwards of £40 million. Do any of our intrepid band of researchers and news hounds have any intelligence on this please as it would provide a great deal of security for the Scottish yards as well as investors! thanks

Some positive news at last. Would they have bought this vessel if they didn’t already know they’d get the M55 contract? I doubt it and expect an RNS on this in a few weeks at most

Interesting however in my experience charts and resistance levels don’t really help with AIM stocks. It’s still the Wild West. Hope you’re right though. GLA

I have suggested this in the past. I would not put it past John Wood to be purposely running the SP into the ground and that he has a friendly bidder lined up to take HARL private .... at our expense via a low ball offer as a) he cannot manage a public company and b) he has ensured we have no other option. Or am I just being too much of a conspiracy theorist?

I did read it. It's all based on future promises with the main exception being the Cruise ship wins which is good news. Rather sadly most of the rest I have to regard as speculative for reasons you will understand from my past postings. I accept it is a long journey but I bet that Ballie Gifford chap who bought 5% is feeling a little duped though at least he is probably a medium/long term investor. Just feeling fed up with SP performance and more excuses (albeit some are legitimate).

Wonder if the iis bother with this board?probably not is my guess.

These are extremely testing times for us LTHs.
I have little faith in the management in turning this around. They are full of promises and delivery little apart from their salary package; they are being overpaid by themselves and the Groat give 'em what they ask for non-independent remuneration committee. They ought to be on no more than £200k each imo. Whilst turnover projections look quite good the cost base is still rising and the orders are not coming in with more excuses abound, Truly fed up with this lot; they aren;t fit for purpose. EGM anyone?

As we move toward the 3 year mark since the acquisition of H&W it’s clearer to me now that this was always going to be a long haul. The dilapidated condition of the assets and the risk aversion investors have, notably in the UK to old school industrial sector activity coupled with an untried and untested management team has really held us back. Looking forward I’d say it’s not too optimistic from an investor perspective to assume that with the work done to date, and the company being better known to various sectors like renewables, cruise and defence (plus odds and sods) that they ought to at the very least be able to breakeven on a regular and reliable basis. That gives some grounds for an investor to consider what else could be achieved with the right team in place and an experienced workforce to deliver on. As everyone knows I’m big into HARL and I’ve had to spend many tortuous hours deciding whether to bail out with something over the past couple of years; given the rubbish we have had to put up with and innumerate management faux pas (pl?) I’m amazed sometimes I’m still here at all. It was encouraging to hear from Lottie123 as my story with friends and family is very similar. I think we all, certainly me anyway, piled in way too early however I do see some sunlit uplands (no more pipeline allegories) with what I’m hearing about new business. If we could get someone like Gresham back in that would send a strong message as would Directors share purchases (no more BS about closed periods pls) if they don’t buy in at 15p when will they?? Have a good weekend to all posters whatever your leanings

Thank you Lottie123 that’s a long day. I do not wish to be cynical but anything they promised in the past in discussions to me have not been delivered or have been delivered in a diminished and delayed way. I am glad you felt welcome and was impressed so that at least is some encouraging news. But, the Board has been given too long a rope imho and they are now running out of time to deliver real and tangible results. GLA

Unloved share, untrustworthy management and unbelievably crap at PR. What a mess they are in and me too. Just wishing for them to become stand up and be accountable instead of feeding incessant lines of b******t

I hope you get some answers Lottie123. We all know what the questions are!

It’s currently less than the value of the Saipem contract which I recall as being £26mm

ban4118 I think you’re estimates aren’t far off but possibly a little on the low side. I was estimating that whilst the breakeven figure has risen (possibly to circa £45 million) that turnover should be upwards of £60 million. I’m just hopeful that the Board will provide some forward guidance

Indeed there are but they aren’t salt caverns and therefore are not as responsive (switching from injection to withdrawal in a short period) to take advantage of diurnal price volatility. Within day extrinsic options are a major value driver in storage projects. Also the volumes that IslabdMagee can move are considerably higher. There is plenty of scope to redevelop several projects and they would still represent a fraction of daily uk supply & demand

It’s more than disappointing the share price is where it is with almost zero concern or comment from the Board who seem to have a complete disregard for shareholders now the debt facility is in place. It feels like they’ve given up on the people they relied upon to invest in the company to date which is pretty outrageous. This laissez- faire attitude has come about due to past miscalculation and poor communications which have misled many of us and caused enquiries and questions to be raised on the various assurances around new business and growth. The Board will not succeed unless they reactivate in a professional way and seek to repair their damaged reputation amongst retail and institutional investors. I am not sure they have a strategy in place for this and currently assume that they will do this by winning new business on the lines of “it’s in the pipeline” which we’ve all got rather bored with as it isn’t really happening at scale. Communicating with the investor community openly and honestly is the only way this lot can re-establish trust with investors and bring in new investors; oh and not paying themselves any bonuses until the share price and revenues justify them. Get on with it, wake up and smell the coffee

You ought to be able to do better than a silly comment like that Consuela. I’m not sure what you’re thoughts are on how we keep the lights on but you surely accept the energy transition means that natural gas is of great significance for a considerable number of years and that a critical part of the process is how we resolve intermittency; 50GW of wind generating capacity delivers zero power when there is no wind. Battery storage is very short term and the scarcity of rare Earth metals eg lithium means this can only solve a small part of the problem. Storage of energy is gradually becoming a front and centre issue for us all and the site at IslandMagee is increasingly important for Ireland in managing energy consumption and security of supply. In the context of most alternatives it is an extremely benign development; proximal natural gas and electricity infrastructure means integrating the caverns and above ground treatment facilities is credible and ultimately sensible to ensure energy security in the coming decades. Ireland needs storage as we wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

Wonder how our new TR1 is feeling. Probably in it for the long run hopefully

Believe me we will still be using methane 20 years from now. If you understand the energy complex you will not doubt this. The process wrt IslandMagee has been a very typical NI colossal screw up where they all seem to revel in arguing with each other rather than actually making any progress which is an awful shame for the people that live there. I’ve lost faith in the Board as I’ve been told way too many porkies; we are now in the hands of the market. There is a lot of work to be won but it isn’t hi tech high value as Consuela said the yards still need a lot of investment ie to get up to Shipyard 4.0 standards. The only route I can see for this to occur is with new investors new Board and government taking a more active and strategic involvement in the development of a viable third competitor in the shipbuilding sector. I hold 1.75 million shares and am hugely underwater; whilst I’d welcome the surprise I just don’t believe from all that I have seen over the past three years that the current management are capable of achieving much more than keeping the yards busy with relatively low value contracts. I’m holding on partly out of desperation and partly out of hope that the infrastructure that HARL now own is going to become increasingly important as time moves on but I admit this could be some time away. If I were in charge I’d be looking to move the storage project off the books or farming down whilst retaining a non operated interest to one of the majors with deeper pockets eg BP if indeed they are still interested. The JR has to play out before any of this could happen imo. So feeling pretty glum having been at one point a TR1 prior to the many dilutions. The Board remuneration going forward may be the last straw I don’t know but they’ve already taken more than they deserve. It’s not effort we want it’s cast iron results. I live in hope with this one but no early retirement for me I suspect. I’d like to see an EGM during Q3 but there needs to be a credible alternative team to take this on. Perhaps ex BAE executives and city CFO …. we’ll see but we can’t keep going on like this as there’s no jam tomorrow

Is there anything positive about HARL in your opinion Consuela? How about all the jobs being created? That raises taxes and provides livelihoods. Do you foresee all these people and their families losing out or is there a longer term future maybe under different leadership?

Avyerdoubt, yes perhaps an EGM isn’t that far off now