Member Info for ragnarlothbrok

I can't even begin to quantify the revenue opportunity for this but for a company with the industry trends behind it and the wind in its sail like LOOP it doesn't really matter. 1 year high and nothing but blue sky ahead

"We believe we're fantastically placed to win market share in this significant landscape-changing opportunity"

Yep buying support is healthy, occasional blip is from a exchange seller, there are a lot of funds in this, many of which would be pleased to be taking profits. Although many participated in the secondary placing at 260p and the placing to acquire MeetingZone at 400p (ouch) so maybe there are a few sticky holders

TBTT hopefully you're right. The recent moves have definitely come at a surprise. I am particularly amused watching the ferocity of the Pd price movement. Its up to $2,300 today. I'm surprised rhodium hasn't also shot up, I think that will happen soon as well.

If the recent move in silver is anything to go by perhaps its a possibility that we may move closer to the historic ratio. But silver is connected to the renewable energy market and platinum is hitched to out-of-favour diesel combustion. If platinum were to go up what do you think the impact on the Pt/Pd ratio would be? Which is also historically well of whack, more so than any other ratio I would say.

Very interesting comparison to SLP Q4 results today (v THS Q3). SLP announced a 54% reduction in PGM 6E production QoQ compared to THS 9% increase. I had penciled in some big reductions in Tharisa full year guidance and was very pleasantly surprised to see guidance significantly above my expectations.

I'm truly gobsmacked by the resilience of Tharisa production and this is one of the reasons why I shifted some exposure to Tharisa. This really highlights the advantage of Tharisa's mechanised open pit and its ability to control its own feed supply. The open pit has 10 year life and then the underground another 20+ years.

PGM prices are up a good 10% in the current quarter although chrome is looking pretty dire right now. I attribute almost no earnings to Tharisa chrome in the current pricing environment but I see significant upside over the medium term. SA production has plummeted and China port stocks are decreasing. Demand is still anaemic but the Chinese auto sector has recovered very strongly (which is a big source of stainless steel demand), global industrial production is back on the rise, though jittery, and Chinese buyers can't resist the need to restock forever. Nickel and iron ore have both made steady recoveries and aren't subject to the same curtailment as chrome.

Hi Visitor, yes long time indeed. Sorry for late reply, not been on the boards so much lately and I missed your post. There isn't a place to get up to date chrome pricing. Metal bulletin gives infrequent updates, usually a couple of times a week when there is significant price movement.

https://www.metalbulletin.com/non-ferrous/ores-and-alloys/bulk-ores-and-alloys/chrome.html

Realistically they could afford a divi of at least 6p, or about $17m , which would be a 13% yield. By my count 2020 free cash flow was $48m so that's only a 33% payout despite capex of only $7m.

However they would be concerned about that not being able to be sustained in coming years. So it would make sense for them to pay $10m final and a $7m special. They can easily maintain $10m a year. I've been opportunistically tucking all my shares into an ISA for the last year in the expectation of an elevated level of dividends for the next few years.

Not a mention about Grasvally, that's due to be settled this quarter. That would be another $4m in our pockets. But chrome prices are looking very wobbly, that deal could easily fall over

Momentum is strong. Every dip from below 100p has been bought despite some relatively large selling volumes. You would have to be really nervous about protecting profits to be selling into this trend after some very positive trading stats, though it looks like a lot of funds have. But a lot seem to have been buying in also.

Article in FT today about the UK working from home movement with some interesting info on specific company attitudes to office working. In general companies aren’t in a hurry to bring staff back, and staff seem happy with the current arrangement. Many companies bringing skeleton staff only in September/October, with others not planning to return at all until 2021. Natwest staff and Standard Aberdeen to stay wfh until next year. Very low percentage of staff to return at Beazley and Credit Suisse this year. Aviva not rushing to return to the office. Banks struggling to get employees to come back to offices from their villas in Southern France. Haven’t heard much about law firms but I’d say this would equally apply to them. In general office capacity being severely restricted and no one wants to get public transport.

Al bodes well for some of that growth in revenue to be extremely sticky in H2 2020 and probably into 2021.

Thor is one of the few companies where I can't really see the reasoning behind the investment. The quality of Thor's assets just doesn't seem to be in the same league as Cobre, Kalahari, even Aurelius etc. And Thor management just don't seem to be the same quality as many other mining juniors.

Anyone care to enlighten me about something I've missed with Thor?

I'm looking a for a dip below 60 for a top up. A diop to 50 could be possible I guess but the news has been relatively good and its been a very tight range for over a week now. There haven't been many opportunities for below 61. I suspect there is a seller offloading but not at any cost and there is pretty good buying support

Nice little update here. Revenue for the half actually increased by 1% compared to prior year which is a pleasant surprise. Not many companies have kept revenue flat or even increased in this market. Q1 was up 32% so Q2 was showing a big negative, although I haven't run the numbers yet.

We should see some decent growth in H2 v H1 as the economy and travel recovers. And one of the outcomes of covid is that we will see lower staff costs and also probably lower rental costs in the coming years.

Looking at this announcement to the where the SP is.... I smell an opportunity here and think there's a good chance the SP could double to 60p in the next 6-12 months, supported by top line growth and cost reductions.

I reckon we are on an EBITDA multiple of around 4x which is very low for a payments business. I wonder how much cash they have...

stoodio wise words. SLP management are penny pinchers and cash hoarders. There is a dividend policy in one of the investor presentations from last year I think. But its not a policy and its not really worth reading as it simply lists the reasons why they shouldn't pay a dividend.

For a while they didn't want to be pay a dividend because of the small number of Australian legacy shareholders; they've had 2 attempts at mopping those up but they'll never get them all. Then it was keeping cash to mitigate the potential for negative sales adjustments. Lets see what they come up with this time.

Such a huge disparity between the SP and the bond value. Back to 90c on the dollar for the bonds but the SP is less then 50% of the pre covid value. Can't see the April 2021 redemption being a risk any more.

Based on the cash collection information and using that as in indicator of impairment levels I simply can't see how this won't recover some of the ground it has lost. Collections were 88% and expected to improve further in July. Just running down the loan book would see the NTA closer to 100p.

That's not even taking into new business which, although at a third of expectations, is also improving steadily. Just need some patience on this one

LOOP has become a pretty good Covid hedge because of these all these trends. Big tech all closing their offices, people moving out of cities, offices with reduced capacity. However I think LOOP may be too small to achieve the lofty valuations that big tech are seeing. However it would certainly fit nicely into Microsoft's portfolio,

Wow what a result. Gross margin and EBITDA margin blew my numbers out of the water. That 71% GM% is just phenomenal. Pre upgrade consensus for this year is showing €11.8m EBITDA which has already been delivered in H1. Offices are only going to be sparsely populated for the next few months and I think we could maybe see £20m for the full year. Progressive have increased to €17.3m, implying only €5.3m in H2 and reflecting the summer and Christmas holiday slow down, but they have never been right, not even close...

The current EBITDA multiple of somewhere around 5 seems pretty good value... although its the growth profile for next year which is uncertain

They are due for redemption in April 2021, so my guess is you wouldn't expect to hear anything until later in the year. Although the company is no doubt conscious that it is causing some uncertainty and they may be keen on doing something sooner for an additional cost. They also may be comfortable that they can refinance and are happy to continue to buy them back on the market at a 15% discount to face value until redemption.

The bonds have rocketed recently, personally I see a huge disparity between the signs v the current SP

https://uk.investing.com/rates-bonds/ipf-5.75-07-apr-2021

Still trading at a huge discount to net tangible assets. Asumes a very high level of impairments which distinctly contrasts with June collection and cash flow data. July should be even better. Buying back debt at a discount to face value is also very encouraging

Wow prices have really tanked recently... natural gas below 1700 now and pretty close to a lifetime low from what I can tell. Those DGOC hedges are really showing their value in this climate. This really isn't going to help any unhedged O&G producers.

Frac I think you're nailed it right there. This is an SAAS operational leverage play. In the past LOOP were punished because they hired too quickly, causing opex to rise ahead of gross margin. But now its the opposite, its unlikely they have increased opex much by hiring new people, while gross margin is growing strongly. The end result is a lot of very busy people!

Its worth keeping an eye on the Loopup blog, there's an interesting article on the wfh home trend from yesterday and a lot of resource on how insanely busy they are.

https://loopup.com/en/resource-type/blog/

This is a huge opportunity for nimble, independent and well researched investors. Consensus hasn't been updated so any stock screens will be using the pre-covid numbers. Anyone who takes the time to read the announcements and look at the financials to pick apart the story has a huge advantage ahead of the inevitable upgrades in July. The below quote is from the Progressive update today which sums its all up.

"We choose to leave our forecasts (that we believe to be roughly in line with consensus estimates) unchanged for now, in advance of further detail likely with a fuller H1 update in early July."

I think June will be a record month for Loopup, the stay at home trend combined with the pick up in activity as seen in the services and manufacturing bounce this week means that Loop is probably in the sweet spot right now

Consensus is here:

https://www.marketscreener.com/LOOPUP-GROUP-PLC-30629566/financials/