The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
I think they’re either hiding behind this deal or being advised to say as little as possible while ICC cases run. I’m convinced if everything was BAU that we’d have been told more, especially from what’s going on in Nigeria.
As things stand I’d be happy to come back with ad doc and re-list without SS Gov approval. This would hopefully allow us to RNS more news in other areas of the business but more importantly announce new SPA(s) for other inorganic hydrocarbon growth. This would start to build more value into the SP and cushion the blow should SS not complete for any reason. Yes the market would not like this at day 1 but I think we can expect fun and games whatever happens now. This is still a compelling share to hold for me and I know we have to keep trying but the $15m / $20m per transaction costs are starting to build up and given all the ICC costs along with huge expensive FTE growth, we really do need to see a new strong revenues stream in the near future.
Hi K - I do tend to agree to a certain extent. But with all the stuff going around yesterday, including the official FB page it’s always going to be a subjective view of PI’s to ascertain what’s real news and what’s fake. Additionally I don’t think the onus should be on PI’s to scour the new to look for what May or not be official documents. People who don’t read these boards would have virtually no chance of finding all the pieces of the jigsaw that we collectively put together on here.
My main point is that I’m sure if we were trading we’d have been updated but as we are suspended we were not. I’m also guessing that the same applies to other stuff that’s going on. I’d be amazed if more material stuff has not gone on in Nigeria that we have also not been updated on.
This is not a whinge but just a personal view which I have fed back to IR and NOMAD.
Anyway, let’s just wait for Friday which can’t come quick enough.
I find it surprising that based on all the worrying news flow yesterday that SAVE have not wanted to / been instructed by NOMAD to put something out by now. If we were still trading and this happened it would have created large volumes of trade and SP volatility and I’m sure we would have had to puts something out then - so why not now?
With regards Chol who’s a member of the People’s Liberation Movement, did any of you read last week that they stormed out of parliament last week while Kiir was at the UN? The were rebelling about the way change was taking place in SS and some stuff to do with the upcoming elections. Kiir had to give some ground to get them back in last week while he was in the US but I don’t have any detail.
Although there was some backtracking yesterday I find this very worrying (no smoke without fire) and I genuinely feel for AK and the team at SAVE, however, the ruthless part of me says ‘you make your bed and you lie in it’.
Should SS fail I have no idea what we would come back at. I think it would be a head to head fight between negative market sentiment (along with MM’s plying their trade) vs the EXCELLENT progress being made in Nigeria as TiL rightly notes.
Anyway, we know we will be updated from SAVE before Friday with the interims and all we can do is hope for some positive news along side the 1H update.
Sincere GLA here to all as we bloody need it.
Spoke with IR and they had no knowledge of this announcement hitting the press, neither had SAVE or Petronas. IR have had quite a few calls from industry journalists this morning and are trying to get to the bottom of it. They do not know if it is fact or rumour and are working with Petronas and their respective legal teams to work out precisely what’s going on and whether an RNS needs to be issued or not.
In conjunction to that the respective deal teams from SAVE and Petronas are continuing to work on the deal until they know anything different.
From the research IR have done so far, they can only find a very small company in the name of Caltech and at present they have no idea how they could possibly think of raising the mentioned funds.
This is a fast moving bit of work at the moment and i guess that all we can do is wait until we see the next bit of news on the transaction.
But before then a bit of boring background reading:-
Sudan army chief warns war could spill over into neighbours https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66885859
Love these nails being knocked into their own coffin. Sally’s team are all over this stuff like a rash and feeding to all relevant attorneys. Never known a team to score as many own goals.
There will be a long way to go here but all this stuff can only help in the long run.
Was a bit surprised to read about the June 2025 date but having said that, my last call with IR inferred that it was going to take a bit longer than the original 12 to 18 months we were told from March 2023.
If we lose the SS deal and go directly into another one which is quite possible - maybe not…
But at the moment I have a positive mindset for SS to close and that should “hopefully” be the end of RTO’s and mandatory suspensions.
Kak - excellent find mate at a bit of pleasant reading. I originally bought in 2015 and built my stake since then.. For quite some time I had a maximum target sell date of Dec 2024. Whilst SAVE maybe quite a tasty price by then, it may also take a bit longer than that with how slow some of these processes take. Also, even if I were to reach my TP by Dec 2024, a potential tasty dividend may convince me to hold beyond my initial target timeline.
There is a hell of a lot going on in the company and we are being recognised all over the place. The most recent Tweet on x.com
#Savannah is delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted in the upcoming 2023 Corporate & Financial Awards in the categories of both 'Best Printed Annual Report' and 'Best Online CSR or ESG Report.' The awards will be held on 15 November 2023 in London. We are delighted to be recognised for our 2022 financial and sustainability reporting, which highlights our business purpose of delivering ‘#ProjectsthatMatter’ and provides a deep-dive on ‘Why we do what we do’ bit.ly/3EGtMnk, underpinning our efforts to address energy poverty in Africa through both hydrocarbon AND renewable energy.
Finally, I know Zengas will have an EAGLE eye on the net debt number when SS is hopefully announced as completed AND with Brent at $92 this will be doing us a World of good.
SOG - great post and it would be great to see a meaningful adult expansion / additions to what you’ve written over the next few days. We can then let IR know (although I’m pretty certain they are reading anyway), that they should see this board prior to arranging the comms around the interims. Even though the company can and should remain tight-lipped re CC & SS, surely they have a right to give us more detail on our core business.
Very good memory but it’s the No 18 bus to Hanley from where I live - LOL
As an aside - great to see other senior execs on their metal presenting at various conferences etc. I’ve always had a little gripe that we only used to see AK ‘doing it all’. Genuinely impressed that he’s taken the shackles off quite a few people.
I really think we are seeing some serious momentum forming now - we just need to turn in in in to closed deals, BOPD & 2P. Then we will all enjoy the SP taking care of itself.
Am up to date on the convo re order of sign offs.
As you know I’ve been told AK’s preferred way would be to come back with everything signed except SH approval. Now as we know the usual way is similar to what we have done before and the way Afrenta announced today. Ie issue Ad Doc / re-list, then SH approval and finally Gov sign-off. Doing it this way stops any Gov embarrassment with this having to give the final nod. The last thing they would want to do is approve only for SH’s to vote it down at a later date.
So why could we do it in a different way with Gov approval announced at AD Doc / re-lis time and SH approval to follow 2/3 weeks later and the Gov be comfortable with this?
Well with 64% of shares held by BOD / II’s we could provide letters of intent that 64% would agree and hence approve.
Additionally SS may want it done before Energy Week to REALLY prove that they are open for business.
WOW TiL - I like that read. And can you imagine how powerful it would be to be talking at conference in October if SS was closed at end of September? The renewable stuff and Nigeria stuff reads extremely well and could not sound better. Really looking forward to 29/9 now to read the H1 report and whatever we get told about the SS deal.
Financial IR and company IR are very close to II’s and we have their full backing for the SS RTO deal fro Petronas.
Z - I find it very strange that you even pose that question. In the picture you paint, what do you think would happen to the SP if they voted “yes” and what do you think would happen to the SP if they voted “no”?
I can’t really see the II’s being akin to Turkeys voting for Christmas!
TiL - I commented on the lack of material news and RNS’ with regards other areas of the business while we have been suspended. Specifically, I said that I am surprised that we have not heard more about incremental growth to existing gas contracts along with new gas contracts. I also commented that with only 4 months left of the year, I’m also surprised that we have not seen another SPA for “at least one more” hydrocarbon acquisition which we are hoping to complete by the end of 2023. Whilst I can not remember the comments back work for word the reply was something along these lines:-
“AK is working harder than ever but until things are RNS’d he obviously keeps things very close to his chest and there are very few people in the business who know exactly what’s going on. However, as the SPA for Petronas SS deal was issued in December 2022, and we knew that AK has been working on bringing in at least one more deal, we are assuming that something will be very well worked up and could be announced at any time. With regards additional gas sales, for new and existing companies, although we have nothing concrete to go on (and it would have to be RNS’d first anyway) we are hearing rumours that things are going very well on multiple fronts”
After the reply, the only point I discussed further was to ask if we could see a new SPA RNS prior to Ad Doc and relist or whether we would have to wait until SS completes due to the very complex RTO rules. I id not get a clear answer here, but my interpretation of what was said is that we would not see another SPA RNS until we are back trading, with or without SS. I could be wrong here though and i think there is a low probability that we could see a SPA while still suspended.
Hope this helps.
Surely we could not have more bad luck and Tinubu loses this.
The ruling to determine the winner of the 25 February presidential election in Nigeria is under way in Abuja.
The court will decide on the petitions brought before it by opposition candidates of the People’s Democratic Party, the Labour Party and the Allied People’s Movement seeking to overturn the declaration of President Bola Tinubu as the winner of the election.
Expectations of the ruling have sparked tension across the country following the the deeply polarising election.
In the capital, large number of soldiers and police personnel have mounted road blocks at strategic locations within the city centre and the surrounding communities. There appear to be fears the judgement could trigger protests, depending on who loses out today.
The proceedings are being televised live in order to be fully transparent, the court said - though it did decline to allow live broadcasts during the hearing stages when lawyers made their presentations.
K - sorry I missed of the NOT
The LAST thing AK would want to do is comeback without SS Gov full approval, especially after the Chad fiasco.
AK is desperate to come back with all I’s dotted and T’s crossed and just then seeking shareholder rubber stamp.