Member Info for skittish

No, wrong way round.

The companies are not their clients, the "high net worth individuals" are.

"ABOUT US
Turner Pope Investments is a boutique Stockbroker, providing investment services to corporate and High Net Worth private clients. We strive to ensure that on a day-to-day basis and throughout our organisation, our client’s best interests are always at the very core of our decision-making process"

Question is not whether they can raise additional capital by issuing more shares before then middle of June 2019 - it is whether they intend to do so.

The at the presentation, less than 48 hours ago, DS apparently stated they had no intention of doing so.

The documents accompanying that suggest likewise as drilling 104 is clearly only to follow on from producing from 101, 102 and 103. That is, following the arrival of decent cash flow.

It is unlikely that DS, Oxford MA, barrister would seek to mislead.

The January placees are moving on to the next deal - they are quite happy to sell at 10p or slightly above, as they made a packet selling when the latest drill results were announced, and are simply doing a quick turn, before moving on to the next deal.

A little patience is required whilst they sell down their positions.

Load up whilst you can.

However on a happier note Mastercard Q418 and FY2018 results were out today.

Cross border volumes were up 17% Q418, and up 18% in FY2018.

This well beats yesterday's Visa results with what appears to be cross border up 11% in Q119, which continues the 10% Visa/18% Mastercard growth trend in cross border over 2018 as a whole.

No wonder Visa is after EPO

However on a happier note Mastercard Q418 and FY2018 results were out today.

Cross border volumes were up 17% Q418, and up 18% in FY2018.

This well beats Visa with what appears to be up 11% cross border in Q119, which continues the 10% Visa/18% Mastercard growth trend in cross border over 2018 as a whole.

No wonder Visa is after EPO.

How do you calculate the £9m in the bank?

No more funding/dilution really changes everything - but a pity it hasn't yet changed the share price.

Considering Sefton is a barrister he really shouldn't have used sloppy language. Wording in RNS's presumably has some legal effect whereas comments at presentations less so. But that is water under the bridge.

To drill successfully is a great result, whatever the difficulties, so this will come good, it is simply a matter of waiting, presumably until there is some decent production and $$$$ rolling in.

At the end of the day it is only the $$$$$ that count.

Sp getting spanked now.

Probably better to have said nothing, unless it is really material, rather than give out chicken feed

Mmmm....and these new contracts can probably not even get the legacy business to break even, despite the enormous progress made on costs over the last few years.

It appears that we need to get to that point to get rid of the legacy business - they probably can't even split it off as it is supported by Homesend and would probably just fold on its own.

It is all about Homesend.

The takeover battle at EPO does however give me hope that we are onto a winner here.

Same here!

I think we've got til 20th February to accept so we may have a while yet to wait.

On the other hand it may come at any time........

I'm fairly sure it will come. Visa results out today, quick glance suggests international payments growing at 11% in Q1 19, that is about half Mastercard recent performance. Hence why they need EPO and its networks. Mastercard results should be out soon for the same Q - which I think they call Q418.

Anyway I'm fairly sure it will com, and there is even the possibility of a third party entering - that would really spice things up!

Anyway, as always a waiting game.

Good luck!

They are both buys - but didn't manage to move the price.

Wonder why?

No, once the money is raised the sp will be higher, because it will then be a clear road to progress the asset.

The funding will allow the progress to take place.

This should be 20p+ now but it ain't.

I ask why?

Fundraise? - if you look at the documents it has all been allocated.

Oh, perfectly possible.

But as they haven't handed any money over thus far, despite no doubt being legally obliged to do so, I can't see them suddenly stumping up a load of cash.

And even if they agreed to pay, which they must have done at least on one occasion, getting the money out of them is another matter.

And AAOG will want to stay on good terms.

So £2M or so from shareholders and all will be well.

Then production, then $, then a loan, then 104, then farm-in / free carry, whatever, and all is well.

But we need to get over this little problem of no $ at the moment.

I'm new here and have bought in over the last day or so.

To me this is a good story, but a good story alone isn't enough.

The crucial factor is $ and AAOG hasn't got much of it at the moment.

The recent fund raise is all allocated, there may be a bit left over but not much.

The fact that large buy trades can't budge the share price, to me, is clear evidence that a fund raise is coming soon on the back of the latest results.

It needn't be for $20m to drill 104, just enough to get 101/102 up to 400bpd and 103 into production and create some decent cashflow. Get 101/103 into production and total production should be in the region of 900bpd.

This would give an income of $1.3m per month - presumably all the income would initially flow to AAOG as the state partner has not been paying its share of the drilling.

The company expects 103 to produce "in the very near future", presumably sometime next month. 101 may take a little longer.

How much would they need to see themselves reach such a situation - maybe a couple of $million.

But until such funding is clear I can't see this going much above 10p.

Once initial funding is sorted and AAOG has a decent income, the sky truly is the limit, as other sources of funding not requiring issue of shares would become available to fund 104.

May be it is being sorted at the moment on the back of yesterdays RNS - I certainly hope so.

News could come soon, and then I feel we are likely to see real upwards movement in the share price.

Mastercard has consistently been growing cross border payments at twice the rate of Visa, over the last several years, at around 20% pa vs 10% pa for Visa.

In terms of market capitalization Visa is almost 50% bigger than Mastercard, $300bn vs $200Bn, however Mastercard appears as a company to be growing faster.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/05/09/the-acquisition-giving-mastercard-winning-opportun.aspx

Mastercard CEO Ajay Bango in 2018 described Mastercard Send and Homesend combined with Vocalink as the "killer app".

https://www.edisoninvestmentresearch.com/?ACT=18&ID=21152&LANG=

So I'd say it was Visa which is on the back foot here with Earthport, having lost its recommended offer in favour of Mastercard, and presently also losing in a growing market to them.

There is no doubt that there is an international bidding war going on in the banking payments sector at present -

https://www.pymnts.com/news/partnerships-acquisitions/2019/earthport-accepts-mastercard-offer-over-visa/

To me this makes a higher offer for EPO most likely, the only question is will it be incremental or a knock-out bid?

It seems that Visa does not have the luxury of waiting around for whatever else may come on the market, and developing their own system will take time and leave them at a further disadvantage to Mastercard.

It is simply a question of waiting.

Whatever the case the market appears to consistently value ESG lower than it should, just as clearly it has massively undervalued EPO, thus presenting small investors with a significant opportunity.

I don't think visa will hang about - they must have anticipated a counter bid - whether they expected it from major rival Mastercard is another matter.

I await developments with interest, but whichever way it goes it is win win for holders of ESG.

https://www.pymnts.com/news/partnerships-acquisitions/2019/earthport-accepts-mastercard-offer-over-visa/

EPO is now 37p. The Mastercard bid is 33p - so the market thinks the bidding ain't over yet.

Immediately prior to the Visa bid EPO was 7p!

Amazing, but true.

The present bid values EPO at around £220m - effectively peanuts to Mastercard.

I can see how EPO would be valuable to Visa - but where would it fit in to Mastercard as they already have MastercardSend/Homesend?

Or is Mastercard simply trying to deprive Visa of a useful addition to their offering - so if Mastercard gets it it will simply shut it down.

I believe much of Microsofts success was predicated on Bill Gates buying up any rival of significance and then shutting them down - leaving Microsoft ultimately as the only player in the game.

This bidding war perhaps gives an indication of just how valuable ESG may become in time.

Mmmmm......

Earthport bought by Visa for £200M - a premium of around 300% to the pre offer price.

Total Revenues £31M of which payment transactions £19M, loss £8M, Value of payments processed £10Bn.

Obviously a system more commercially advanced than Homesend, but EPO doesn't (didn't) have the backing of a major card payments processor to facilitate rapid expansion.

Interesting that the market appeared to significantly undervalue the EPO business.

Looks like a small amount of chunky buying going on - but insufficient to boost the share price.

There has been past speculation that Mastercard would ultimately wish to buy out ESG and thus control the whole of Homesend.

Bearing in mind ESG is now worth circa £50M, and after raising £20M cash only a few months ago (much of which is still retained), not to mention the fundraising last year, you would think that if they were going to buy the business, now would be the time to do it. They would be getting it almost for free.

There is the legacy business to still be dealt with, but this could be sold in time, as ESG is trying to do anyway.

I'm a sceptic on the buyout theory myself, and see this as a long term cash cow, growing as Homesend grows.

That said markets generally, and ESG shares, may go much lower in time, important for us as shareholders, but probably not so much of a concern to Mastercard itself as it would take the long view and not be so concerned by market gyrations.

So my take on this is that as Mastercard are not buying now, they never will, and profits from Homesend will ultimately accrue to ESG.

Very interesting.

ESG is one of the few shares I presently own, as I'm now mainly holding cash.

However the silence is deafening! No news anywhere following the fundraising.

However I remain confident, as much as one ever can, long term, that this should be a winner.