Cobus Loots, CEO of Pan African Resources, on delivering sector-leading returns for shareholders. Watch the video here.
@lordloadsoflolly - "Incidentally, you say "the cap on energy bill is rising". That's incorrect - the Energy Price Guarantee rise that was due in April has been postponed by three months following the Spring Budget"
You're right. My mistake.
Wholesale gas prices will still remain elevated through to Sept from the data I look at simply because of when we agree the price on our Gas. Hence it takes a while for those falls in Nat gas to reach the consumer. That said, most of us don't turn the heating on in Summer, so we won't feel those prices rises. Nat gas prices should fall from Sept onwards and hopefully we'll see lower prices (barring a world event in the next few weeks).
Business who can't survive without gas will continue to pass those gas price increase to us. I doubt they'll adjust their prices when their Gas biill comes down a bit. Lack of transparency and blame the next price rise on the next event (Coffee blight or chocolate blight in West Africa resulting in sky high prices for the cocoa they spread on your cappuccino.)
So our most recent core inflation was 6.3% (excludes changes in Food prices and Energy)
Consumer prices index saw inflation rise to 10.4% on a yearly basis. (The largest upward contributions to the monthly change came from restaurants + cafes, food, and clothing. There was some downward pressure due to recreational and cultural goods + fuel)
We were lucky not to have the escalator in fuel duty + 5p VAT cut rescinded otherwise we'd have seen a jolt in inflation, though they'll have to reverse that at some point.
Council tax increases are about to start in April so we'll see that contributing to our inflation. As well, the cap on energy bill is rising whilst the lower energy prices in the wholesale market won't be felt until Autumn at least. UK govenrment needs to manage its Gas storage over the summer and make sure we park enough tanks on our shores to get us through 2023/2024 winter.
Feed stocks in agriculture should abate since Y-on-Y owing to lower nat gas prices. But we're still relying on import of foreign produce because we can't pick our own, let alone produce more of it. Brexit anyone?
An additional adder (lack of transparency could make this another BS excuse) is distribution costs. Their wages have also risen and that too gets baked into the cost of food and other produce. (I also wonder how they measure food inflation, given the fatc that 1) price of the item rises and 2) the weight/amount gets reduced too ..... I noticed a loaf of bread has dropped in weight from 800grm to 760grm this weekend)
So which inflation measure are you expecting to see 3-4% by end of year (9 months left now)?
car sales have dropped (in part due to the sky high loan repayment terms and then the hideous balloon payment).
But I still don't see demand for holidays both in the UK and abroad waning. In fact I see the demand to book 2-3 holidays still as insatiable as ever. Airline companies aren't pessimistic. The opposite.
q
"But the government has been careful to drag out public sector pay negotiations long enough to ensure settlements remain well below current inflationary levels" - I thought exactly the same. Strikes in the public sector have cost staff and resulted in lower compensation for those striking, implying the Government has cannily reduced its public wage bill in places (Teachers + Health care + Emergency services).
That was last year. This year and late last year is all about food inflation and stick employment.
Too many open positions and not enough free people to fill the places.
I still think we have at least this year with high inflation numbers.
Talk about the avenues they're exploring to increase its usage was very informative and sets a stake in the ground on where they need to aim to generate increased sales.
Aside, someone needs to pull the CFO aside and give him a pep talk on how to address investors. For god sake, talk up the results! Puts a negative tone on the COVID reduction in revs. That's pretty obvious, but his choice of words seem to suggest his 'glass half empty' mentality. If you don't believe in the company, p!ss off! Why describe it as a headwind? An 'expected decline' would suffice together with brief mention of the fact "the world has moved on from COVID and that its not really a meaningful contribution to their revs going forward...ANything is a bonus, but if it dropped to zero, we wouldn't care."
@xxxAccountant
I expect this to trade sideways. The discount to NAV is nearing 20%. More worthwhile owning the individual stocks with their weightings than SMT.L ...which is the message here.
The board upheaval is a negative distraction. Underperformance vs NAV hasn't been addressed by the board.
The guys who run this Trust need to be taken into a room and reminded of the history of this trust and that its not a casino stock where bravado prevails. It trades above NAV when investors believe the people running it are making timely decisions based on a sound analysis. Market doesn't perceive this and the current discount (widening) is testimony to that.
"but cash will be lower by 200M or more and valuation based on cash will be lower too."
Hmmm....This is a growth company.
So -50m cash flow from ops. 60m cash burn in total, down from FY21.
If they held their cash burn static for the next 4 full years (including FY26), they'd blow another 240m.
However, this doesn't really reflect the GM which is quite tidy, vs say Pacbio. They need to maintain that GM whilst scaling revs.
The EBITDA breakeven isn't cashflow from ops breakeven...the latter will take a little longer.
I didn't see anything meaningful regarding clinical deployment (That'll really bring in the bucks)
Just to add evidence on why this behind-the-scenes shenna*****ns is bad, this is currently up a measly 0.4% at time of writing, on a day when a mixed bag of stocks I own is up 3% +.
Investors need to remind the board, that their conduct is just as important not to distract from the running of the trust for the investors.
Ballie Gifford needs to get a handle on this. Too much distraction from what this trust is supposed to be doing.
Lack of leadership will only serve to depress the SP further and widen the moat between NAV and SP.
Infighting or whatever you want to call it is not what I invested in this Trust for. I looked at their holdings and weightings and felt given the 50% drop in SP at the time I bought, felt it was still a credible investment. As soon as I saw this on the weekend, I just thought "more ammunition to drop the valuation".
@volcano
Still buying?
Everytime I'm tempted, following a twitter annoucement, the SP has different ideas.
They really need a decent plan on how they're going to BOOM the revs and GM, and prove in meaningful steps its working and growing.