Member Info for taufour

Hi Canetois: "I've always believed it would show more guts if these sort of rewards were notified just prior to the AGM, not a couple of weeks afterwards. That's always seemed a little fishy to me."

That doesn't seem right, surely a more correct sequence is:

(1) explain planned awards in ample detail
(2) hold AGM where shareholders can ask questions
(3) implement awards

which is what they did, this year, but it is worth noting that the directors' remuneration policy was not actually voted on at the AGM. There seems to be some legal get-out whereby it doesn't have to be voted on every year.

According to the blurb, "At the 2018 Annual General Meeting, the Directors’ Remuneration Policy was approved by shareholders, it is therefore not required to be approved at this year’s Annual General Meeting. The policy will be put to shareholders again no later than the Annual General Meeting in 2021."

Note also that in 2018 Norges Bank (a good bellwether of responsible fund management) voted against the remuneration policy (which that year included directors' remuneration).

So the 2021 AGM could be interesting.

P.S. in fairness to the company I think it should be added that last year's director's remuneration policy contained a long-term incentive plan every bit as flamboyant as this year's one,

"Subject to shareholder approval of the Policy, we intend to grant LTIP awards of up to 500% of salary to Chris Fraser and up to 475% of salary for Thomas Staley following the 2018 AGM", that is what was voted on last year and passed (with Norges Bank voting against).

OK so I've read the RNS and tried to understand it ... not easy for a non financial expert such as me and I might have got this quite wrong.

But if I'm right then just about every commenter here is barking up the wrong tree.

You need to refer to the annual report to understand the context. I think that in the case of the directors, these awards are linked to 5mt poly having been shipped by end of 2024. There are complex sliding scales such that if the date is delayed then the awards are reduced, in the lowest case down to about 20% of the max.

For the other managers, the awards are linked so some other related but not identical milestones.

The awards are not actually released until 5 years are up and in the case of directors are subject to some restrictions if they leave the company.

Also, in the annual report it was clearly laid out that this kind of award might be made, and some indication of its likely size.

If that is correct, then does it change any of the very sharply expressed negative opinions recently aired here?

In particular, I would comment on the suggestion that it would be have been more 'decorous' to wait until after the bond tranche is sold before making this award. Surely that is completely the wrong way round. It is best done before.

Overall I think the size of the awards (which are linked to salary) seems reasonably in line with the hopes and interests of shareholders.

" ... although there are some differences ..."
Is the coal certified organic?

Hi Silverfox, "Can anybody explain how money is being made selling at these prices"

Interesting question. Some people suggest that what is happening is PIs selling out in despair (and institutions, or other PIs, hoovering up). Presumably to some extent that may be the case. But based on feelings, gazing at trading patterns, and looking at the history of stage 1, I seriously wonder whether something else may be happening also.

After stage 1, the SP bobbled along with remarkable consistency in a range from slightly below 18p to slightly above 19p, from late Nov 2016 until late March 2017.

Well, 18.5p is 92% of the stage 1 placing price (20p)

Now, 92% of the stage 2 placing price is 13.9p

So here is an idea. It might seem preposterous but perhaps it will elicit helpful comment from other people. ????? (in case that doesn't come out, it means casting bricks trying to attract jade)

Although the nominal placing price is 15p, the underwriter (JPM) does not actually pay 15p to Sirius for each share, but some lesser amount. So there is a margin that JPM can play with, without losing money. Some institutions that bought shares at the placing may have complex arrangements with JPM such that when many projects are going through at the same time, and when swings and roundabouts are applied across the whole relationship, they might end up paying somewhat less than 15p for each share.

Sorry I meant *adjust the ask downwards*

Hi Bjorn, "# Trades 1,510
Vol. Sold 7,221,857
Sold Value £982.89k
Vol. Bought 14,460,932
Bought Value £2m
And yet, 2% down!!"

Yes it is curious, but if you look in more detail there are reasonable possibilities that could explain what is going on.

I saved a snapshot of SXX for today up to 14:30 at http://luku.org/snap/SXX/3igaskwv/

For those who do not like to click on links, the salient features are:

O-trades, almost all in top quintile: 271 trades / vol 6,231,472 / ave price 13.72

A-trades, half (by volume) in lowest quintile: 720 trades / vol 5,874,519 / ave price 13.62
A-trades, other half (by vol) in top quintile: 426 trades / vol 5,821,621 / ave price 13.67

To me, this suggests that institutions are dribbling shares into the SETS system and MMs are taking shares out of it and selling them to PIs at a higher price, and that there is a fair amount of space available for them to *adjust the bid downwards* as required in order to keep a healthy flow of PI purchasers going.

This does somewhat contradict the narrative which some people have suggested, of PIs panic-selling and institutions hoovering up.

Hello LL, "at the AGM , CF was asked ' what is the coupon on the HY bonds? '..........his response was 10-12 %......l thought that was very odd....not knowing at this stage the exact number.......tells me none have been sold to date...."

I'm only guessing at how all this works, but I imagine that none can be sold until the interest rate is fixed, and the interest rate can only be fixed through discussion with enough possible customers to take up the whole issue.

So it would involve a complex dance while the mooted interest rate is brought into line with the mooted customers, and if a consensus view emerges, then all the bonds get sold at pretty much the same moment.

"Bagged some at 15.08, pleased with that."

Hmmm...

curl -s http://35.185.86.155/list/?epic=SXX | grep -E '2019-06-17 .* 15.08 GBX .* Off-book'

2019-06-17 08:45:28 ---------- --:--:-- 15.08 GBX 3299 497.49 xx Off-book XLON
2019-06-17 08:45:30 ---------- --:--:-- 15.08 GBX 6519 983.07 xx Off-book XLON
2019-06-17 08:52:43 ---------- --:--:-- 15.08 GBX 10000 1508.00 xx Off-book XLON

:-)

Yikes they have done it again, Thursday's voting details are now on the Norges website and they voted against the re-election of a couple of directors

https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/responsible-investment/our-voting-records?ticker=SXX

Not to worry overmuch, the pair got through, but by something like 89% instead of the normal 99%.

Norges Bank is a very ethical investor and one wonders what the twain have done to merit disapproval, maybe smoking in the board room.

Hello. Friday's 20:21 post by sxx4me is such rubbish that I don't know what to do. I vaguely feel that one ought not to be silent when this kind of thing happens, but I'm reluctant to pick out any one sentence and explain why I think it's rubbish because that might give the impression that the other sentences are not quite such rubbish. Whereas actually the whole thing is an inextricable tangle of interlinked rubbish.

I'll leave it at that for now and hope to say no more about it but I might change my mind.

"Apart from CF & Scrimshaw, the rest of the BOD looked like they did not want to be there."

Hi. Not surprising, I expect they were apprehensive about the voting.

We have an activist investor who have significantly upped their holding this year, and who have a track record of being ready to vote Against at AGMs, particularly when it comes to re-election of directors.

I refer of course to Norges Bank.

"Posters can share knowledge about the salinity of the water in Lockwood beck or the name of the vessel that carried the tbm to teeside etc, but NONE of this matters if we don't get the next tranche of bonds sold in September."

That is just one sample of many posts here.

So it is good to know that some people are worrying 24/7 about bond saleability. If they discover anything worth sharing, I hope they will let us know asap. Thanks.

Meanwhile, technical discussion is important. It is a realistic certainty that something will go wrong. One fine morning we may have to decide, hold or quickly sell. Familiarity with the salinity of the water in Lockwood Beck, and such like things, will be a good foundation for making that decision wisely.

"Both machines hit hydrothermally disaggregated ground, like loose road chippings. For the lead machine this meant using extra support to achieve slow but steady going, but for the other, the ground unravelled and jammed the cutterhead.

A rescue operation was devised with two separate hand dug and heavily grouted tunnels excavated from the first bore across the 40m separation.

From these the ground was sealed and an 'umbrella' created with forepoling to create a chamber in front of the machine to allow the head to be cleaned and freed up. Nearly six months was lost.

But subsequent speeds were so good that the machines still arrived half a year early."

"Looking forward to ... tackling ... and addressing him as Mr ... tomorrow..."

Undulating spread plotter at http://luku.org/tau/ now has a favicon :-)

"... I’ll lift one of the manhole covers on my drive to see how far she has got ."

Wondering if a drone flying over the north yorks moors with super-sensitive detectors looking at the ground could pick up the faint tremor of underground activity. Or a heat-spot. Or a cold-spot if they are using freezing techniques.

Also worth noting ... in that New Yorker article from 2008 it said, "When completed, in 2017, it will be the longest traffic tunnel in the world"

... well, look at this (wiki):

"The Gotthard Base Tunnel is a railway tunnel through the Alps in Switzerland. It opened on 1 June 2016, and full service began on 11 December 2016."

Also from the article, and in view of recent discussion here about accelerating the schedule, a visit to Barcelona:

'Compared with Switzerland, everything here seemed to be moving at double time. The miners were paid bonuses for speed and for working on Sunday. They had no patience for interruptions - they glanced at our party with barely concealed annoyance - and no need for perfection. The trolley tracks at Erstfeld were perfectly straight; here they meandered a little, like strands of pasta, so the trolley wobbled as it ran. "The Spanish want speed," Herrenknecht said, grinning. "It is an excellent character, but they want speed." At some sites, he said, the Spanish hired two companies to dig each barrel of a tunnel, so the project would turn into a race. This tunnel had only one shaft, wide enough for two trains, but the miners were still working at a record pace. They’d installed twenty-two rings in the past twelve hours alone - a distance of a hundred and thirty-two feet.'

Hopefully the Sirius project will strike a good balance between Switzerland and Spain. I did notice in the pictures which Myo linked to today,

https://siriusminerals.webdamdb.com/bp/#/lightbox/933422/89580842

there appears to be a slight hint of undulation in the railway tracks, or maybe it is a trick of the light.

There is much of interest in the 2008 New Yorker article 'The Long Dig - getting through the Swiss Alps the hard way' by Burkhard Bilger

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/09/15/the-long-dig (3-free-articles-a-month scheme)

but note the geology of the Gotthard base tunnel is vastly more challenging than North Yorkshire.

'When completed, in 2017, it will be the longest traffic tunnel in the world; it is also one of the most geologically challenging ... The Gotthard crosses nine geological zones, none of them fully understood. It cuts through granite and quartz, along fault lines and beneath a sugarlike layer of dolomitic marble - a sand trap to anything going through it.'

... 'The roar of the machinery, muffled inside the cabin, now seemed to redouble. As we shuffled down the catwalk, it began to tremble underfoot, then lurch and shake as if trying to buck us off. An acrid taste of burning oil filled my mouth, and the walls seemed to flex and heave around us. Herrenknecht grabbed my arm and pointed to the pistons thrust into the walls on either side, wedging the worm into the tunnel. "Bilger! Feel the power!" he shouted. "More than three hundred and fifty bars of pressure to the Gripper!" The entire site consumed about as much energy as a city of thirty thousand. But the rock here was soft enough that the machine was operating at only quarter power.

Herrenknecht stepped onto a platform at the front of the machine and stood with his fists on his hips. "It is excellent work!" he shouted. He pointed to another set of pistons, angled forward from the Gripper, that were driving the cutting head into the rock. The head was fitted with blunt disks, seventeen inches wide, made of an obdurate alloy of manganese, steel, and chromium. As the cutting head turned, the crushed stone fell into spokelike dividers inside it, was funnelled onto a conveyor belt along its axis, and carried to dump trucks waiting outside. By the time the cutting head pulled back and the engines cut off, the teeth were red hot. "You can put an egg on them," Herrenknecht said. "Sunshine up."

The tunnel was suddenly silent. With a low rumble, the back half of the worm ratcheted forward two metres and planted its legs. The Gripper slid forward an equal distance and braced itself against the wall. Then the engines ignited for the next attack.'

It seems obvious that the IPA guarantee was not given because it was not needed. As I understand it, the whole point of the scheme is to enable infrastructure projects that would not be funded without such a guarantee.

Reading between the lines, I think that SXX could have gone the IPA route, but only by saying that the alternative funding is unreasonably expensive, letting the money nearly run out, and slowing down construction. Clearly they did not want to do that.

London, March 2017: The UK has showcased projects worth a combined value of estimated £14bn on the second day of Qatar-UK Trade and Investment Forum, before potential Qatari investors in Birmingham, yesterday. Of the projects unveiled, the mega project in terms of value is in the mining industry infrastructure. The $2.9bn worth project, coming up in North Yorkshire, is expected to start first production in 2021.

Photo of Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani and UK Prime Minister Theresa May

The Peninsula, Qatar's daily newspaper, 29th March 2017

Hi blacksheep, "these organisations are able to off load ... shares knowing that they could buy them back at a much cheaper price. How is that anything other than insider trading?"

That is what many people here have done. Are you accusing us also of insider trading?