Member Info for TheTrotsky

I have to say that the RNS issued on 27 June was a bit confusing and, re-running the numbers, am left to conclude that there will actually be no placing per se; it's simply a fully underwritten open offer with Bridgemere picking up any shares that the existing shareholders don't take up in the open offer.

I also don't quite understand why LSE is currently saying that there are 815.54m shares in issue. Does anybody know why the number of shares in issue have increased from 515.74m to 815.54m (a near 300m increase), given that no new shares have yet been issued?

Hghotshot, I agree your figures in principle. At first flush, you'd expect the total dividend to increase (not reduce) given the expected reduction in ongoing financing costs, all other factors being equal, and the requirement to distribute 90% or more of EPRA earnings to retain its REIT status. However, the capital raise is only part of the story. Although the RNS does not go into a lot more detail, I estimate that the capital raise will only reduce the LTV to c45% of the NAV at 21 June (if we ignore the £28m being retained to fund capex; against a current background of falling valuations the expenditure might only serve to neutralise any further falls in LTV in the short term) and to get the LTV below 40% there will still need to be further asset sales. I therefore suspect that the reduced total dividend going forward is perhaps a reflection of the expected reduction in income as more assets are disposed (they'll probably need to sell between £50m amd £75m of additional assets to get the LTV below 40%).

I said "our historical manufacturing base". Our manufacturing base is a fraction of what it used to be (it's now less than 17% of UK GDP) and, as we saw during COVID put us at a distinct disadvantage to our international competitors. We struggled to source materials during the initial outbreak. Imagine how we would have faired if COVID had proven to have had a very high mortality rate. We have serious structural problems in the UK today because of Maggie's short-sighted policies. Change was needed but Maggie took it to extremes that have ended up favouring the few (and getting fewer) over the many. In the end it is in all our interests to keep imbalances in check because history shows us that if we don't revolutioni is often the next step. Thankfully civil unrest in the UK has never quite boiled over into open revolution but the elastic has, on many occasions in the past, been drawn fairly thin. Who now remembers Peterloo?

Dcov, What would you expect with all those North Sea tax revenues and selling off the "family jewels"? Don't forget about Sid.

In the meantime, she and her government destroyed our historical manufacturing base and helped to replace it with cliches ("get on your bike", "loadsamoney" etc. etc,). The opportunity was just frittered away. We had massive unemployment and a generation of people was effectively cast onto the scrap heap (some were capable of being retrained but most never had the education or necessary capabilities - they either had a narrow range of manual skills learnt on the job or no skills at all). Rather than reducing debt they should have used this once in a lifetime opportunity to invest for the future benefit.

Who'd have then thought that flipping burgers at a fast food outlet for minimum wage and few benefits would become a lifelong job for many? Historically flipping burgers had been a stop gap for students and the like between leaving education and getting a "proper job". A job that would have enabled them to support a family, without income credits and not rely on food banks - remember those? Instead Maggie handed out tax incentives to try and lure overseas investors who, once the tax incentives dried up, more often than not simply upped sticks and moved on to the next country offering inducements.

With a properly managed sovereign fund (investing for a commercial return rather than just giving it away and hoping that some of the largesse might "stick") we might have tackled (at least in part) our unfunded state pension policy. Maggie gave it all away in one mad sugar rush. Short term policies for short term benefits. Maggie placed all her trust in the markets not realising that the markets weren't interested in UK plc; they were just in it for the "free lunch".

Maggie was an idealist who was lauded by her sycophants thena and now but we should at least be able to look back now and say that her economic policies were a long term failure. The UK had become a basket case when she came into power and all she ended up doing was delaying the decline. Maggie was the equivalent of Sir John Harvey-Jones at ICI; lauded for his business acumen but who fundamentally changed nothing (ICI operated in a highly cyclical market and always made loads of money during market upturns; the trick, which Harvey-Jone forgot, was to make enough money in the upturns to tide it over in the inevitable downturns that followed). Maggie failed to understand that business had become global with little or no affiliation with the UK (large UK businesses now tend to make most of their earnings abroad and have little or no care for the national interest that they might have once had).

Talk about frittering away the national wealth, Maggie chucked it around like confetti; all to no avail. She used the North Sea oil revenues to lower taxes and sell off the "family jewels" and fixed absolutely nothing. She opted for a quick high. They're all as bad as each other.

Alfista, Which rock have you been hiding under all your life? You clearly don't remember the early seventies; economies the world over have always been cyclical. I don't know what the next government will do but they will have to balance paying down the national debt and not completely stifling economic growth.

There have been three major interventions in the last 16 years which have signficantly increased the national debt. At the time they appeared appropriate but only history will tell us otherwise. The financial interventions after the 2008 financial crisis were a direct result of the lessons learnt from the 1929 Wall Street Crash and its aftermath (undoubtedly mistakes were made e.g. too much quantitative easing, but I think, in general, intervention does seem to have worked). Whether lock down during Covid was appropriate remains to be seen (data after the event suggests that the lock downs weren't needed but it would have been a gamble not to bring in the first lock down when the NHS was on the brink of collapse); certainly the government's largesse went too far and should have been means tested. Likewise the energy crisis following the start of the Ukraine War.

We are where we are. It's unlikely but we need a government to look beyond its immediate term of office and to put in place a long term, properly thought out national investment plan (I personally would like to see more investment driven growth in the economy). Too much money has been frittered away on questionable incentives, too often putting the cart before the horse. If interest rates start to fall then that might give the next government some respite but the onus shouldn't just be on the employed and businesses to try and pay us out of this mire that we now find ourselves in.

Not rose tinted; just pragmatic and not prone to hyperbole. All other factors being equal, I fully expect the economy to start recovering once base rates start to fall. Fixing the national debt is another matter.

One would assume that the analysts' latest target prices would allow for some reduction in the base rate over the next 6-12 months.

Alessandro, Whether or not PHNX can maintain the dividend is just one aspect that needs to be considered. You aslo have to consider the current "risk free" return on cash. The best 1 year fixed rate return on cash is currently 5.25%; so the yield on PHNX (and other high dividend yield shares) will always be 4-5% higher to reflect the additional capital risk. All other factors being equal, when the base rate starts to drop PHNX's share price should start to rise.

My only pleasure in all this is that I will have the opportunity to vote off the whole BoD and investment advisors at the next AGM. Stephen Inglis is now toast. He got us into this fiasco and despite being given every opportunity to fix the problem he helped create, he's failed. He should resign once the dust has settled but no doubt will have to be pushed.

Well we can't say we weren't warned well in advance in the RNS issued on 12 March.

Scroll down. There are two transactions. One on the 19th and the other on the 20th.

I meant to say "Silver Bullet (SBDS) looks interesting too". I don't currently have any holdings in either.

Following Feeks's recent posting history, I suspect that he might be referring to Transense (TRT). Perhaps he could shed a bit more light for us. Silver Bullet (SBDS) looks interesting.

MrHorse, Have a look at the "Investment Objective and Target Yield" statement in the 2022 financial accounts (I should have said 0.5p per 7.0p not 7.5p, apologies). The aim is to increase the dividend in 0.5p steps i.e. if the average NAV drops below 107p then they sould pay 7p per annum

Rylidan, Good point. Doh! Taking the average of the opening and the closing NAVs then the average NAV would be in excess of 107.5p for FY24.

MrHorse, I think you'll find that when the new dividend policy was introduced they said that they would pay 0.5p extra for every 7.5p over and above 100p i.e. they'd pay 7.0p if the average NAV was between 100p and 107.5p, 7.5p if the average NAV was between 107.5p and 115p and so on.

Based on the average NAV for FY24 being slightly less than 107.5p, I believe that the dividend for FY25 will now be 7.0p (the dividend was to be increased in 0.5p increments for every 7.5p increase in NAV over and above 100p subject to a minimum of 7.0p pa).

I thought that the whole point of the Raspberry PI was that it was "cheap and cheerful", using readily available, off the shelf components i.e. little or no IP.

I don't begrudge the share price rise (as a long term investor) but Simon Thompson is talking utter tosh about the latest interim results:

- Adjusted operating margin of c11% (excluding investment income), down from c19% at H1 FY23;

- Return on cash of less than 3% (as a ROCE that's atrocious);

- Admin expenses up over £2m YoY (part of it will be due to increased depreciation/impairment)*;

- R&D expenses falling (despite an increase in amortisation/impairment costs)*; and

- Still no potential new acquisitions identified

I'm sorry but that was a very poor set of interim results (all about jam tomorrow and no explanation of what's happening in the here and now e.g. what's been impaired and why, why the increase in admin expenses etc. etc.).

* It's normal accounting practise to capitalise R&D expenditure and amortise it over a pre-defined period and, as such, I'd expect this amortisation to be charged to R&D expenses rather than admin expenses. Occasionally, R&D projects will not bear fruit and a company will make a strategic decision to stop further investment and write off (impair) any remaining unamortised expenditure.

It was a bit difficult to see the wood for the trees today but if you'd cast an eye across the market you'd have noted that all of the life insurers were in the red today. There was clearly still some after effect from yesterday (MMs feasting on investors fears) but not all.

PIs like LGEN for its solid dividend and I don't think that's going to change. Comments about the 2%pa rise from 2025 onwards being below the rate of inflation overlook the fact that annual inlfation has already fallen to 2.3% and is likely to fall further.

In one respect Simões is right. LGEN has been raising its dividend payout year on year and yet its share price has been in the doldrums; QED just continuing to raise its dividend at the same rate as it has previously is/was unlikely to mollify the wider market. Reducing the rate of DPS growth and buying back shares in the market is worth trying (will impove EPS, P/E and hopefully reduce the "free float").

I think yesterday's sell-off had more to do with the markets hoping that Simões would use all, or most, of the money from the sale of its non-core assets to return capital rather than reinvest it back into the business (short term gain over long term growth). There's nothing fundamentally wrong with LGEN's business it's just not "racey" and the current market mantra is "... if it ain't racey, it's either dead or going the way of the dinosaur ..."; illogical and misinformed in my view but hey-ho.

Mist, EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) is not profit before tax (PBT). PAY have indicated that they are expecting EBITDA to be in excess of £80m. I'm currently expecting PBT, before any adjusting items, to be in the range of £60m-£65m given that amortisation and finance costs have broadly doubled since the acquisition of the Appreciate Group. I'm also expecting diluted earnings per share (excluding adjusting items) to be in the region of 80p.

The only real fly in the ointment, as far as I can see, is that net debt is only expected to be below £70m (it was c£72m at the end of FY23). Certainly less than it was at the H1 stage (c£83m) but, given all the cash they tend to generate, still higher than I would like.

The point I was trying to make is that it's not sufficient to just have a list of words; you need to understand that context in which they are used to be able to determine which word/pronunciation is appropriate. Take the word "lead"; that could be a cable, to follow or an element in the periodic table.

English is a terrible language in many respects. E.g. we are taught the mnemonic "i" before "e" except after "c" and then promptly given a list of all (or most) of the exceptions! Such as deceive, eight, their etc. etc. etc. And don't get me started on the silent letters ;-)

You just have to watch the real time sub-titles on tv to realise that translation and interpretation isn't straightforward and even when you have rules there are, more often than not, lists of exceptions!