Member Info for TheTrotsky

Warthog, Are you suggesting that politicians and/or their chums didn't take every opportunity to profiteer from WWI and/or WWII? I suspect that the inflation-adjusted figures would certainly dwarf Covid.

WWII was actually the making of IBM; it had no problem providing tabulators to the Nazi concentration camps during WWII via its Swiss subsidiary and, apparently, Watson (its CEO) was on the first commercial flight into Switzerland after the war to collect the proceeds in person! I appreciate that IBM was a US company but profiteering was universal. German companies were at it too and, when the Reichsmark was exchanged for the Deutsche Mark in 1948, German companies were allowed to exchange on 1:1 basis, unlike everybody else who had to exchnage on a 10:1 basis!

Finley, Berkshire Hathaway is a completely different company from what it used to be and $189bn is lot of money to try and invest "covertly". I appreciate that BH holds a large stake in Apple and that at the end of December its investment amounted to c5.8% of Apple's issued shares and c50% of BH's listed holdings and that, despite reducing its holding since December, its investment still amounts for c4.6% of Apple's outstanding shares and c40% of BH's listed holdings. BH's holding in Apple is currently valued at c$135bn (this is in addition to the $189bn in cash).

That's a lot of money to tie up in just one investment (especially when you don't have any management control) and is not the size of stake that you can generally offload quickly at a push. I also appreciate that BH does a lot of due diligence before it invests but, even so, you can never be 100% certain of what's going to happen in the future (especially with Cook's habit of being economical with the truth at times).

I would suggest that BH's invetsment in Apple is a departure from Buffet's (and the recently departed Munger's) historical investment approach and is, in part, driven by the mound of cash that BH has accumulated. I would also suggest that BH is likely to continue to sell down its Apple holding because it doesn't fit with Buffet's long-term investment ethos.

Historically, Buffet would never have considered tying up such a large amount of money in one company without at least having seats on the BoD, if not outright control. BH now finds itself no-man's land; heavily invested in one company (Apple accounts for c15% of BH's current market value), with no say in its management or control and having every buy/sell open to public scrutiny. I'm not suggesting that BH will necessarily dispose of its entire stake in Apple but I would be surprised if it didn't (want to) significantly reduce it, which only increases it's current cash "problem".

ASP, If you actually bothered to read the Guardian article it says that Capital Group (CG) bought the shares following HMG reducing its stake below 30% in late March. The article didn't say that CG bought them from HMG; it actually says that CG spent more than £110m acquiring c33m shares at the end of March day's after HMG reduced its stake below 30%. Nothing whatsoever to do with yesterday's RNS saying that HMG had reduced its interest by a further c1%.

Also, from what I've read, it does not appear to be HMG's intention to offload its entire holding to "Sid" and/or institutions. It would appear that HMG is planning to reduce its holding from c27% to c10%. At the end of the day, its seems to be more driven by Conservative ideology (and the thought that it might influence voters at the next election) than financial common sense.

Obviously there's no absolute guarantee that the share price should continue to improve from here, and a bird in the hand is often better than two in the bush, but one would have thought that if HMG wanted to maximise its return (lets not forget that the government will still have lost a packet) it would be better off continuing to sell down its holding piecemeal; either into the market if there is a large buyer or, preferably, direct to NatWest for cancellation (NatWest could probably afford to spend c£1bn per annum on share buy backs).

Warthog, All I can say is that Chris Bryant should know because he seems to have used every wheeze himself! He seems to have been quite content to snuffle at the trough (the expenses scandal), "mislead" Parliament (claiming that Farage, who I detest, was being paid by the Russian state without any evidence) and filibuster during the Gaza ceasfire vote.

To suggest that politicians are engaging in cronyism, nepotism, conflicts of interest, misconduct and lying more frequently and more publicly than ever before is, in my view, highly questionable (politicians got away with a lot, lot more in the past). Honesty and integrity have always been in short supply. As regards the Private Sector, they are hardly beacons of virtue on any of those issues (they may be held to account more frequently but I'd suggest that simple maths might have something to do with that).

I like Bryant and, indeed, it was sad to hear that his skin cancer has spread to his lung but at the end of the day he is, or has become, as "corrupt" as the rest of them and is definitely no "saint".

Being a contrarian's contrarian, there's your problem in a nutshell. You're looking at historic data (e.g. Starbucks results) as evidence that the downturn is continuing to build strength when in fact all historic data generally tends to prove is what we already suspected and/or subsequently knew. Markets historically have always tended to buck the trend and tended to move up/down ahead of the economic data.

Joblessness in the UK is still relatively low by historical standards and should start to curb wage inflation whilst increases in the economically inactive might, pehaps, start to boost our productivity (if businesses are becoming fitter and leaner). You also have to recognise that there's quite a lot of bad news already built in that is only now starting to filter through into the published figures e.g. joblessness will probably peak 6-12 months after the economy starts to recover. Nothing ever changes overnight.

From my own limited, personal experience of late, there do seem to be some green shoots appearing, e.g. local businesses seem to be doing brisker business, but it'll probably take a further 6-12 months before we really start to see that appearing on any economic radar.

I don't disagree with your view of financial commentators in general. As regards, Berkshire Hathaway, you've got to start to ask yourself whether it's become too large for it's own good. It's currently got $189bn sitting in cash! To make a meaningful dent in that cash pile, it's got to be looking at investing in c20-40 listed companies valued north of $100bn (unless it plans to take a significant managing interest or exceed the 3% disclosure limit). Buffet says that he currently struggles to find value but, in reality, it's difficult for BH's investments to fly under the radar and if BH takes a stake in excess of 3% then it's quite likely that it'll have to pay a premium to acquire and accept a discount to exit (which means that BH's investments have to work that much harder than some others). Also, investing in c20-40 listed companies isn't Buffet's historic style (he's tended to invest for the long term in a relatively small number of listed companies). BH could look to invest in unlisted companies of course but it will have its work cut out to invest $189bn. Personally, I think BH is now at risk of chasing (any) investments simply because it has cash buring a hole in its pocket and/or underperforming the market because it's got too much in cash. It strikes me that BH ought to now be looking to distribute at least $100bn of that cash pile via share buy back (being the US preference to dividends) which is no doubt anathema to Buffet after a lifetime of investing.

I suspect not but I'd be happy to be proven wrong. Over the last few years the share price has made a habit of rallying ahead of results and falling back afterwards. The interim are due in early June.

How scalable are these batteries really? Most new grid bank projects under consideration are now 100MW+. These batteries do have many advantages over lithium-ion batteries (cost, durability, fire etc.) but size isn't one of them. Even when double or tripled stacked they're likely to need quite a lot more land than equivalent lithium-ion batteries, which might prove to be at a premium the closer grid banks are brought to urban centres where they are needed.

I'm not currently a holder but I'd say the gist was positive. On of the largest capital raises on the UK market this year despite the current lack of appetite for smaller company fundraisers.

The technology looks interesting. The article seems to suggest that one container size battery can store enough electricity to power 30 homes for a day and that it can hold its charge 3x longer than a lithium battery, with no fire risk.

The Dixons have reduced. On 9 April they held 36.25m shares. Thye now hold 30m shares. One would imagine that they sold some, if not all, of those 6.25m shares to Schroders.

The general view seems to be that this is going to be a difficult balancing act. Unlike previous de-nationalisation offers the government can't simply offer the shares at a heavy discount to market value to encourage the Sids to buy (you could see class action lawsuits if they did) but if it doesn't what incentive would there be for the Sids to buy? Personally, on the face of it, I think it's an impossible problem to solve to all parties' satisfaction.

The only solution that might resolve the problem is if the government was to, say, offer their shares with some form of benefit attached i.e. wrap up the discount that they might normally consider offering he Sids and converting it into some other monetary form e.g. a staggered tax rebate over a period of several years (at the end of the day all of the money goes into the same pot).

Staggering the tax rebate over a period of, say, 3-5 years (with pehaps a provision to pay any remaining tax rebate in full on death) might make the Sids less inclined to rush and sell their new shares immediately, particularly if it might result in them crystallising a loss that they might have to wait several years to cover from their tax rebate. I would not make the tax rebate conditional on them retaining the shares (this would be too complex to regulate). Most, if not all, online brokers now require you to provide your NINO, so it should be possible for them to make applications on behalf of their customers for both the shares and the tax rebate fairly seemlessly.

So, for example, if the government wanted to sell its shares in tranches of (say) 500 shares at a discount of (say) 20% to the current share price (say £3 per share), they'd offer each tranche at £1,500 (500 x £3) plus a tax rebate of £300 (20% x £1,500) payable in equal instalments of (say) £100 per annum over a period of 3 years or £60 per annum over a period of 5 years.

Given that we went ex-div today (4.9p), finishing 5p up isn't too bad a result. Hopefully the current upwatd price trend will continue tomorrow.

Toneman, You say "... their revenue is still using a high portion of acrual ...". I'm not sure that I follow your drift. The accruals at the end of FY23 and H1 FY24 don't appear excessive (trade creditors have fallen from c£3m at the end of FY23 to c£1.8m at the end of H1 FY24; they were high at the end of FY23 because of the timing of fund raising in H2 FY23). Obviously there may be some deferred cash flow impact if your creditors are higher than your debtors but I wouldn't say that GSF's is abnormally high. Also, accruals are irrelevant to operational cash flow (they are adjusted out).

I take your point about the dividends although I'd be surprised if they quoted their dividend cover based on the dividend actually paid in the quarter. I think it's more likely that they'd quote their dividend cover based on their EPS for H1 FY24 divided by half of their expected DPS for FY24 to smooth out any peaks and troughs in the frequency and quantum of their dividend payments. I think this would be the approach adopted by most companies that paid their dividends less regularly and I don't think that investment trusts would adopt a different approach simply because they pay their dividends at least quarterly but I stand to be corrected.

As with most everything else in life the proof of the pudding is in the eating and it will be interesting to see the FY24 figures. I'd currently expect investment income to be in the region of £25-£30m (I don't think we'll start to see the full benefit of the 27% increase in operating capacity in Q3 FY24 until FY25) and admin expenses of c£10m or less i.e. revenue PBT should be in the region of £15-£20m for FY24 (as opposed to c£2.6m in FY23). The PBT in H2 might be less than H1 because some fees don't appear to be accrued evenly through the year (see below).

Having looked at the admin expenses again, I can now see that the main contributory costs are the investment advisory and performance fees. The latter fees, at least, don't appear to be evenly accrued through the year. Instead, they are computed based on performance against a Benchmark after the year end and would appear to be wholly charged in H2 (and capped at no more than 50% of the advisory fees). Given that there hasn't been any major change to the disclosed NAV since the end of FY23, I'd currently expect the investment advisory and performance fees, subject to any cash adjustments, to be broadly in line with FY23 but it would seem probable that the expected performance fees (c£2.5m) would be wholly charged in H2.

SEDI, You're mixing your apples and oranges. Operational cash flow is income less operating expenses (not just revenue); try looking at a cash flow statement.

As I said in my previous post it's not uncommon for Investment Trusts investing in infrastructure projects to pay dividends out of capital raised until the projects are up and running (and that's recognised in the business plan from the outset).

GSF generated almost as much investment income in H1 FY23 (c£12.4m) as it did for the whole of FY22 (c£12.5m) whilst its admin expenses (c£3.8m) were on a par with its admin expenses in H1 FY22 (c£3.8m). I'd currently expect its investment income for H2 FY23 to be ahead of H1 FY23 because of the 27% increase in operating capacity in Q3 FY23. However, I would not be too surprised if its H2 FY23 admin expenses were on a par with H2 FY22 (c£6.1m) due to the Nidec fundraise in mid- December.

All of the current indicators are that GSF has covered its dividend payments from net operating revenues for FY23 and with the operational fleet now set to more than double by the end of FY24 plus the non-UK diversification, all of the inidcators are that GSF's dividend cover will only continue to improve from here on out.

Furthermore, the UK is set to account for less than 30% of operating capacity by the end of FY24 which, given the current disparity between UK and non-UK income per MW/hr, would suggest that the UK might only account for 10-15% of GSF's revenues for FY25 and beyond but with scope to improve if UK rates continue to rise as they have done since the recent re-jigging of the BESS market.

GSF, unlike GRID, is a lot a less reliant on the UK market.

ST60, It would seem that Rick123 is not the only poster you choose to offend. Given that you seem want to abuse anybody who asks you, politely, to stop, you leave me no alternative other than to report your post.

Congratulations your the first poster I've ever had cause to report sor simply being facetious and having absolutely nothing of worth to add to the discussion board )other than emojis - do grow up).

Kats, According to the note to the FY22 accounts both Rockmasters and Spark Advisory's warrants had an exercise price of 0.1p (£0.001) but you are right about the subsequent placing warrants (in my haste I misread the RNS and thought they'd subscribed for one new share at 10pps plus a warrant - Doh!).

Spark Advisory have definitely exercised their 467k warrants (they were due to expire on 22/07/23. Rockmaster on the other hand appears to have until 18/09/2027 to exercise its 9.34m warrants but doesn't appear to have exercised any since the FY22 accounts. As far as I can tell, Rockmasters don't have any notifiable shareholding in ZED so could only leverage their warrants if they owned, and sold, less than c4.2m shares and/or utilised CFDs or their like.

The warrants issued to Donald Nicholson, Four Grant Investments, John Harvey, Andy Muir, Nick Luckett and Amati Global have all since expired unexercised (they had an exercise price of 19pps) and it would appear that Brandon Hill Capital's warrants are likely to expire unexercised on 22/07/24 unless the share price moves above 20p between now and then.

Amati do appear to have been selling down their shareholding recently.

Broomtree, Wouldn't disagree.

Zac, I think the metrics are more relevant to the Magnificent 7 than LGEN. They are now established profitable trading businesses. There might be some hidden value (such as AI and/or data centres in Amazon/MSoft/NVidia and/or market monopoly in MSoft) but it tends to be long term rather than short/medium term IMHO. As for Tesla, I'm not sure there's the hidden value that Musk likes to brag about (or use as support for his ridiculous share award claims).

ST60, Don't know what your issue is with Rick123 (it seems to be long standing) but give it a rest. If you don't care for his posts just filter him. That goes for the rest of us too if, at times, some of his posts start sounding like a broken record.

That's a red herring as you well know (or should know). LGEN is required to mark to market its investments (mainly bonds) despite the fact that it intends to hold its investments to maturity and has, as a result, been taking large fair value hits for the last few years.

If you strip out the the fair value adjustments (£1,577m), the effective tax charge thereon (£371m) and the one-off Bermuda deferred tax credit (£340m) then the profits attributable to equity holders would have been £1,323m (as opposed to £457m) and the diluted EPS would have been 21.08pps (as opposed to 7.28pps), which in turn would imply a current P/E ratio of c11.28 (as opposed to c32.65).

Because of the particular issues caused by MTM and the way that insurers account for profits on their AuM, the valuation of LGEN and its ilk is not generally assessed based on their P/E ratios; more weighting is placed on their ability to sustain and increase their distributions (they are viewed more akin to annuities).

Saintly, They issued the NAV and dividend declaration on 26 April last year.

Krusty, Look at the FY23 income statement. It splits out the income into revenue (operational) and capital.