Member Info for TheTrotsky

Clued, You missed "easyinvester" ;-)

This is a tough market and it doesn't appear to be willing on the face of it to give SOS credit for continuing to increase sales and margins despite the current economic backdrop.

Nor does it seem willing to give SOS credit for changing strategy mid-way through FY24, reducing promotions and focusing on gross margin rather than top line growth at any cost; personally I think the change in strategy will mean the difference between SOS making a seven figure loss and a, albeit small, profit for FY24. In the meantime, SOS continues to pursue new overseas partnerships in Australia and Canada and opening new bricks and mortar outlets in the UK.

I think FY25 will prove to be a pivotal year.

Silvernight, Don't get distributable reserves confused with cash. The distributable reserves have been reinvested into new investments. As at 30 June 2023, EAT had c£12m of cash and c£17m of bank loans. EAT currently generates c£8m of income before costs and pays c£21m in dividends. The annual dividend isn't covered by net income and EAT therefore needs to sell investments to maintain its dividend. The distributable reserves do give EAT the capacity to continue paying dividends but, without investment growth, those distributable reserves are likely to be progressively eroded.

BeanCounting, As far as I am aware the case (McEvoy et al vs DEC) continues to go through the various appeal processes and hasn't yet come to court. The plaintiffs appear to have raised multiple different complaints with a view to one of more of them "sticking". Bottom line, the plaintiffs want the DEC deal with EQT nullified by any means possible (it would appear that EQT is a much bigger oil and gas producer than DEC with much deeper pockets and therefore more likely to be able to afford to plug the wells and, prior to the sale, had much higher plugging estimates than DEC).

Redlse, If half of what DEC is accused of is true then 500p would likely be a pipedream. The EQT case actually accuses DEC and EQT of conspiring in fraud! If found guilty, it would not only undermine the deal with EQT but likely all of DEC's recent deals plus fines, penalties etc. There would be little or nothing left for shareholders.

To my mind, has DEC consistently underplayed the significance of its plugging estimates and has gone nowhere near far enough in its rebuttal to placate (genuine) concerns. The difference between it own plugging costs incurred to date (c$25k per well) and what it charges third parties (c$150k per well) just don't add up. If the difference is purely down to profit then the market should be flooded with new plugging companies (it's simple economics) but it isn't. If the difference isn't down to pure profit then DEC has a huge gap to bridge (it has to prove that the third party wells it plugged were the exception not the rule and that it's own plugging estimates do stack up under scrutiny). From DEC's perspective, it would probably prefer to be found guilty of profiteering ;-)

Jim800,

I recently sold at a significant loss so you may consider that I have an axe to grind and may want to take my views with a pinch of salt but here's my pennyworth.

I sold because I had become extremely uneasy about the congressional committee and the ongoing EQT court case, neither of which DEC considered to warrant any disclosure to its shareholders beforehand. In addition, given their likely gestation period, I feel pretty certain that DEC would have had some knowledge of them when they issued their RNS on 5th October regarding recent share price movements (when they stated that they were "... unaware of any operational or Company specific reason for this share price movement ..."). Furthermore, I've had a (very) quick perusal of the Form-20F issued on 16th November in advance of the US listing and can't find any specific reference to these potential risks (class action?).

I don't normally invest in the oil/gas sector but it strikes me as (highly) unusual for a group of landowners to seek to have a deal nullified because they are concerned that they will be left with the cost of plugging the wells on their land because the acquiror, DEC, is deliberately underestimating the cost of plugging the wells and will have insufficient funds to do the work. If the EQT case goes against DEC it will likely sink the company.

With regards to the rebuttal it has a fine veneer but in reality it's a bit of flim-flam; in as much that it encapsulates much of what DEC has previously said whilst providing little, or no, new information. The congressional committee may accept it on face value or, if they are truly serious about investigating DEC's activities, demand more details.

For example, DEC hasn't really explained in any depth how WAM works and why its competitors don't use WAM themselves (I would accept that there is a business case for not revealing more unless pressured to do so) or why it costs DEC upwards of 6x less to cap its own wells (the number of its own wells that it's capped to date would not allow for economies of scale) compared to what it charges others. It opens up DEC to charges of profiteering on government contracts and/or begs the question why more companies aren't getting into well plugging if it's that profitable (it defies economics).

Personally I'd question whether the wells that DEC has capped to date are a representative sample of its wells. DEC may not frack but it's highly likely that it will have acquired fracked wells from third parties. If so, what proportion of its wells might be considered to be of the more problematical variety and has it plugged any of these more problematical wells to date?

The congressional committee has opended a real can of worms. The question is, does the committee really want to see this through? If it does, then you can probably expect a lot more probing questions. If not, then the problem doesn't necessarily go away becasue the EQT case is likely to cover many of the same i

You can use the US WHT to "frank" the UK tax that might otherwise be payable on your foreign dividends but you can't use it as a tax credit against your UK source income.

I think you'll find it's simply because ASOS haven't notified a set date to the Exchange for issuing their trading update (SOS issued a trading update today and they weren't listed either). ASOS have issued trading updates in January for at least the last two years and there's no reason to think that this year will be any different. I'd hazard that they'll issue a statement at the end of this week or the start of next.

Just face facts RitchieRich; you were never going to vote Labour anyway ;-)

Ritchie, Ever heard of lies, damn lies and statistics? Well you've fallen hook line and sinker me old salt!

Apparently 1.98m people worked in the NHS at the end of Q3 2023 but that's based on headcount (not full-time equivalent) whereas, as of 2021, 1.36m people worked in French hospitals (may, or may not, be full-time equivalent but doesn't appear to include GPs and other ex-hospital services) and, as of 2021, 6.3m people worked in the German healthcare sector (that likely includes nursing and care homes, unlike the NHS in the UK). The point being that different countries have different systems and you can't make a direct comparison without ensuring that tou are comparing like for like and also taking into account the size of population. Yes, the NHS is large and, yes, the NHS certainly has problems but you can't conclude, just from the NHS's size, that it's inefficient.

The fact is that the UK government has been paying less per capita on health care than many other major Western countries for decades and even if we just matched the spending of France, let alone Germany, we wouldn't be able to fix the historic under investment (and we look to be heading in the same direction on education).

That said, simply throwing more money at the NHS without looking at how it's structured and what it's priorities should be would, IMHO, be totally counter productive. Many of the perceived problems that we have in today's NHS e.g. too many bean counters and pen pushers, decentralised purchasing etc. are down the to the restructuring undertaken by Maggie's government in the 1980s. Maggie trusted people to have integrity (to always do the right thing); she was as daft as a brush! If results didn't match expectations she expected people to investigate and fix; instead they just changed the expectations! In part this was because the system was designed from the outset to punish failure by, for example, reducing funding rather than accepting that, sometimes, we all slip up and need to learn and improve. I'm not suggesting that failing management should always be rewarded but management sometimes do make inadvertent mistakes and we should judge them based on how they respond to those mistakes not just the mistakes. There's been plenty of opportunity for change since Maggie's initial misguided attempt but successive governments have failed to address the obvious issues. In today's NHS problems are allowed to persist and get worse without senior management ever being held accountable; instead they are permitted to "game the system" i.e. do nothing and still, by playing with the numbers, appear to have met their targets.

We need to overhaul the structure without throwing out the baby with the bath water. There are simple changes that could be made today that might save the NHS £100m's, perhaps £bn's! E.g. centralised purchasing and warehousing could ensure that supplies are always within date and that competing LHAs aren't inadvertently bidding up prices

Thanks for that RichieRich78 but Abu Qatada wouldn't appear to fit the bill (he doesn't appear to meet either the monetary benefit or "traitor" tags - as a foreign national he can't, by definition, commit treason against the UK).

I think you'll find that hate speech is not just confined to Islamists and although one may not agree with, or like, what Abu Qatada says (or stands for) we do still, thankfully, permit freedom of speech in this country (although this right, that we so deeply cherish, seems to be under attack more and more these days). I do appreciate that there can be a fine line between freedom of speech and incitement to violence but, despite having been repeatedly detained under the UK's anti-terrorism laws since 2002, the UK government has failed to find any evidence to warrant his deportation. Unfortunately, that's the price we have to pay if we want to live in a democratic society! Starmer is simply defending the principle rather than the individual in question; the problem being that once you start making even small exceptions you set a precedent for others, less democratically minded, to follow.

Personally, I see our democracy as a strength, not a weakness. Sure, there will be those who seek to take advantage of our perceived weakness but ultimately our willingness (or not) to tolerate difference without resort to violence will, I believe, win out. If Abu Qatada wants to talk about Sharia Law, let him. At the end of the day it's the will of the majority that counts.

Cookoo, I try to read as little as possible about any of our current crop of leaders (none of them inspire confidence). I know Starmer has been blamed in the press for various matters that occurred whilst he was head of the DPP (albeit that he wasn't directly involved in the cases) and that he's against foreign-born criminals being automatically deported to Rwanda (let's not go there because in principle I'd agree that sending people to Rwanda is not a solution) but I'm genuinely not aware of the specific individual to whom you refer (or, at least, have forgotten). Neither Epstein nor Mandelson would seem to fit the bill; the former had money but didn't live in the UK (he may have visited the UK but he didn't reside here long term that I'm aware) whilst the latter lacks the wealth. Also, neither of them seems to fit your "traitor" tag. Prince Andrew might fit all of your tags but I'd suggest that Starmer would not be the only UK politician treading (very) lightly on that matter.

Hardup, It's factually incorrect to say that "Gordon Brown taxed dividends". Firstly, dividends have always been (potentially) taxable and, secondly, dividend receipts in pension schemes have always been, and remain, exempt from tax. As far as I am aware, tax credits on dividends first came about from c1973 onwards as a result of the introduction of advance corporation tax (ACT) and, as such, it made sense to abolish tax credits when ACT was abolished. The fact that tax credits were abolished two years before ACT may have been down to the introduction of foreign income dividends in the mid-1990s which had the effect of reducing the amount of new, irrecoverable ACT arising thereafter which, in turn, reduced the Treasury's incomings. The fact that the effect might appear to be the same does not make them the same.

The reality is that the reimbursement of tax credits was always in part, if not fully, funded by large, multinational companies not being able to recover all of the ACT they were paying and if GB hadn't abolished tax credits then he'd have had to raise other taxes.

GB gave three main reasons for abolishing tax credits. Firstly, to encourage companies to reinvest more of their profits rather than (over) distributing them as dividends (the theory being that increased investment would lead to higher profits which, in turn, would lead to an increase in the value of the companies), secondly, because pension schemes were already sitting on large surpluses and, thirdly, because employers had already benefited from prolonged pension holidays (and could therefore afford to make contributions to offset the "lost" tax credits). As it turned out, GB's logic, through no fault of his own, was wrong. If he'd known that pension schemes were actually in deficit and that companies shouldn' have been taking pension holidays for the previous (say) 10 years, one has to think he'd have had to act differently.

GB isn't innocent but both companies and pension actuaries "colluded" to misrepresent the true situation. The fact is that for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s many UK companies were struggling; after the turmoil of the 1970s, profitability was low and cash was very tight (companies often couldn't afford to pay their employer pension contributions and so the pension holidays came as an absolute godsend). Likewise, actuaries were very slow to realise that rising longevity would have a major impact on their benefit cost calculations (and one suspects that companies were unlikely to have encouraged them to "look under the bonnet" even if they were so inclined - it's been my personal experience that nobody ever seems willing to question an actuary even though they are just as falliable as the next person).

Bottom line, neither companies nor the government (without raising other taxes) could afford to find the c£5bn annual cost of tax credits. We need to stop blaming GB alone. It was a collective effort.

Cookcoo, Sorry for being dull but which particular "evil man" are you referring to?

TheFarEnd, Get your facts right before you continue to spread the misinformation. Gordon Brown never taxed dividends! He abolished the tax credits paid to pension schemes, that Norman Lamont initially cut four years previously, which paved the way for the abolition of advance corporation tax (ACT) two years later.

At the time, ACT had become a big and growing problem for the UK's large multinational companies; they often couldn't recover all of the ACT they paid on their dividends and had to write it off as irrecoverable (because the ACT could only be offset against their UK corporation tax) which, in turn, lead them to having much higher effective rates of corporation tax. For example, at one point I believe that Rolls Royce was quoted as having paid c£1bn of irrecoverable ACT! The abolition of ACT permitted many of these multinational companies not only to recover ACT previously considered irrecoverable but also enabled them to potentially pay higher dividends in the future (because they had a lower effective corproration tax rate). So it wasn't all swings without any roundabouts (as some people like to make out).

There had to be some quid pro quo; successive governments had, in effect, used irrecoverable ACT, at least in part, to fund the cost of repaying tax credits to pension schemes and GB needed to square the circle. The change is often painted as a "tax grab" that's overly simplistic.

Undoubtedly, the abolition of tax credits did have an impact on pension funds but equally, and often overlooked (particularly by those involved in the pension industry; one wonders why?!), there was also a significant impact from actuaries getting their mortality rates wrong over a prolonged period. Throughout the the late 1980s and 1990s many companies benefited from "pension holidays" (companies paying little or no employer pension contributions into defined benefit pension schemes) because actuaries were systematically underestimating the members' lifespans (supposedly the mortality tables were at least ten years out of date). As a consequence, once actuaries started using up to date mortality tables in the early 2000s most of the previous surpluses in defined benefit pension schemes literally evaporated over night and, in many cases, became significant deficits, with no recourse to force employers to immediately repay the pension contributions previoulsy foregone, and only served to further accelerate the move away from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes.

Interestingly, amongst the reasons cited by GB to support his rationale for abolishing tax credits were the prevailing pension scheme surpluses and pension holidays and one is therefore left to wonder what might have happened if the actuaries had been using up to date mortality rates!

What a difference a day makes! The net asset value has fallen 4p between the end of December and the start of January; the difference between an annual dividend of 5.9p (declared today) and 5.7p!

The distributable reserves are irrelevant. The trust has a current NAV of 94.7pps and if you allow for selling and winding up costs, investors would do well to receive the current market price of c87.6pps. Where's the gain in that?

Well, they did round up last year, so it's possible.

One is getting ahead of oneself methinks. Commercial trials of ReZorce are due to commence in Q1 2024 according to ZTF's trading update in November. Limited commercial trials are not the same as a full blown commercial roll-out. Hopefully the former will lead to the latter but we shouldn't count our chickens just yet. Meanwhile the shoe contract with Nike seems to be going from strength to strength and commercial aeroplane manufacturing seems to be picking up; both of which should augur well for 2024, even without ReZorce entering commercial manufacturing.

Denby, Condolences for your loss. I know this is probably a stupid question but have you sent them, and have they received, all the documents that they need to complete processing the claim? When you call them that only starts the process. You still need to provide them with an original death certificate plus any other document they might request before the claim will be paid. Also, I know it's a bit of prosaic, but have you checked who the nominated recipient is on the insurance policy and how payment is normally made (is payment made by cheque or bank transfer). If the payment was nominated to be paid directly into the deceased's bank account, then you might want to check with their bank whether any payment has been received (presuming access to the bank account has now been stopped); if the funds have been paid direct into the deceased's bank account you can still request that the bank provide the funds to pay the funeral costs, on provision of an appropriate invoice, without the need for probabte to be granted (as I understand). Have you spoken to Aviva since? Have they given you any explanation for the delay?

Sorry, I used the slang term for cigarettes and got ***! Clearly LSE doesn't use an AI chat bot ;-)