Member Info for ValueMB

They never were good with issuing a steady stream of news, so I will not read too much into it. Some of the information I have seen have been rather partial; mentions of illegal miners at Evander, mentions of chinese investors (who were rejected allegedly for not offering enough, although unclear exactly what they were offering money for), and mentions of the coal repaying itself in five years and having room for expansion. Now, more interesting: you point out that the all in costs were above 1200 USD. Their costs were perhaps 1200 USD equiv (when gold traded at 1400) but they do not actually pay most of their costs in USD, most of their expenses are in ZAR (salaries, electricity). It makes a difference for two reasons, first of all because of the falling ZAR to USD they are not getting that much less ZAR now for their gold than they did before: Gold price change by % (ZAR) over the last: 1 day change -0.1% 30 day +8.37% 6 months +7.14% 1 year 10.88% 5 years 68.30%. The same is, by the way, true for currencies in many other countries with extensive mines such as Australia. Seeing as this is the case, I do not think the falling USD gold price is quite as bad as it seems (for the corporate viability). However, on the other hand, the ZAR has done poorly vs the GBP as well, which will reduce the dividends received in GBP. It has fallen approximately 15-16% compared to a year ago. A lower dividend may be preferable over a non-profitable business though. I think the SA political situation and the unions are more of a concern than the USD per oz at the moment.

Until some serious profits are being spat out, it will remain a "boring" share with low volume. Does not make it a bad one per se, if you have the patience. Gas should be relatively safe, even in the current situation.

The stock "appreciated" close to 10%, but this is on a background of low volume trading. I know of no news to drastically alter the value of the company.

Trust none. Make your own judgement call based on your favorite poison (be it fundamentals, "technical" or whatever). I don't think a slight appreciation over time is unreasonable though. As an aside, in view of the muted share price response it appears that most anticipated results close to the ones published.

Good morning. I see I am not the only one keeping an eye on this one. As I read it, we should see 10p special dividend and 15.1p ordinary dividend. The latter appears to be following their stated aim of paying an ordinary dividend with 3.0 cover. With the special dividend, cover ratio falls to 1.8 (which I do not find to be a reason for concern). It is worth noting that the ordinary dividend stated is the total for the year and that an interim dividend of 4.8p were paid out in May. Therefore, we should (I suppose) expect 10.3p in ordinary in November. I do not know when the special dividend will be paid (or when shares will be ex-div) though. Looking at the actual business side, an increase in completions, profit and margins are all pointing in the right direction. In addition, Chief exec saying "The new financial year has started very well; we have a strong forward sales position and are making very good progress towards our FY17 targets of at least a 20% gross margin and at least a 25% return on capital employed." is re-assuring and I believe we should see a continued growth unless there is a dramatic change to the UK housing market. Overall it is a good result but it is also a somewhat expected result of a company in their line of business. Disclaimer: Holding BDEV.

RNS was out rather swiftly. I must say that I was somewhat surprised that they put in the effort to explain the degree of feedstock that was reliant on IFL, and other relevant information rather than simply the absolute minimum. I did not have high expectations of the passing of information from PAF HQ, I suppose. SA is not business friendly at the moment, and I think that inbetween that, the energy prices and the miners expectations of continuous bumper pay rises, it's an unfortunate place for mine owners. However, some mines shutting down may well be the kind of thing required to make various people in SA become more realistic.

Get off the AIM, provide a more continuous stream of information, and perhaps have more than one dividend a year. Would probably improve confidence a bit.

At the moment it seems PAF shares have limited liquidity with wide spread and fluctuations. My opinion personally is that I will not top up as I would be a bit heavy on mining sector if I did. If you're low that may be an option but I'm not sure I would consider this share for a quick get in get out kind of deal. But then again, I rarely if ever do. If you're happy to suit on them for a while and have done your research, then perhaps. PS. From phone, spelling may be atrocious.

Regarding Harmony and PAF, I do recall reading (although cannot recall the source at present) that Harmony has suffered a greater fall in SP compared to output than PAF, because they have a greater proportion of their output from marginal mines which may not be profitable in a harsher economic climate. I am believe I have read/heard from the company, either in an issued statement/report, or in an interview with Mr Loots, that he endeavours to keep the dividend. I believe there may have been a comment that "investors expected a dividend". But that may well have changed since. In another article or interview I believe they stated that approximately half the coal would be sold to a local power plant and the remainder to smaller companies or exported. I think we are all rather keen to see what September will bring, regarding dividends, coal mine, higher grade gold, etc. Also eagerly awaiting the news on the wage negotiations, of course.

Sadly most fool.co.uk material seems to be comprised of slight waffle of dubious value (due to its very limited depth) followed by "but if you give us money we will tell you something with greater certainty!".

I do not know what the likelihood of the dividend being maintained is. I could speculate but the honest truth is that It likely depends on a number of things which are still uncertain, such as what comes of the negotiations with the unions. There has been a slight recovery recently in the SP, I am not quite sure why. Either someone knows something "special", or people are a bit more optimistic.

Good morning everyone, and a warm welcome to our newest potential share chat addict. Regarding the coal acquisition; I suppose there are two lines of argument that I can agree with. Less so with the idea that it is to hedge against energy prices. True, most of south africas energy is from coal fired plants and it's the right type of coal. But that is assuming that any fluctuation in energy cost is mirrored by an at least similar change in coal price, which may or may not be true (costs may also be due to labour or legislation/taxation). However, if the coal mine is profitable and good value, I have no issues with that. True, it is not gold, but income is income. Regarding the larger holders; Shanduka's share is being handed over to others I believe but not through sale on the open market. Other than that I agree, there seems to be no signs of panic. Eagerly awaiting the news in September, to see what it will be like.

As Roggy said, there is not much in terms of negative company specific news. The previous statement was not one of doom and gloom, and as such there may be pleasant surprises (who knows, other than insiders) in the upcoming release in September.

I step out for one moment... Someone earlier speculated that I may be shorting PAF. I do not know if they did not read previous messages where I stated I owned some shares or if they thought I made that up. If I were to short the share and said it was terrible, it should not really matter. Nobody should recklessly alter their investment strategy on something as flimsy as an anonymous post on an online forum. If you care greatly about positions of posters, I hold shares in PAF. Now, that said, the share price has fallen significantly as of late. I have not yet seen solid evidence that there is any reason for this drop (or this drop to occur when it did). The coal mine was not expensive enough to warrant a reduction in value to this extent. The low grade cycle and many other issues that have been mentioned were not "news" when the changes to the share price occurred. Regarding the gold price, over the past year it has fallen over 150 USD per ounce. But PAF does not sell for USD, they sell for ZAR (from which they pay their expenses sans dividends) where it is similar to a year ago. Now that I have fed the rumour mill (and doubtlessly made everyone call up their broker) I shall return to patiently await the September news.

Okay, done a fair bit of reading. I would not expect the geology to be perfect very often. However, if you are correct that higher grades will not return, and they are saying they are already mining them, they would have to be making it up. I am interested in seeing the coming statement from them. In regards to selling assets, which particular assets is this? The Mozambique part? I believe the company says that they bought the coal mine because they had the money, it was good value and it provides some hedging vs higher energy prices. With 90% of the electricity in South Africa coming from coal fired energy plants, that could well be true. However, I do not know whether they were telling the truth of course. Again, although they are saying that it is profitable, I do not yet know what the rate of return is on this investment. The price fell from 20 to 10 p from 2013 onwards. Looking at the share options issued at the time, they did issue a fair few share options in the year ending june 2014 (12m or so). However, being share options, the cost to the company (and the gain by the holders of these options) is reliant on the share price NOT falling. A lower share price should therefore render them less significant, although the options may last for a number of years. Any share option pay out would have to have been from share options issued two years prior. I am still to investigate if there is anything improper with Shanduka, but it does seem that they are now further removed from the company following this latest deal, and their positions are being taken up by other actors. One of these is another "empowering" company, but it will have a smaller share than Shanduka did. Various things have been suggested, some harder to prove than others perhaps. Out of all of them, however, the only thing that has changed with the trading statement is that the news of the coal mine acquisition is now public. I suppose this is then the main reason to change one's valuation of the company.

Sorry forgot to add, could you add some more information on the share options to staff? Many thanks.

Regarding the grades, if they completely made it up I am sure it will unravel rather soon since they claim to be mining higher grade ore now. If Shanduka is murky, I suppose we should be glad they are removing themselves. To what extent the coal mine is a liability or a beneficial acquisition is hard to say without numbers of expected rate of free cash flow etc. I am not as convinced as you are that the company is a dud, but at least there are suggestions for the lower share price, thank you.

Very brief summary of trading update: Completion up 7%, total revenues up 12%, their selling price is up 4%, forward sales are 12% ahead of last year, outlet network is 5% stronger since start of year, expecting to open 125 sites in h2 compared to 122 in h1, cash holdings at 278m. Language is quite optimistic. Half year result 18/08/2015.

If I recall correctly, we should have an update tomorrow, Q2 trading statement. I am not going to trade between now and then (before anyone accuses me of trying to manipulate the market), but it will be interesting to see what their performance is like compared to expectations (BKG's recent results in mind) and the effect it will have on the price.

I will have to look into their twitter, thanks for the heads up. First off, I am not an expert on the "G-group" and I would suggest you do not act on my view alone. With that disclaimer out of the way; logic suggests that an increase in GDG funds should result in further investments, in turn leading to increased business for GEL.