The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
and thanks JustBe for advice, just read your post. I see you share the placing leak concerns, but have managed to retain an interest here by adapting your investment strategy accordingly
Reading this in depth and excellent article about the online chat board abuse, bullying, and even physical threats David Bramhill has received in the past on share chat boards makes me think that the poor bloke must be getting a strong sense of deja vu just now.
reuters.com/article/uk-online-stocks-idUKTRE6AL1RH20101122
It is interesting that the High Court actually made a judgement that forced the chat board hosts to reveal the identities of those who spread malicious information, and that it is illegal to do so (be warned!).
I hope the similarities between the article and todays situation ends at the cyber bullying level, and that the Union Jack story will have a happier ending than Nighthawk.
UJO seems to me like a really exciting story on the cusp of something, an attractive proposition for a potential investor, however the main thing stopping me from investing at the moment is this business about the placings being constantly leaked prior to announcement. That smacks of a real problem, not to mention unprofessionalism, and it is obvious it does nothing for the humour of the shareholders, as I witness here!
Been watching this one with interest, and my concern now is the appeal process dragging on and on and on
Does anyone know how far the two vultures are apart?
Yeah - talk about waiting and choosing your moment.
I expect some of us who got in here a bit too early (like a year early!) could learn a thing or two from Mr. Sneller. Anyway, at least I am still here, as things are about to get interesting
Excellent news.
Will be interesting to see how many he intends to acquire. Owns over 10% of Deltic Energy, and seems not to be done yet here.
and why is that then mozzabezza?
It's worth remembering the CEOs letter that accompanied the annual report back in April (see below excerpt). Makes it clear why they haven't executed a production deal as of yet, but that they are certainly looking. It's not either/or.
"This year has seen oil and gas prices stabilising at a much higher level and vaccination programmes are being
rolled out. The transaction market is already looking more positive and in the UK, several large production deals
have already been announced. The activity so far this year has been dominated by buyers who seem willing to bid
for assets at a level that would not meet our investment strategy. However there are several processes that have
been launched recently, and we expect more assets to come to market as vendors seek to take advantage of the
uptick in commodity prices.
In Norway, temporary tax incentives have resulted in continued high level of exploration drilling with many
development projects now being planned. Exploration drilling results in Norway have remained very strong,
including two excellent discoveries by ConocoPhillips in the second half of 2020 and two significant discoveries
by Equinor in the first months of this year. In consequence, we see attractive Norwegian transaction opportunities
in the exploration, appraisal and development areas, and some of the processes we are currently pursuing involve
potential exploration farm-ins. Accordingly, we have included the acquisition of exploration assets as an integral
part our investment strategy."
Those who advocated waiting to see what the first deal looked like before buying in have proved to be the smart ones here.
We can moan about the placing price although as haggis points out the institutions will have been calling the shots.
And remember Blackrock sold about 50,000 shares in Feb at 85p (I thought that was rotten then and I still do, especially as they will have been the ones calling the shots re agreeing to support the deal, and the placing price).
I guess we need to do a reset here in our minds (those of us who have been around here a while) and although okay we didnt get the placing premium we felt we deserved, it is now (or soon to be) a much more exciting time to be involved here.
So apart from the bad taste of Blackrock recently selling at 85p to keep a lid on the sp pre deal, I am looking forward to seeing how the next 18 months unfold.
fair play Paul. I am also interested to see what placing price will be, although would expect a decent premium seeing as the deal seems very promising with lots of high potential upside.
I noticed via Twitter that Malcy has already had a chat with HH on the phone. Sounded really positive. Hopefully there will be a full interview available soon, once the deal is fully signed off.
jeez pauldrayton you really are the man who even sees a glass undeniably full as a glass that is likely to get knocked over onto your nice carpet at any moment.
I actually think it is a bit disrespectful to air such scenarios on here, about a "danger of the BoD buying in lower than the ipo price or issuing themselves with more options."
That's not going to happen and if you are worried about something like that happening I question why you are so heavily invested here, I really do.
Longboat may have been slow to get some wind in their sails but organized in terms of their structure and management incentives they certainly are, anyone who has taken time to follow the company from the beginning can see that everything is in place and spelled out clearly in the Admission Document in terms of the share options, aka the FIP (Founders Incentive Plan).
To suggest that this Norwegian based company could conceivably now just toss all that in the bin and screw us over is pretty irresponsible, and plain silly.
I liked the paragraph about the deal's Value Creation:
"NAV creation potential of over $1 billion based on precedent transactions on the NCS for development assets".
It seems like with the generous tax rebate on offer at the moment that it is no wonder they have moved to take advantage of this. Opportunism indeed!
Just got in and seen all the posts following this mornings news (finally!!). Daveri and Chanceman are the posters I share similar positive sentiments with.
Congratulations all long suffering holders, the Longboat is finally heading off into the North Sea and we are on board.
Surely the raise is going to be higher than the IPO price, as Chanceman says - that should be the II and PI reward for being the earliest backers of the company, the ones who sponsored the building of the longboat as it were.
In terms of the deal announced - the recent couple of updates made it pretty clear to me that in the current climate, with the very attractive rebate for exploration and developments in Norwegian waters, they were working on securing this kind of deal, and in the meantime they are being patient to wait for the right production deals to come along. I think that makes good sense, and I'm happy with what's been announced today, its a great start for them to build from. If we can get a steady appreciation in the share price going forward based on the upcoming news flow with positive results, that will set us up nicely for considerable further jump(s) up as future deals (hopefully ones including production) are announced, this should prove to be an interesting company to be invested in over the next few years. I certainly plan to stick around and watch the story unfold. My hope is that with the continued pressure on the big oil companies to divest assets there will be some really attractive opportunities for Longboat going forward, and the more established they are the bigger the deals they can consider.
Well done Helge and Co, you finally delivered something for us to get excited about.
This extract from the recent Annual Results statement make it pretty clear that they haven't seen value in deals so far in 2021:
"The activity so far this year has been dominated by buyers who seem willing to bid for assets at a level that would not meet our investment strategy.”
This extract from the same statement suggests first significant news we will get will relate to acquisition or farm-in to exploration, appraisal and development.
“In Norway, temporary tax incentives have resulted in continued high level of exploration drilling with many development projects now being planned. Exploration drilling results in Norway have remained very strong, including two excellent discoveries by ConocoPhillips in the second half of 2020 and two significant discoveries by Equinor in the first months of this year. In consequence, we see attractive Norwegian transaction opportunities in the exploration, appraisal and development areas, and some of the processes we are currently pursuing involve potential exploration farm-ins. Accordingly, we have included the acquisition of exploration assets as an integral part our investment strategy.”
With the current tax incentives, it seems to be a sensible solution to me, and I'm happy for them to be getting on with this, whilst they also wait for the right production deal to come along, which could still be months away.
(oh and of course there is going to an extension agreed daveri007!).
Yeah good spot knokke.
My take on this is that it is to do with pursuing exploration, appraisal and development. I thought the new hires were likely to do with preparation for the upcoming licensing round, and your second link appears to confirm this.
News of a production deal could come at any moment of course, however this is Longboat doing something (E&A) in parallel to the M&A deals they are looking at, a plan which is spelled out clearly in their most recent presentation, as you rightly point out. Cheers
Seems strange to me that anyone would be buying x10 higher than 0.1p. Takes all sorts I guess, and just goes to show that some folks will buy anything if the price falls far enough, even if it gets spelled out to them in plain English that the value is practically nil!
Keeping an eye on this one as looks like an exciting prospect. Who knows how long the first deal will take. I have a stake in Longboat Energy and we've been waiting 18 months. Longboat are currently trading at about £0.75m premium to cash (£8.25m market cap vs approx £7.5m in bank), whereas Sterling appear to be trading at about £6 million premium to cash, if my calcs are right (£36m market cap vs £30m in bank).
Just giving some perspective here. I continue to watch, and will look to buy in if and when sp gets closer to cash in bank.
"The new North Sea players riding the wake of the retreating majors"
If you google the above and click on the search result link you can bypass the paywall.
Interesting article, gives a nice overview of the current situation in the recent historical context.
I remember HH talking about the 'changing of the guard' in the interview from last year. Seems it's very much ongoing, and as HH mentioned these deals throw up assets for smaller players as the portfolios need rationalising.
Discussing profit margin in the UK v Norway production made me think that we ought to be looking to buy UK production assets and concentrate on E&A in Norway! Perhaps that has been the plan all along.
Perhaps Paul. Still reads as gibberish though.
Anyways - looking forward to hearing some news soon. I think mozzabezza is probably right insofar LBE in talk about some ex-faroe assets and/or fields or areas where faroe had experience
More nonsense from daveri. Amazing how much gobbledegook can be written in the space of three lines!
1) Tulip wasn't stolen from under our noses as Longboat haven't been looking at Dutch assets.
2) 'Any deal will do' - er did you read the Statement in the RNS? “The activity so far this year has been dominated by buyers who seem willing to bid for assets at a level that would not meet our investment strategy.” Clearly any deal will not do for the Board of Longboat Energy.
3) The 'concern' about the 18 month rule is also a red herring - there's every chance that that date will come and go, and assuming it does arrive it will be a formality that the vote is to approve a continuation.
There wasn't a great deal of new info in the Statement, however the keen eyed will have spotted nuggets, that give a clue as to what the company is thinking. And I believe what they are thinking is "production assets are currently overpriced, so we will be patient for the an attractive asset package at the right price, and in the meantime, whilst we are waiting, we will we progress exploration, appraisal and development opportunities in Norway, for which there are currently very generous tax incentives.
E.g. “In Norway, temporary tax incentives have resulted in continued high level of exploration drilling with many development projects now being planned. Exploration drilling results in Norway have remained very strong, including two excellent discoveries by ConocoPhillips in the second half of 2020 and two significant discoveries by Equinor in the first months of this year. In consequence, we see attractive Norwegian transaction opportunities in the exploration, appraisal and development areas, and some of the processes we are currently pursuing involve potential exploration farm-ins. Accordingly, we have included the acquisition of exploration assets as an integral part our investment strategy.”
The hints about this have been getting louder in the last couple of announcements.