Member Info for WhiteHorse7

Exactly 4 years to this date I topped up what used to be JRS, to average down . Thought sense would prevail to de-escalate in a couple of months...

Anyway, feeling quite optimistic based on the various developments over the past three weeks. According to the Bloomberg article below, UKR and RUS have reached a agreement on all issues, incl. US providing security guarantees (although Trump has not signed anything yet!), bar ceding of the rest of the Donbas. That is progress, and I am inferring reality has hit home for all parties involved. Territorial sticky point by summer may be a non-issue, judging by the frontline distance to the remaining Donetsk towns. Also Axios reported last week that Trump told Zelensky he would like to see the war end in a month, and Zaluzhni in a very timely fashion is on a holding pattern at Kiev being extremely vocal. Stars are finally aligning

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-02/russia-ukraine-plan-for-us-led-peace-talks-despite-war-in-iran

Can't make the AGM next week. Anyone planning to attend in person?

Oh dear; another impulsive tantrum after a 'disastrous' negotiation with the US yesterday (disastrous, according to SKY news that is. Judging by the body language at the press conference, I infer it was an utter car crash). https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-latest-eu-leaders-meeting-for-crunch-brussels-talks-as-three-killed-in-ukrainian-drone-attacks-12541713?postid=10765907#liveblog-body

90%, 95%, Zaporiz Nuclear plant, referendum, elections, DMZ - all smoke & mirrors tactics if you ask me. This will drag on a bit longer...

@Troajan, how is video relating to this investment - confused. Do you even hold any JEMA shares?

True, they only manage $0.7Bn of assets; but Whitefort are also the largest shareholder of JEMA as it stands. I personally found it rather interesting that they increased their position a whole week prior to the Axios rumors that the US is in the process of drafting a peace plan.

Slownsteady, agree on atrocious behaviour, especially wrt updating and communicating with shareholders. I can cut them some slack though that they had to be coy and quiet for obvious reasons.

Divestment (which most likely would come in the form of winding down the Trust post an AGM vote, rather than selling the Russian assets to invest in Emerging markets => nobody wants that really) may not be a bad outcome in this situation, IF it happens some time after sanctions are lifted. Better scenario, than what I described as the worst case below, as at least we get back most of the recovery value in the underlying assets and then it is up to each shareholder to determine whether they really want to invest in the long term directly in those assets outside of the JEMA vehicle.

Anyway contemplating scenarios is premature, we need a peace deal first. We are at least closer than we ever been to an agreement, but still not a done deal by any means. I do hope Russians have been consulted throughout (as the US negotiating team claim they did), as the chances of Russia accepting the UKR modified peace plan is absolutely zero/zilch. Anchorage was the compromise they offered. To my surprise I think what is actually happening is Trump pulling the plug early; there has been a significant balance tilt in the last three weeks on the front and it doesn't take a military analyst to run a simulation that this war has crossed the point of no return.

In another note, RNS today confirmed it was Whiteford behind that 6-7m(?) shares transaction last week. Read in that what you will

👍

SlownSteady, I haven't even thought that far ahead myself. I can think of a few scenarios here, but all theoretical at this point - we need Peace first!

I will hazard a guess the private Equity folks are not going to exit until at the very least the S-account balance is distributed. So that gives us plenty of time to decide/deliberate. As long as the underlying companies come out the other end of this in good operational & financial health, the absolute worst case scenario, and i could think of a few scenarios, is a perennial discount to NAV and having to ride that for a while to get the full value at the inevitable Trust wind down at some point in the future. Anyway, we are running ahead of ourselves here

As of close of Friday (21st Nov), the hypothetical portfolio value without any discounts applied to the Russian assets, is £203m (502.49p NAV) and I estimate on top of that a further £55m (140.4p) should be in the S-accounts as of Friday. So 642.9p

If I re-phrase your "...Post sanctions" question, to "what could this possibly be worth in a future state where sanctions have been removed, and the Oilers have recovered to operate unconstrained, and the RUB further recovered against the Pound", then the my guess is this has the potential to get up to 950p (incl. S-account balance). That would not take long ; 9-12 months post sanctions being lifted. See my 4th June post, and apply your own estimate of recovery uplift using 642p as the starting point

Hope this helps 👍

Budapest in two weeks felt too good to be true 😁 Struggling to say with certainty whether there is collusion between TACO & Vlad since Alaska, and have been role playing for the media, or this is another toddler tantrum because Zelensky ruined his plan at the last minute and as a result had to backtrack on his promises to the Russians (resorting to the mantra of stopping at the current frontline, while the day prior he was talking about territory swaps). His scattiness boggles the mind.

In more relevant news to us: a) Belgium not playing along on the Eu140Bn confiscation, and, b) link to the actual US sanction reference docs and some commentary - no news really, unless they wanted to buy American toilets and tricycles: https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-new-us-sanctions-move-actually

That was a turn of events over the past couple of weeks. What do you guys feel the chances are for something concrete coming out of Budapest?

What worries me, in the same week TACO said in absolute terms that India have agreed to stop buying Russian oil, and within 12hrs the Indian government politely said that he is lying and no other country will determine their energy security needs. So not sure anything he says is to be taken seriously anymore. I maintain low expectations, but holding some dry powder ready to deploy just in case.

ps. That interview keeps disappearing over the past year - this is the third time where the video has either been deleted or gone private. This time I downloaded a copy just in case. Enjoy Z the defiant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBi_T4d-7ec

What an interesting few weeks, including the Friday RNS which reminded me I haven't posted for a while. Hope you all have been keeping well

After a long summer break with hardly any news intake, catching up over the past week on recent events. Have to confess, I started questioning myself whether I am being greedy and should bag my profits and exit. For now decided to stay put, as no fundamentals have changed.

With a clear mind after the break, and lots of hindsight, it is becoming clear to me that the US has no intention to stop the war and I/we/they all underestimated TACO. I have a list of facts/events that helped reach my conclusion, but will spare you from filling this chat with trivial information. When you take actions & facts, what they say is not what they do - and if we take a 50,000ft view here, the US is the only country that benefits without any consequences or risks. They well know that Ukraine will never turn the tide militarily, but another year of uncertainty is enough to get every single North European country to order hardware they will never use. Based on publicly available data I worked out that the US so far has pocketed more than $350Bn on 'incremental' export sales in the period of 2022-24 (incremental to what the average was pre-invasion). Both military sales and Petr/LNG exports have broadly doubled, but military sales is where the game is. This does not include any future sales (part of 5% NATO contribution, every year), annual top ups to UKR (via NATO), minerals deals, reconstruction deals or loan repayments. The amounts are staggering. The only unwilling participants in all of this are the Ukrainian people; not leadership, people.

I optimistically said a couple of months ago we may see a ceasefire signed by October, and things back to normal by early 2026. I was too naive to ignore actions and was just hanging on the theatre play narrative. The way things are progressing the most likely scenario for a peace deal signed is when the US will pull the plug; and my guess is this will happen once they realise that Russia is very close to meeting their objectives (or at least what they stated their objectives are), and are now heading towards the Moldovan border. Trump will blame Zelensky for not agreeing to the deal earlier, hold him responsible for the loss of a 'trillion men per day', and simply pull the plug. So i moved my timeline to mid 2026.

That's it folks - unfortunately we are in for another year, unless a miracle happens

ps. Bonus present for the history boffins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7U5Op8Zlyc

Snippets from Alaska I picked up (ignoring all the pointless noise from the media on how fast Trump was going up the AF1 staircase, how smirk Putin's smile was, or what it means that they did not have the luncheon etc):

- Meeting lasted more than 2-3 minutes

- Talks of unconditional ceasefire out of the window and Trump will only be supporting working towards 'the' peace plan (that was his actual statement). According to Trump the European leaders on the Saturday morning call agreed to this (if you believe Trump's ramblings, that is)

- Zelensky has been summoned to Washington DC Monday, after a "difficult call post the Alaska summit"

- Russian media refer to a Putin/Zelensky (trilateral) meeting to be set up by end of August . It is obvious Putin will not engage with Zelensky at all; so any meeting where both attend for us is a signal that the conditions for a peace deal have already been agreed prior

Maybe I was too pessimistic with my assessment of a most likely scenario being a US brokered frozen conflict - looks like we have shifted a gear here

NotthatBright, I had calculated 145p as of 4th of June. As of 21st May JEMA stated that they had received £7.3m of incremental dividends; which leaves c. £10m of dividends that have been declared, but by that time not received in the S account cash balance. Divs payments have always been consistent post declarations, so I am quite confident on the 145p as of 4th of June.

JohnNth, recall something similar being mentioned by the US administration (Witkoff also talked about frozen lines). Sounds a more likely scenario that there will be a ceasefire (and Trump hail it as a great Deal he delivered), rather than an actual peace plan settlement in the traditional sense with territory recognition, and signatories' guarantees. The latter will take a long time, if ever (Cyprus is a prime example or even Korea); but nevertheless even without a final negotiated settlement I feel as long as there is an actual ceasefire to current lines, and some mickey mouse document for Trump and Putin to sign, sanctions will start being lifted and the US/RUS trade resume. Merz or Rutte have no say on how or when sanctions on S Accounts will be lifted, neither where and with whom JPMorgan will be doing business with. Hence I mentioned I feel upbeat; I can see the pressure points landing in some ceasefire of sorts, where the two leave the meeting feeling it is a win-win situation; maybe an MoU by early Sept, and implementation around Oct/Nov.

Don't think the progress, or lack of, on the frontline is the motivation for Putin to stop; why would he stop when he is winning ? His sole motivation is to stop Russia being the pariah state, as he must be facing immense pressure internally from his elite (you see the Oligarchs must be pretty hacked off having to holiday in Cambodia/Vietnam instead of Monaco and St. Lucia 😁) i.e. he is motivated to be back in business at the world stage with no restrictions. Trump just accelerated his thinking on the inevitable decision, with the pressure he is facing from his hardcore Republican base. Putin is also facing his own hardcore political base, who believe Russia should declare war and enforce army mobilisation (29-30m army anyone?) to take back all that is theirs; don't think Putin is actually swayed by them, but for him Trump is also offering an excuse out of having to please those extreme voices.

An article yesterday on El Pais International is a pretty balanced read on how the power dynamics shifted over the past year and what could happen next. The frontline follows the typical lifecycle of symmetric warfare (we haven't had many of those in the past 50 years)...months/years of 0 -0.5km/day advances, and then all of a sudden the manpower ratio has tilted so much to one side, that you get 5-10km breakthroughs where there is literally no resistance. This is exactly what happened yesterday North East of Pokrovsk; unfortunately for Ukraine it will get exponentially worse.

Anyway, hopefully some sense will prevail till Friday - fingers X'd indeed

Trump/Putin meeting set and one of the VTB court cases dismissed all together - it was looking like a complete derailment over the past 5 weeks, so this is encouraging bringing us back on track for some sort of a conclusion.

I run an end of July valuation of the portfolio but did not post it, as literally there was hardly any change worth writing about. I will run a detailed valuation end of Sept, pulling all new Dividends since early June (laborious task to go through company statements/comms).

So the scene is set for Friday, where both Trump and Putin can walk out feeling like they both won, and most importantly appease the hardcore Republicans. Lifting of sanctions is mentioned as part of the US (leaked intentionally? Witkoff translation woes 😂) draft; so far, so good. But then Zelensky's statement yesterday of not ceding any territory, and there will be no ceasefire unless they retreat back into Russia, is truly bonkers. Borders on delusion with regards to the actual situation UKR finds itself on the frontline. Suspect European benefactors are not happy about their return on investment; but unless they put troops on the ground, they can talk philosophically talk about a just peace all they want.

So fingers crossed my fellow investors for a level of reconciliation behind the scenes, by Friday. Been a long wait - i am feeling upbeat Trump is committed to settle this

Sanctions lifted for ;new' investments only (sole stipulation appears to be any investment that would equate to more than 10% voting rights in a single company, would require government approval):

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russia-launches-accounts-with-withdrawal-guarantees-foreign-investors-2025-07-01/

IBKR makes sense; all US institutions back in 2022 were banned from trading any MOEX holdings, or funds constituted of MOEX holdings (and although JRS changed name, the iSIN is the same so remains in the sanctioned list - my hypothesis). Surprised a Swiss bank owned platform does not allow though.

Opening a UK account is probably the easiest route to trade this IT

AJB and iWeb are also ok. Which platform are you using not allowing trades?

Loganair, you need to adjust for Fx the £35.3m declared last year (GBP was at 125.57 RUB end of October 24).

From the Half Year Report:

"At present the dividends paid from the Russian securities in the Company's portfolio are held in a custody 'S' account in Moscow. The balance on the 'S' account as at 21st May 2025 was equivalent to approximately £42.6 million at the exchange rate applicable on that date. The Company's Manager is monitoring the receipts into the 'S' account against dividends announced by the portfolio companies although there is no certainty that the sums in the 'S' account will ever be received by the Company. The Board also monitors the underlying local value of the Russian assets, although there is much uncertainty of these values ever being realisable by the Company.

As at 21st May 2025, an additional £10.3 million of dividends have been announced but are yet to be received. Your Board also monitors this in order to assess whether all dividends due are in fact accurately recorded in the 'S' account. As previously detailed, these dividends cannot be remitted to the Company and may never be received. They are not recognised in the Company's net asset value or in its income statement."

Pretty good estimation on the incremental Divs since 31/10/24, with £7.3m already received in the S-Account. Apart from Gazprom and MMC, rest appear unaffected so far on the distributions front. Sistema should be declaring tomorrow.

So from a valuation perspective feeling quite upbeat, and the potential is even better than I originally anticipated. However (here comes the BUT)…

From where we stand today, I cannot envisage a conclusion any time soon. My original thesis (thesis sounds more scientific; wishful thinking may be more apt) was that there would be a truce of sorts by Easter, with sanctions start easing by Q3 this year. As things stand, not feeling overly confident any peace agreement will be decided before winter 25/26. So we are looking at early 2026 potentially here. Over the past two months we have gone backwards in intent, and narrative, but at least the one positive sign is the two sides are talking F2F. Why I feel this will drag on longer:

- Since the coalition of the willing (F me), Zelensky has gone 180 to a position of 'no compromise'. Reminds me of UKR pulling out of 2022 Istanbul talks after 'allegedly' our Boris promised him that NATO got their back. This panned out really well for UKR so far. The messaging has become very ultimatum(y), and like it or not when dealing with a dictator, such as Putin, this stance doesn't work. In fact it has the opposite effect.

- Talking of opposite effect, I feel there will be a major retaliation coming in response to the bombers attack. Similarly to most Asian cultures, cannot be seen losing face. I feel that decision will set the peace talks back, if not derail them completely for a while

- Putin is winning the war of attrition, so he is not stopping. In fact I can see by end of the year they will be talking about 6 oblasts, not 4. Also I am not buying the 'weak on their knees' media portrayal; the front line has been advancing

- The 2hrs call between Trump & Putin was rather bizarre; all Trump had to say afterwards was that 'it went really well'. This is not a good sign. It means it would have gone two potential ways: a) They couldn't agree on anything and Putin made it clear he is not compromising, or, b) they already agreed 'the' compromise to end the war. Either scenario involves this running its course throughout 2025.

- Russia started lifting some restrictions on foreign companies this year (that's really positive in itself), but at very slow pace so far. Would expect showing positive intent at a larger scale; nothing to lose per se opening their market again, even selectively. It is not like the assets of Ariston or Starbucks are going to be pawn for negotiating with US/Europe, is it?

Anyway, not to put a dampener, as essentially none of the fundamental assumptions have changed here. I stay put on my position and remain optimistic on the end prize, but setting my expectations low on timescales. If the smart money make an exit, will re-assess.

"The Russian court has postponed the appeal hearing in relation to a claim granted to VTB Bank against eight J.P. Morgan legal entities and JEMA to 2nd July 2025.". What a surprise - at least this side of the equation is predictable :)

RNS prompted me to re-run a portfolio valuation update (sharing if anyone finds it remotely interesting/useful). All MOEX prices as of cob 3rd June, RUB/GBP at 106.67, and individual share price changes compared to 21st Feb (last time I took a snapshot of each individual stock).

1. Reported NAV as of 2nd June

56.18p

2. Sanctions fully lifted

516p (Theoretical portfolio value of £208.6m, of which £22.72m is what JEMA has been reporting. This is a reduction of £16m since the 21st of Feb; main detractors being Gazprom -24%, ROSNEFT -22%, LUKOIL -14% - softening from the euphoria of end of Feb, with share prices for the Oilers back to early Jan valuations. The banks are doing ok: SBERBANK +0.5%, and VTB Bank +9%)

3. £35.3m of dividends confirmed as received (I add dividends to the NAV for valuation purposes...although it will be pretty certain this would be paid as a special 1-off dividend if restrictions to the S-accounts are lifted)

619p (102.7p is what has been declared by JEMA as of 31st of October 2024, adjusted for Fx)

4. Dividends^ from 31st of October 2024 to today

Unless I have missed any comms, JEMA has not made any comment to confirm what has been received since the 31st of Oct. So all this is speculative until we have a confirmation from JEMA on what the new balance is in the S-account. Based on declared dividends posted, for the MOEX holdings, I can count 1.833Bn RUB (£17.18m). Equivalent to a further 42.5p NAV (so total divs of 142p)

658p

5. RUB recovery (my prediction is the long term settling point will be just over 95 to the £; held very well so far this year)

735-745p

6. Medium Term Recovery of the individual companies' share performance

Now this is where I am feeling more bullish vs end of last year; the reason being we pretty much saw the surge in Feb (I call it the 'Trump euphoria period'), and even those highs were not close enough to pre-war highs for the Oilers. So from the share prices today, can see a 30-35% increase

So my assessment is this could worth anything between 56.18p and 950p , incl. dividends to date.