ADVFN Logo

We could not find any results for:
Make sure your spelling is correct or try broadening your search.

Trending Now

Toplists

It looks like you aren't logged in.
Click the button below to log in and view your recent history.

Hot Features

Registration Strip Icon for alerts Register for real-time alerts, custom portfolio, and market movers

EIG Ei Group Plc

284.60
0.00 (0.00%)
Last Updated: 00:00:00
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Stock Type
Ei Group Plc EIG London Ordinary Share
  Price Change Price Change % Share Price Last Trade
0.00 0.00% 284.60 00:00:00
Open Price Low Price High Price Close Price Previous Close
284.60
more quote information »

Ei EIG Dividends History

No dividends issued between 28 Mar 2014 and 28 Mar 2024

Top Dividend Posts

Top Posts
Posted at 26/7/2019 22:03 by jeffian
Well I had the conversation with 'one who knows' how these things work. My line was that, with private equity putting up most of the £3bn to buy the company as financed currently, would they/could they find the other £2bn-odd to refinance the debt? Apparently, the answer is 'yes'. EIG's debt currently costs +/-6.5% and PE would expect to make a considerable saving on that. I have no idea. I would be disappointed if taken out of my EIG Bonds as they form a solid income base for my SIPP, but I won't have any say in the matter either way.
Posted at 26/7/2019 10:27 by jeffian
Thank you. For all the flak and rubbish that goes on on bulletin boards, they are genuinely helpful on occasions!

It will be interesting to see whether that condition applies. Whether Stonegate has a worse rating than EIG, the bonds are secured on a ring-fenced group of pubs so the security is the same.
Posted at 22/7/2019 16:47 by spob
sometimes there are change of ownership clauses associated with company debts

not sure what the situation is for EIG
Posted at 17/5/2019 22:31 by jeffian
I agree with you entirely, leading. Without the £273m of 'goodwill', the NAV stands at around 265p/share so the argument is getting quite close to being tested.

The other issue is to understand what is going on here. Acquisitive companies (as Enterprise was) end up with a lot of Goodwill on their balance sheets because they've paid a price - based on earnings etc - which exceeds the underlying asset value and the difference is expressed as 'goodwill'. In the heady days of the 1990's post-Beer Orders, new entrants were scrambling to build estates and groups of pubs attracted a premium - known as the "lotting premium" - which could be 20% higher than the underlying value of the individual pubs. This is a large element of what EIG calls "goodwill". It is irrelevant now, of course, but to have written it off in a single hit in the 2008/9 debacle would have killed the pubco's stone dead, so it is being massaged out of the Balance Sheet gradually as pubs are sold.
Posted at 17/5/2019 16:02 by jeffian
leading,
I have only just caught up with the webcast of the Interim Results presentation -

- much discussion of "returns to shareholders" but no mention of the word "dividend" until around 42 minutes in when one of the analysts asks. The answer is that they think about it but will continue down the share buyback route as long as the shares stand at a significant discount to NAV.
Posted at 14/5/2019 09:39 by jeffian
Well the market seems to quite like the interim results but, insofar as there are any "returns to shareholders", this remains very firmly in the form of reductions in debt and the use of "surplus" cash for share buybacks (an increased programme announced today). I have considerable sympathy with your penultimate paragraph, leading, but I think we can draw conclusions from the fact that the word "dividend" does not appear anywhere in the report!
Posted at 25/4/2019 10:42 by leading
A few thoughts on EIG.

NAV per share at 30/09/18 was 334p. Assuming this hasn't changed much gives a discount of share price (223p) to NAV of 33%. On a tangible NAV basis (excluding goodwill) its more like 25%. The share price has increased substantially lately coincident with the recent buybacks. There is still probably a bit further to go, but at some point the focus will switch to earnings prospects and dividends rather than the NAV discount to justify further progress.

All is not doom and gloom on the earnings front. Strong employment figures and positive real wage growth bode well. In the short term, the fine Easter weather must have secured a good start to the second half albeit against strong comparatives. Against this, there will be some cost inflation in wages (and pension contributions from April onwards).

Heroic assumptions ahead: It looks to me that the company should be able to meet all bond repayments due up to and including 2022 from cash flows as they fall due if it chooses to. I am assuming that the company generates £140m of cash p.a. being net cash from operations of £270m less interest of £130m. This assumes that capital expenditure on the estate continues to be financed from disposals. So, for the four years including 2022 thats £540m. Bonds due are £125m in 2021 and £250m in 2022 and about £270m of the amortising securitised bonds, all of which totals £645m. So, OK, the company needs find £100m from cash balances or disposals to make it work.

It is hard to see earnings making real progress on a declining asset base as properties continue to be sold to finance capital expenditure.

Regardless of my comments about debt service above, I wonder if a dividend will be reinstated soon. With the discount to NAV greatly reduced it becomes much harder to justify buybacks. Reinstating a dividend would increase the attraction to institutions, some of whom are mandated away from non-payers. A dividend of 3.35p would give a yield of 1.5% at a cost to the company of £15m p.a. which might be a suitable starting point. Perhaps we will see one with the next annual results.

Edited 26/4/19. Easter 2019 is in second half not first as in the original post.
Posted at 18/1/2019 11:29 by jeffian
Returning to leaving's comments about debt, and particularly #30 above, I drew attention to the securitised bonds. Of the total £2bn current net debt, around £900m is in the form of securitised debt which is being amortised (payments of income plus capital like a repayment mortgage) over a period up to 2032. There are around £1,275bn corporate bonds for fixed terms expiring 2021-2031 which will need to be repaid or refinanced as they mature. (The difference between those figures and net debt is made up of £158m net cash). leading applies the full £348m disposal proceeds to debt repayment (although I doubt they will use it all this way) to produce a net debt of £1.69bn which he says is still too high. I think EIG management would point out that £900m of that will be amortised away by 2032 anyway.

The thing about disposals is that the asset being disposed of is likely to produce more than the cost of capital, so whilst you may be reducing your net debt, you are reducing your income even more. The corporate bonds are at rates from 6-7.5% with an average of 6.52%. The package of commercial properties being sold produced 7.7% roc. The pubs are likely to produce considerably more. The '5-year plan' introduced 3 years ago always envisaged that earnings would be flat (higher earnings-per-pub but from less pubs) and this disposal exacerbates that. They are shrinking the company and one can see why they love share buybacks as the only way to increase earnings per share from flat overall earnings. The trick is to find the 'sweet spot' at which the market accepts the debt is sustainable and the company can start to grow earnings again, or carry on down the shrinkage route and maybe carry out an effective liquidation of the assets over time, returning surplus capital to shareholders as they go.
Posted at 29/9/2018 14:08 by typo56
EIG was promoted to the FTSE 250 index yesterday. This accounts for the large uncrossing in Thursday's (27 Sep) closing auction - about 2% of market cap.
Posted at 22/6/2018 13:52 by jeffian
"if they can buy an asset for £1.50 which has a tangible NAV of £2.48 then what's not to like ?"
Other than that it isn't worth £2.48 to you and me if we can't realise it?! They've been living off the "NAV" story for years but until the share price gets anywhere near it, it's just a figment of the accountants' imagination. Over the past few years, EIG have sold £100m's of pubs. Let's say they get NAV for the sales; for every £1 received, they could distribute it to shareholders via a dividend or return of capital (worth £1/£1 in the shareholder's hand) or they could pay down debt (NAV neutral but maybe good for sentiment and thus share price rating) but they choose to "reinvest" it in the estate (look at the annual property write-downs to see how solid that 'value' is!) or buy their own shares which immediately makes that £1 of hard cash worth just 60p in the shareholder's hand (150/248%). If they distributed to shareholders, there would be nothing to stop you piling in and buying more 'discounted' shares, but at least we would have the choice.

Their sole strategy is to seek to 'improve the quality' of the estate and hope that the market rates their shares at something close to the underlying NAV but time and again I have repeated the mantra that Directors/Management do not control the share price, only the market does that, and the management should concentrate on the levers they can and do control - revenues, profits, dividends - and if they improve those, the share price will follow in due course. In fact, all those KPI's have been flat for years - and are projected to remain so through to the end of the "5-year plan" in 2020 so with flat earnings and no dividend for 12 years, how exactly is 'shareholder value' being realised?

Your Recent History

Delayed Upgrade Clock