Uil Share Discussion Threads

[vacendak] 14/2/2017 10:39

The factsheet is out:


The debt looks a bit better, still fully drawn at £75M but this time it shows indeed at £75M. Last month it showed at £83.1M, was that an unauthorised overdraft?
Gearing down a bit (75.6% instead of 88.2%), mostly thanks to the increase in performance.

Most gains due to gold via Resolute directly and indirectly through Zeta. As noted before, it looks like UIL Ltd is trying to exit Augean, likely tired of waiting for improvements. Orbital back in the top-ten, replacing AUG.

[vacendak] 10/2/2017 09:41

@MF
Indeed, just shy of 300p, but we hit 350p back in September 2016, so this is mostly a slow but steady journey back to where it used to be.
ICM was quick to drop their voluntary fee-cap when the NAV went above 280p last time (around July August) but never re-instated it when it fell below again. Instead they promised to change the way performance fees were to be evaluated for the benefit of the company... UIL Ltd of course! :)

The NAV was for Tuesday, but on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, Zeta jumped by more than 13%. This should help for next week's NAV estimate (assuming ZER stays where it is).

Also good behaviour from UEM lately and the old favourite RSG. ZER must have gone up thanks to Panoramic and also RSG. 'twould be nice for Somers to trade a bit more and allow better price discovery, but well...

And as usual, good news (NAV) is followed by a 1p drop this morning...

[mad foetus] 09/2/2017 16:29

Big leap in NAV there

[vacendak] 06/2/2017 09:08

Dividend announced, UTL up by 3p this morning and sunshine outside!
Bah... it won't last. :(



[edit]
ICMIM has sold 130,000 shares on the market. Charles Jillings runs Utilico EM, and as the RNS states:
"MR & MRS Jillings hold the majority of the shares in ICMIM".
They sold at 197p, and UEM currently ticks at 201p, the spread is relatively tight at 0.5%.

[vacendak] 03/2/2017 10:38

Just for fun:


That was on January 6th. Only ONE trade recorded for that day for the WHOLE exchange. Seriously?

And it was a trade of 190 shares in Somers Ltd (I was looking for news on Somers and fished that one), which left the price unchanged.

Somers Ltd is also mentioned there:

Some involvement in a sharia-compliant fund business?

[vacendak] 02/2/2017 13:03

UIL Ltd is NOT a gold centric investment company! Stop spreading lies! :)

Sure, gold shows up in many of our not-really-visible "resource" portfolio components, but it is officially only a hedge... just a big one.
Gold up today indeed, with the move a bit sharper in Sterling too. Resolute and Panoramic had a reasonable market session overnight.

We shall see today or tomorrow if the NAV keeps on inching upward. The good news about the companies that UIL Ltd holds under two or more layers seem to be percolating through.

Somebody dumped a big load of UTL just before market close yesterday (25,000 around 4.22 p.m.) it seems to have shown-up only today.

[edit]
Resolute has gained regulatory environmental approval for the ravenswood project (Sarsfield site)

[eeza] 02/2/2017 12:13

Gold powering ahead.
UTL full steam astern.

Seems to have become a playground for the MM's.

[morton2011] 31/1/2017 09:13

UTL Also sold another chunk of Resolute - $ 7 million AUS worth

Zeta and other ICM entities also sold. ICM and UTL (via Zeta) still in Gold via other investments so overall exposure to Gold as % of portfolio similar despite recent sales of resolute.

Oribital (ASX:OEC) is also coming back up after recent updates and combined with Augean sales should be back in the Top 10 when monthly factsheet comes up in Feb

The £ 25 million loan taken when ZDP rolled over was only for 6 months so due end of April. I would hope for the share price they are going to pay it back but would not be surprised to see the loan take on another form or be itself refinanced as ICM like the debt.

[vacendak] 31/1/2017 08:33

This could be a play on the UEMS subscription shares. There is a round of conversion planned for the end of February. UIL Ltd may have sold to get some cash to convert and get back to the same holding by early March. UEM is hovering around 195-200p for a conversion at 183p.

[mad foetus] 31/1/2017 08:03

We appear to have sold a chunk of UEM.

[vacendak] 30/1/2017 17:17

+4.5p and a 2.5% spread by close of the day?
Only two "buys" today and nothing major either.

FTSE down and gold up slightly (in Sterling anyway) but nothing amazing... Still could be a gold effect on Resolute.

[mad foetus] 30/1/2017 12:28

Very narrow spread today

[vacendak] 30/1/2017 11:01

Just looking at my watchlist: CCE up 13.7% overnight.
Small holding for UIL Ltd I agree, but it has more than doubled since they "upgraded" from CWE to CCE less than three months ago.



Bigger RSG up by 3.0% too. Still some way to go back to the heights of last September (currently around AU$1.40 instead of above AU$2 back then), but inching back-up.

[spectoacc] 27/1/2017 19:49

O/T - @Morton2011, the only tip you should take from me is: never eat yellow snow.

Got lucky with SVR - though had been hoping for a 2nd bidder ;)

SPPC is one I bought into a long time ago due to NAV discount - only to sell out again later at a loss. When they released the "we're going to liquidate/sell up" RNS, I bought back in. They've an interesting Brazilian potash co that may or may not be quite valuable, plus a few other bits, plus a lot of junk. They've seemingly been kitchen-sinking the NAV, but probably further drops when they liquidate.

I'm expecting to get back plenty more than current s/p, but expecting it to take a while. I've not bought again since the original, post-RNS buy, & it's not a particularly large punt. Agree re Bob Morton (a rule of mine is never buy a listed accountancy or legal co. Partnerships don't work well as listed co's, never have and never will. Incidentally, the merchant banks should never have listed and then we'd not have had the financial crisis, but that's another debate).

If you want to examine something interesting - have a look at EFR. It's the rump half of the old ECWO (EGL the other half), and is basically Lonestar Resources, a highly indebted but "cheap" shale gas play. You could just long oil instead, but you get EFR at a decent discount. (If tempted, leave an order with MMs, still lots of small sellers in it). I suspect they'll miss their 2 year deadline to liquidate but they can't keep going indefinitely.

But once again - don't eat yellow snow!

[eeza] 27/1/2017 18:16

Bought back in with 4000 @ 155.00p

[vacendak] 27/1/2017 16:09

And as I spotted last year too: We also own some potentially dodgy shell-companies: Page 85 of the latest AR:

"Energy Holdings Ltd The subsidiary was incorporated on 21 June 2016 and remains dormant. UIL paid BM$100 for 100
shares issued
UIL Holdings Pte Ltd The subsidiary was incorporated on 28 August 2015 and remains dormant. UIL paid S$100 for 100
shares issued"

In case we need to pay some mercenaries to invade an African country like in "Dogs of War". :)

Anyway: Everything is above board. It is just that it is written in a small black font on a grey background that tells you indirectly: "Just keep to the things written on shiny paper at the beginning!"

Back to being serious: UIL Ltd has been around a while now. If Mr Saville et al. were crooks, they would have run with the money a long time ago (UTL peaked above 300p).

Some earlier ZDPs (the 2014 I think) traded at a discount for a bit, hence ringing some alarm bells, but the three active tranches (2018, 20 and 22) have all traded at a healthy premium for quite some time. They are well covered and Utilico/UIL Ltd always pay their bills on time.

[praipus] 27/1/2017 14:33

May be worth browsing the 2016 Report and Accounts, Notes to the accounts, pages 79, 93 and 94 to support and verify Vacendak and Morton posts.

Ordinary shareholders should consider the disount of the ords inconjunction with any premium on the Z's.

[riskvsreward] 27/1/2017 14:15

Very good information Vacendak and Morton, thank you both so much!

[riskvsreward] 27/1/2017 12:50

Many thanks Morton for the very helpful information, much appreciated. I hold a moderate position here and will increase or decrease the position according to the development of the company and the broad market.

[morton2011] 27/1/2017 12:45

riskvsreward: that shareholder (GPLF) was/is Duncan Saville. UTL being domiciled in Bermuda means different rules apply, its tucked away in the various listing documents. To be fair they moved from the UK a few years ago and its nothing new. GPLF have always been / are based in a tax haven in Malaysia.

Saville and Jillings are reported in the media as being owners of Harlequins rugby club. The actual owner is a very similarly named company in same tax haven as UTL.
You can find out via Companies House confirmation statement for Harlequins FC Holdings Ltd. Sandra Pope - Director works for ICM. Saville etc have various other Malaysian vehicles invested in things like Somers you can bump into if you research.

ICM, the investment manager, is 100% owned by Duncan Saville so he is being effectively paid to manage his own money - been wondering how I can do the same but not worked that out yet.

As noted before here UTL is big investment even for him and one day he will want the money out in an efficient way. The gearing makes it more risky but come the day he wants the money out or the gearing reduces then the NAV discount should close. The catch 22 with the gearing is the illiquid nature of a lot of the investments.

With all this said I still see UTL as a reliable yield, approx 5% at moment, and long term chance of significant capital gains.

[riskvsreward] 27/1/2017 11:56

To balance Morton's concerns, UTL does trade at a huge discount to its reported NAV of 283p, plus the fact it has a lot of its investments discounted as well so it is a case of compound discount, or discount squared. For example it has about 15% of uem which is discounted by about 10% itself.

Such huge discount combined with an attractive yield of about 5% and hopefully grwoing makes it well undervalued.

One question for more knowledgeable people here, why is it owned over 60% by just one shareholder? Is this allowed without a compulsory takeover or is the rule different for IT company? What influence if at all is exerted by this dominant shareholder re corporate governance like cost, discount control, investment performance etc?

[morton2011] 27/1/2017 11:02

Specto : stalked you on here to see what else you invest in given success at SVR and being here.
Is it worth me looking further at SPPC as had a quick look this morning - seems considerably racier than UTL.
Disclosure - no relation to Bob Morton , I lost on RSM Tenon as I had used them for one of my business's and liked them. A poor reason to invest is when you know people in a company as I keep learning! I was not impressed by Bob Morton as Tenon folded and see he was in trouble again as reported in the Sunday Times recently and had been Chair of SPPC but does not appear to be involved now.
Have been in a couple of the Shore VCT's which have all done ok and delivered what they set out too so their involvement seems good.

[spectoacc] 27/1/2017 10:18

"Production Up, Costs Down, New Treasure" - love it.

[vacendak] 27/1/2017 10:17

Re: Morton's mention of the Resolute update.

I like the main opening quote:
"Production Up, Costs Down, New Treasure"


I surfed through the Resolute website recently but missed it.

The report reads well indeed. Confirmation of the gold deposit announced last year. For those of us with a conscience, the Health & Safety record is pretty good at Syama too:
"The Syama operation had zero lost time injuries (LTI) during the December 2016 quarter. The 12-month rolling LTI
Frequency Rate at the end of the quarter was 0.28". The frequency rate is defined as the number of serious claims per million hours worked. Across metal ore mining industries it is around 4 for Australian companies. So the 0.28 reported rate is extremely low.



The good news about Resolute is that they are getting more and more efficient at extracting Au, so it would take a very serious dip in the spot price for them to start losing money.
More Gold in Ghana (Bibiani mine), the lifetime of the mine is being extended. Ghana is also a bit more stable than Mali.