Afren Share Discussion Threads

[longfish] 11/8/2015 09:26

dangersimspon2

It depends if they are a-booking or b-booking their clients trades.

[longfish] 11/8/2015 09:23

JacNife...

errm....you just made up a swap charge out of thin air, then added a fictional time period to it - and then ACTUALLY came out with a figure which you have based your argument on!

I love this forum!

[deans] 10/8/2015 14:41

I was surprised that the company when referring to the then current situation and on going discussions did not seem to include shareholders as being a stakeholder - you would think that the individual owners of the company were each stakeholders in their own right.

When attending an AGM of a company should I ask the question does the chairman think that as a shareholder I am a stakeholder in the company?

[bobsidian] 10/8/2015 12:28

AFR - yet another entity to add to the "worst of" history of the LSE.

One of the features of the "worst of" is the scale of misrepresentation which oftentimes occurs in the "latter days" of the demise of an entity. Corporate governance seems to count for nothing in a fast paced financial unwind.

The upheaval arising out of the malfeasance of senior management seems to have resulted in missed opportunities. I recall reading in a set of financial results released by AFR about its plans to hedge 15%-25% of oil output. Only having hedging plans at a time of an oil price collapse may have accelerated the demise of AFR. An aggressive strategy to protect income streams may have bought incoming management time to restructure and on terms more favourable to shareholders.

Another story to act as a reminder to all equity investors - as if one were needed since 2008/09 - that debt rules the world.

[dangersimpson2] 10/8/2015 11:42

Jak,

He's expecting IG to close the shorts at the last dealing price. Can't see why they would though. If they decide to play games and close longs at zero and shorts at c.1.8p and pocket the difference why would anyone take a short position on their platform again. Which defeats the point of their business which is taking the spread between longs and shorts and hedging any risk above a certain level in the market. They would rapidly lose the short traders who provide hedging free to them and damage their margins.

Danger

[alewis2005] 10/8/2015 11:40

Old Giggleswickian,
I'm sorry to hear of your experience (well, you were on the right side of the trade and should have been closed out at 0), but your Spreadex story is contrary to their own policies:
hxxp://www1.spreadex.com/dl/f/SpxCustomerAgreement.pdf in particular section 40.

IGs policy is that they will re-evaluate the price when the brokers give them more information as to if the shareholders will receive any payout at all, and at that point they will close the trades at the payout price. If no payout, they'll close at 0. As there are so many people sitting above the shareholders in the pecking order, it is likely that SHs will receive nothing and as such, I'm offering a) an opportunity to close early so we do not continue paying fees to IG for holding an open position, and b) a small payout as a gesture of respect for doing me a favour.

[old giggleswickian] 10/8/2015 11:05

alewis2005,
You say "I'm willing to pay out at 0.05p to close it out so that I can free up my margin and take my profits instead of waiting months to do so." which is very similar to wshak. My question is are you being honest here or just trying to squeeze the last drop from the unsuspecting on this one?
I was once short on a stock with Spreadex when the share was cancelled and was told that longs were closed at zero and shorts at the suspension price. On that basis you would have your short closed around the 1.5p mark unless you get longs to trade with you at what you judge a fair price of 0.05p. I would have thought 0.75p would be more equitable although anyone long many feel agrieved at that price. I am aware that sentiment counts for nothing but I would have thought that honesty would be a fair aim!

Ian.

[alewis2005] 10/8/2015 10:07

@withoutt IG said in Twitter that it was a mistake, they've changed it back to unavailable to deal now.

[adejuk] 10/8/2015 09:31

heartfelt sympathy to all pi in this
i almost piled in a few weeks ago - thank G i followed my head and not my greed.

[withoutt] 10/8/2015 07:10

Any idea why IG has gone phone only to deal? I thought we'd delisted.tia

[kepner] 08/8/2015 19:42

Afren’s (AFR) ex head of IR Simon Hawkins has just posted an amazing confession on LinkedIn which really begs the question who knew what and when about the corrupt management team. And have all the bad guys been named and shamed. If you have lost money prepare to explode with rage. Mr Hawkins writes:

Mixing business with pleasure - learning that Afren execs privately owned undisclosed stakes in FHN, one of the Company’s subsidiaries. I should have resigned there and then.

Reality check - looking out over the sea at our beach house while conferencing in to Afren’s board room only to hear for the first time how our CEO and others had received unauthorised payments. And in the process betrayed so many people who had believed they were better than that.

You’re fired! - witnessing the Chairman of a FTSE 250 company suspend the CEO and COO before their dismissal. Simply. Extraordinary.

D-Day? - arriving at the office on too many mornings thinking “Surely Afren is going bust today”. And worried the money won't be there for payroll at the end of the month.

What a bogey - being told my boss had been dismissed for gross misconduct and realising just how much golf he had been playing after having full access to his Outlook Calendar.

Broadsided - getting a call from our interim CEO to say we need to write off 1bln barrels from our Kurdistan assets, after having been told only a few months earlier by previous management that we were about to sell them for $1.2bn. Like we hadn’t been dealt enough blows.

Wake up call - woken up at 2am by my iPhone buzzing only to find some bright spark had posted on Twitter the night before an announcement we were due to make later that day (7am) by figuring out the sequence numbers on our website and pressing refresh until it appeared. Not our finest hour.

The real victims - taking the flood of calls from shareholders who had lost their life savings and more. Haunting and heartbreaking. Genuinely.

We are watching you - being led from the head office back door by Head of Security following a credible and specific threat to my personal safety.

Up in smoke - learning about the Company’s ultimate demise from a Bulletin Board post simply saying “Administration?”
Thankfully I have a strong faith, a wonderfully supportive family and a good therapist (my wife!), without which I may have struggled to get through this crazy time.

[htrocka2] 06/8/2015 10:43

Unfortunatley, the plug was pulled before they could capitalise on their investment.



'The work programme at the CFBx will include up to 9 new wells to be drilled and brought on-stream by the end of 2015 targeting both producing and undeveloped reservoirs. Elsewhere at the North Fault Block (NFB), the Partners continue to make good progress and are targeting completion of the third new producer by mid-December 2014. The forward programme at the NFB will incorporate up to an additional 5 wells by year-end 2015.'

[hpcg] 06/8/2015 08:55

If Oriental were not private it would be a short. Ebok is a money pit.

[htrocka2] 06/8/2015 08:07

Dealing with debt was only part of the problem, negotiating with the previous Nigerian officials was also a contributing factor.

[htrocka2] 06/8/2015 06:48

'Takeover talks were held with Seplat, a Nigerian oil group, but bondholders were reluctant to take the haircut that would have been needed to complete a deal and discussions were abandoned'

Greedy bankers choked to death gorging their own cake when fasting and austerity was required.

PS..

“If you default in Nigeria, the assets go to the government or to the indigenous partners who have the licence,” FirstEnergy Capital’s Foucaud said.


It looks as if the directors won in the end....why buy the assets when you can get them for nothing?


from the rns.
'No other company in the Afren Group has appointed administrators today or taken any other step to commence insolvency proceedings'

(what's the bet that Oriental end up with Ebok?)
Background
The Ebok Field (Ebok) was awarded to Oriental in May 2007 by the ExxonMobil / Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Joint Venture. The farm-out was structured such that the field benefits from the Nigerian Marginal Field Fiscal and Tax Regime

[hpcg] 05/8/2015 10:13

5bag - the point I'm trying to make, not that it matters, is that people are carrying their delusion with them by describing assets as good when they are in reality marginal. It causes the investor who uses the wrong description to over estimate the value to other parties and to under compensate for the risks. An oil company with a handful of producing assets is in itself at the mercy of normal events and should be priced accordingly.

[wshak] 05/8/2015 10:09

Hi Danger,

I'd have thought there will be people out there who want to realise their tax loss (if trading outside of spread bet companies) or those that would rather see £50 for 100k shares than nothing at IG.

Either way, no harm in trying to see if I can get a grey market going.

WShak1

[alewis2005] 05/8/2015 09:58

longfish - if you believe, as many of us do, that AFR shares are worthless, then it's better for a long position to close at 0.05p than 0p - you get some money instead of no money.
I have a short position, and I'm willing to pay out at 0.05p to close it out so that I can free up my margin and take my profits instead of waiting months to do so.

[dangersimpson2] 05/8/2015 09:51

Hi Was,

Makes a lot of sense, but I think you will struggle to get many takers though. People are loss averse - they will do anything to avoid taking a definite loss and will prefer to hang on for the vain hope that they will get some return.

If you want a good example of the lengths people will go to avoid taking a definite loss then Case Study 4 on p.110ff of Beyond Fear & Greed is definitely worth a read:



A behavioural economics story so good I even tell it in the pub!

Danger