Aquila Energy Efficiency Share Discussion Threads

[cc2014] 25/7/2022 08:06

77.26 to buy. I squeezed in another 5k. I'm fully invested now. Can't buy any more unless I sell something and I have plenty of AEET already.

[jonwig] 25/7/2022 07:56

Sorry, you're right.
NB. presentation today.

[cc2014] 25/7/2022 07:28

The director buy wasn't last week but from 29th June as ADVFN in their own unusual way republished every RNS on every stock from 29th June on 17th JulyIt would have been more or less the first day the director could buy out of the closed periodHowever I agree regardless, the director would have likely had sight of the information

[jonwig] 25/7/2022 07:19

Moving on commitments:



Director buy last week was surely made in knowledge of these, as the BoD has to sign off commitments. (Or maybe not, with AEET?)

[andy246] 19/7/2022 08:12

I agree that this should generally be a positive.
In this particular case, I was hoping for the company to announce a low deployment rate at the end of July, and return all excess cash to investors, and the rest of the portfolio in liquidation.
The company previously said they would make an announcement at the end of July if deployment was still slow. If the director knew the deployment was low, I'm not sure he would be allowed to purchase shares just before announcing the return of 50-75% of investor cash in AEET.

[jonwig] 19/7/2022 07:10

Positive ... maybe.

Director David Fletcher buys 40,506 at 79p.

He was appointed end-April. has experience at ecofin, etc.

[andy246] 06/7/2022 11:50

AERS has a different investment mandate, so a merger would be hard.
Also, AERS is not really performing brilliantly, currently trading at a slight discount to NAV.

[jonwig] 06/7/2022 11:31

There's a possible problem. Thanks to their inertia, they could be at the back of the queue in finding suitable investments. And then in desperation, could be tempted into overpaying simply to get some assets.

I'm surprised they didn't merge with their sister company, AERS.

[andy246] 06/7/2022 11:18

At the current price (78p) the downside is quite limited, as 80% of the NAV was cash as of 31-May-2022.
At this point the best outcome for shareholders would be a slow capital deployment in July, which would lead to an early continuation vote and return of the majority of cash to shareholders before year-end, and a likely sale of the current portfolio early next year.

If capital deployment accelerates, the discount to NAV should reduce to closer to peers as the dividend reaches its target.

Peers trade at an average 1% premium to NAV, versus AEET at a 19% discount.

hxxp://pandora-capital.com/Renewables.html

[cc2014] 24/6/2022 12:01

Nothing in the accounts to either get me excited or depressed.

More slow deployment in May but they are trying to entice my interest by telling me they will have something worthwhile in July.

Fingers crossed anyways.

[jonwig] 24/6/2022 07:28

FY results to 31/12:



Of little interest, but:

The Investment Adviser expects an acceleration in the pace of deployment during July 2022 based on current contractual negotiations. The Board remains actively engaged with the Investment Adviser to support them reaching their target of full deployment of the remaining IPO proceeds, and, the Investment Adviser is targeting this by the end of December 2022 or early 2023.

Wait until December? Maybe prefer my own cash, considering the outlook.

[cc2014] 11/6/2022 07:34

The market can be bizarre at times. I took part in the Forestry IPO last year and watched as within days the price price went to 90p. Now the share price is 115p.

AEET is even more bizarre imho.

The investment manager is giving a presentation to shareholders at the July general meeting. I assume there will be something positive to say there.

Also, in the last update in April there was around £19m committed or already invested and it's planned to be 100% invested by the end of the year. I'm guessing they will miss that target but not by alot. So, as of now maybe £30m is committed and that's enough to start the first dividend. Possibly 3 this year with the one in December say 1p, getting them close to the 5% yield on a running basis

[jonwig] 11/6/2022 07:00

stag - the market is prone to odd behaviour. Keynes put it better!

I haven't ever looked at the two companies you mention, but thanks. Simon Thompson seems to have some special permission to plug his own books in IC. he's been there donkey's years, so I suppose it's a sort of retention bonus.

[stagvalley] 10/6/2022 20:39

It feels an odd time for a shareholder to be selling a lot of these shares given the near 20 percent discount on largely cash. Yes, I guess there is a risk that the manager will want to move more quickly than is sensible and overpay, but the board will no doubt scrutinise that issue quite carefully as they know everyone else will! Arix Bioscience, recommended by Simon Thompson last month, is in the same position of having most of its share price backed by cash yet being on a wide discount. Both seem attractive to be as, with judicious purchases, they could do very well indeed. A third one that I'm less sure about is Alpha Real Trust which also has a big discount and about 40 percent of its assets in cash. But they all seem to need patience - probably many months - and each seems to be moving very little. Other thoughts on this issue of trusts with lots of cash and wide discounts?

[cc2014] 09/6/2022 09:37

Interesting run of trades yesterday. The 57k is a buy as I was offered that price during the day. The 15k is a buy as again I was offered that price and is available now. I assume that one of the two earlier in the day is a MM trade.

However, despite the buying I get that feeling in my bones that the MM are trying to keep the price up to help out a seller who seems to have plenty.

[cc2014] 01/6/2022 13:29

All those trades at 78.5p are buys. The seller seemed to have plenty although I've bashed him on the head and it's 79p to buy now.

[cc2014] 01/6/2022 10:45

"This is predominantly a procedural matter to ensure that the annual report and accounts appropriately reflect the outcome of the investment strategy review and the changes to fee arrangements with the Investment Adviser, and, in no way reflect any concerns about the Company and its financial position"

I see there best attempts to assure us there is no bad news coming has had no impact whatsoever on the share price or the number of shares traded.

[jonwig] 23/5/2022 12:16

Hi.

Unfortunately, the prospectus makes no commitment to publishing factsheets, let alone quarterly ones.

[cc2014] 23/5/2022 10:31

On a serious note:

I am a bit cross this morning. I had been looking forward to the quarterly factsheet by the end of the month but having reviewed AEET's website it appears they are only doing these twice a year and the next one isn't due until August. I'm not sure if it was always this way or whether it used to be quarterly but they've now changed it to twice a year. I don't really care whether I get a factsheet or an update but I worry we won't hear anything new until August and I believe as shareholders we deserve better.

Secondly I'm not impressed with AEET taking advantage of the Covid 2 month reporting deadline so that we don't get the Dec-21 results until perhaps the end of June. For a Trust like this where 90% of the investments were "cash" at that point it hardly seems like their would be alot of work for the company to prepare them or the auditors to audit. I accept Covid has made life difficult for everyone but I'm not sure the extension if fully justified. Of course it makes little difference, we know what the NAV was at the end of December but I do like to read the accounts, just to make sure there's nothing in there I don't like.

Probably what frustrates me more is the delay to the accounts means a delay to the AGM

[cc2014] 23/5/2022 08:02

is.... floundering even to put an RNS together for the end of March factsheet.

or to put together the year end accounts even though they had invested not very much.

[jonwig] 23/5/2022 07:53

The UK leader in energy efficiency projects (SEIT) announced some new investments this morning. M4eanwhile the team at AEET is ... what?

[cynicalsteve] 21/4/2022 13:29

This is a great time to be selling 'green' assets, it's a good time to be owning them but I fear it's a terrible time to be buying them. I nearly bought SEIT but the premium put me off so I bought AEET instead. Sometimes the difference between clever and stupid is very small!

[cc2014] 21/4/2022 11:46

The slow deployment and quality of the investments remains the biggest concern.

Between 31/01 and 21/04 only a further 5.5m euro or 9.5m euro if I count the subject to contract has been deployed. Let's be generous and call that 3.3m euro a month.

This gives us 27.1m euro deployed or subject to contract to date. £22.5m in Sterling or about a quarter of the fund.

To deploy the rest by the end of the year means around £9.5m has to be deployed a month if we just use a straight line basis, which seems a challenge and does seem to risk the credit quality of the investments.


However, Aquila's sister company AERS have a stance of this where they walk away when others don't. There's a very useful video here on which they make this very point.

The whole issue of IT's overpaying for renewable assets concerns me greatly which is why I'm trying to focus on those which build stuff or project manage the build rather than those buying in mature assets. Of course this has construction risk but the price is lower and the returns greater.

I would have though energy efficiency would be a hot area given the impact of Russian sanctions on the oil and gas price. There should be plenty of opportunities.

[aamhager] 21/4/2022 11:13

Tried to buy some on ii and I was quoted a price of 78p. Quite disappointed

[jonwig] 21/4/2022 10:50

It's conceivable that Aquila, in a rush to acquire assets, will over-pay (in a competitive bid, say). This would mean they collect income, and fees, but the company's nav won't make progress.

I'm still expecting a decent bounce from here, but whether we'll get anywhere near 95p is moot.