Argo Share Discussion Threads

[sharpish] 16/8/2016 19:20

There are also two value investors on board with 2 million shares each - Church House and David Barry, roughly 8.25% of total. Barry bought in only a few months ago, Church House has been there a while. Neither likely to sell without a vastly improved bid vs current levels.

[stemis] 16/8/2016 17:33

Authority now requested to buy back up to another £2m of shares. All pretty intriguing.

hxxp://www.argogrouplimited.com/buyback/Circular-Regarding-Proposed-2016-Share-Buyback-II.pdf

1. There are now only 24 million shares in issue not held by the Rialas's. At the current price of 9.75p that only £2.34 million in value. Eventually the price will have to respond unless pretty much everyone is going to sell their shares.

2. On a proforma basis ARGO now only have £365k in cash. Either they are generating significant cashflow, have access to debt or they won't be able to afford to spend £2m.

3. Statement in the circular that Rialas's have no intention to make any changes to the company's current plans regarding maintenance of the company's trading on AIM. I wonder what that's worth....

[stemis] 12/8/2016 10:28

Probably won't find out much now until the interims next month

[stemis] 08/7/2016 09:46

Owned by AREOF I think, where our investment is written down to zero and full provision made against outstanding management fees. Probably all the money went to pay off the bank...

[paperwerks] 08/7/2016 09:24

Still liquidating stuff and raising more cash or winding down.....

hxxp://europaproperty.com/news/2016/07/south-african-investment-fund-nepi-adds-shopping-city-sibiu-to-its-portfolio-2636

[hugepants] 02/7/2016 16:14

So it looks like they've been phoning up all the bigger shareholders and just making pretty derisory take it or leave it offers. Its a good deal for remaining shareholders obviously since the NAV has increased quite a bit but the controlling shareholders now have even more control and the shares are even more illiquid. So the supposed benefits have been cancelled somewhat by the negatives. Maybe a simple special dividend would have been a better idea?

[stemis] 02/7/2016 13:30

I'm amazed they been able to buy 28.1% of the company back at 10.33p per share. Not one single announcement of notifiable interest. Where have all the shares come from?

[paperwerks] 02/7/2016 03:54

Buyback Now Complete


Argo announces that it has on 30 June 2016 repurchased 1,500,000 shares at 11.25 pence per share for cancellation. Argo has now repurchased shares to the value of GBP1.96 million and, accordingly, the buyback programme is now complete.

The interests of Andreas Rialas and Kyriakos Rialas in Argo's shares, following the end of the buyback programme are, respectively, 16,028,145 and 8,768,362 shares, representing, 33.1% and 18.1% of Argo's share capital respectively.

The issued share capital of Argo following this repurchase is 48,473,494 shares.

[jb0b] 22/6/2016 19:17

Still here! All the buybacks have enhanced nav per share, however I do worry that once the buyback is completed and the controlling shareholders have the majority of voting rights, there is little protection.. Unlikely to hear much til half year results at September as well. We may be yet positively surprised, but it does appear given the pace of buybacks that there are very willing sellers at this price..

[westcountryboy] 22/6/2016 15:16

Not me. But I can't answer your or Keevo's question, so I haven't bothered to post anything. Presumably it is not inconceivable that they have been twisting sellers' arms by hinting that this is the best price they will get. But if so there will be a lot of other angry shareholders whose arms were not invited for twisting. On the whole I am happy to stay put and see what happens.

[stemis] 22/6/2016 14:57

Has everybody sold up and gone?

[stemis] 21/6/2016 10:27

There are clearly change in shareholding announcements which haven't been made here. According to the last set of accounts there were 49.7 million shares held by large shareholders. Since then the number of shares has fallen from 67.4 to 52.3. Hard to believe none of these shareholders have sold.

[stemis] 15/6/2016 10:12

Where are they finding all these shares at such a low price? That's 16.8% of the company bought back at an average 10.4p. It's good for NAV but I'm starting to worry that everybody knows something I don't.

[keevo] 08/6/2016 09:40

Can they do what NCON has now done? basically get the majority holding up by buying back the shares and then make a low ball offer for the company

[hugepants] 07/6/2016 19:27

Looks like more buying back at under 10p. However they are buying off market so not pushing the share price up.

[stemis] 26/5/2016 11:36

Yeah, I'm not complaining. It's just bizarre...

[paperwerks] 26/5/2016 11:11

Yes, this buyback is not going as I expectd it to. I thought they would need to raise the price up to 14-16 to get significant shares. Oh well, NAV increases higher when they pay a lower price on buybacks..

[stemis] 26/5/2016 09:29

Unbelievable. The company is buying shares and yet the price is drifting down (below what they are clearly prepared to pay)...

[stemis] 17/5/2016 14:12

Another decent slug. They've now managed to buy 9.5% of the company and at such a discount to NAV (10.6p average). I reckon that's added 1.3p to NAV (which is now 24.4p on a proforma basis).

[stemis] 05/5/2016 08:39

I've been in here for 5 years at 14p, since when I've had 2.6p of dividends, so 18-20p would be very acceptable. Whether I'd sell is another matter. I can't but feel this huge buyback is an indication that things are about to turn in ARGOs fortunes. Buying £2m of stock back will use up most of ARGOs cash at a time when they are pretty much break even. I can't believe they'd do that if they didn't think cashflow was going to be a lot stronger in the future. Spreading that over 25% less shares has got to be good for the Rialas's...and anyone else who's left

[sharpish] 04/5/2016 21:05

18-20p would allow anyone who bought in the past few years to get out at a decent profit, imagine most will sell up at or before that point

[keevo] 04/5/2016 16:52

whats the target here. I see 18p as a good benchmark. NAV must be about 24p but factoring in the currency complexities and trading conditions 18-20p must be a good benchmark. thoughts?

[sharpish] 04/5/2016 13:34

About £466,750 spent on purchases, long way to go yet

[hugepants] 03/5/2016 19:36

They're on a roll. Another 1.25M bought at 10.75p