Argo Share Discussion Threads

[stemis] 20/4/2016 23:46

Well that's a decent slug at 10.375p. Must be an institution selling or a discretionary wealth manager. So far they've managed to buy £171,125 of shares so a way to go.

[jb0b] 12/4/2016 17:13

Lots of volume going through today, could this be some company buyback?

[stemis] 01/4/2016 09:24

Well NAV turned out slightly better than I expected (23.1p v 21.5p). ARGO appears to be a fund manager with it's share price strongly backed by NAV. If they can buy back £2m of shares at 9.5p (which seems extremely unlikely) that would increase to 29.3p.

In reality however many of the funds are unable to pay their management fees or manage their liquidity and therefore ARGO has turned into part investment fund with much of it's assets 'invested' in or loaned, directly or indirectly, to it's own funds to keep them going. There's probably no more than 3.3p a share clean of that (which would just about all be used up in a share buy back). If they can sort these out the share price should easily double from here. Driving up AUM would certainly be a good start...

[stemis] 18/3/2016 13:30

If they aren't planning a tender off then shouldn't they be buying in the market and the price rising due to shortage of stock. If they aren't going either then why did they bother getting shareholder permission for the buyback?

[keevo] 18/3/2016 09:45

don't hold your breath... in for a long wait here it seems but will probably pay off in a small way at least

[stemis] 18/3/2016 09:26

Despite the EGM not a lot seems to be happening. Perhaps they are working on a tender offer?

[stemis] 04/3/2016 19:32

At current exchange rate the NAV (based on 30.6.15 balance sheet) was 22.5p. Approximately 14.5p of that is held in The Argo Fund. I can't find out much about the current value of that holding but Trustnet say's it's down about 15% over the last 6mth/year (part of which will be the loss on sale of the Indonesian investment). So let's deduct 2.5p. Offsetting that is release of provisions against management fees (now settled) of about 1.5p. Let's say they've roughly broken even in H2 so NAV maybe 21.5p....

[keevo] 04/3/2016 14:56

20p and they can take it

[paperwerks] 04/3/2016 11:16

Is book value still around 26 Pence?

They can probably get some shares back at 14-16 as most people who bought over the last few years will be made whole or more at that price.

Then BV for the remaining shareholders will increase even more. From here on it will be like a chess game. At what price will you throw in the towel and sell out cheaply to the Riales brothers?

Do not for a second let yourself believe that mangement has shareholders interest in mind from here on. It is now us against them. They will try to wear you out and hope you just give up and hit their bid and sell out below liquidation value so that they can cash out even higher. The Riales brothers want your shares below nav.

I wonder what tricks they will try to scare us or wear us out?

[stemis] 04/3/2016 09:14

Resolution passed

[brileyloucan] 25/2/2016 15:56

I am also based in the US and voted my shares no via Fidelity, got passed around a bit but it all happened reasonably smoothly. Agree nothing sent to brokers about this.

[keevo] 25/2/2016 14:43

voted against. davy made it easy

[jb0b] 25/2/2016 11:28

Agreed. Voted against.

[paperwerks] 25/2/2016 01:02

My 300,000 shares just voted no to this buyback proposal.

It wasn't easy for me to vote. Since I am in the USA I am not allowed to vote electronically. Nothing was sent to me or my broker about any vote. My USA broker had to spend a lot of time contacting Captiva (who is holding the vote) back and forth but finally got it done. I feel Argo does not want us to vote.

There are only a couple of days left. If anyone hasn't voted please make the effort. This vote might be very close and a few shares might make all the difference.

[dalmeny] 22/2/2016 12:47

New Wexboy post on ARGO

hxxps://wexboy.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/recommendation-vote-against-the-argo-group-share-buyback-proposal/

[dalmeny] 13/2/2016 11:57

jb0b I suppose it depends what price they are prepared to pay. I imagine not a lot more than the current level. The circular postulates a buyback at 5p leading to the Concert Party owning 88.98% and total directors' holdings of 92.95%. That would destroy any liquidity in the shares as the free float would be miniscule, though the main reason for the buyback cited in the Circular is to improve liquidity. As SteMis says there is little stock available in the market so they clearly won't be able to buy back any significant holdings at anything like 5p. Indeed it's hard to see how they can pick up any stock without paying a level they would presumably not wish to pay, unless there are a lot of major sellers lurking under the radar.
I remain of the view that this is a cynical attempt by management to get past 50% without having to bid. Once there they'll be able to pick up further shares unhampered by Takeover Panel rules and before long they'll be looking to delist the Co given the reduced liquidity doesn't warrant a quotation, etc....

[stemis] 12/2/2016 11:18

I don't know how they are going to buy 20m shares. I can't even get a quote for 20,000........

[jb0b] 12/2/2016 06:56

Dalment,

Although I agree in principle. A buyback will be far more enhancing to shareholder value given the discount to Assets, than a dividend. Also given the liquidity you really think that a buyback of that magnitude will not move the price?

[dalmeny] 11/2/2016 22:40

These buyback proposals are intended to enable the board to obtain control of the Co without paying any premium and will be hugely destructive of shareholder value imv. I will be voting against and would urge other holders to do likewise.

[jb0b] 08/2/2016 18:51

hopefully given the steep discount to assets of the current price, we should see some material buying back of shares. I wonder what price they consider the "attractive" level to?

[jb0b] 08/2/2016 18:42

The buyback, finally!

[eezymunny] 09/10/2015 11:08

Tx paperwerks. I've followed ARGO for years but never bought b4 today as couldn't get a sufficient handle on what the assets were/were worth. Just seemed to me at 8am that cash would likely cover so much of the mcap that I didn't need to worry too much. Nice to have a bit more flesh on the bones.

[paperwerks] 09/10/2015 10:08

Argo is selling the common stock of TPPI to Pertamina. (We owned 23% of the TPPI common I think) TPPI is insolvent but the common stock has value due to its ability to control the refinery and restructuring process. Pertamina needs this refinery badly, and I think they will buy our TPPI bonds next or do a restructuring and convert the bonds to equity and then buy the new common stock from Argo. So we have a book value loss on the equity which will be offset by the sale of the bonds above book is how I understand it.

TPPI was Argos largest illiquid investment. The funds will be very liquid once it finishes and sells the bonds. Pertamina has wanted to buy TPPI from Argo for a couple of years but that was impossible until now as TPPI was invloved in endless corruption scandals.

That is surprising that Church House is selling as he a is a deep value small cap fund. Argo is the perfect stock for his strategy.

I saw 2,000,000 shares on the offer a few days ago and was baffled by this. But now I see only 10,000 offered at 8.50 so maybe he saw the news and cancelled his sell order. Whoever bought today got a steal. I am hoping for a 2 cent dividend but who knows it could be higher if it is return of capital........

[stemis] 09/10/2015 10:06

If the sale was, say, $500k below book value then it would represent 0.6% of NAV so impact our holding by £50k or 0.1p per share