Augean Share Discussion Threads

[lbo] 25/10/2012 09:12

Two One51 divestments raise €5m

[lbo] 09/10/2012 12:28

We continue to view Augean as a substantial long-term value opportunity with substantial upside from the new strategic markets. While exact timing of the pace of growth in these markets is subject to a range of factors, the scale provides a counterbalance for the longer-term investor. Given progress to date, our base case DCF-based fair value is 75.6p, although a more bearish view of the rate of operational progress yields a fair value of 45.5p per share.

[stluke] 05/10/2012 15:07

Cheers guys I have a much better understanding now.

[lbo] 05/10/2012 13:04

Morton I still think when One51 finishes disposing of non core assets and reduces it debts it still plans to make a new bid for Augean and reverse its Clearcircle busines into it and gain a listing

[morton2011] 05/10/2012 09:45

Stluke - one51 are large holders of Augean shares who are likely to sell their holding due to their own problems. Their Clearcircle business is similar to Augean.

Cerrito - Utilico are a strange Investment Trust. I hold their shares and ZDP. The ZDP are safer obviously. They are most definitely long term holders and not shy of taking over a company (see Assetco) in concert with others, particularly if it required financial engineering. They have 70% of their investments in 3 companies (gold miner, N Zealand Utility like company and their emerging markets trust) and Augean is only around 1.5% of the overall as you say. They are strange as they are potentially riddled with conflicts as ultimately everything controlled by Duncan Saville based in Sydney. He is elusive if you try and research but runs ICM and the 'pension' fund which owns 50% + of Utilico is connected to his family. I have been invested in Utilico or a few years and the returns have been good and the company does seem solidly run. The risk in it is the Resolute Mining Gold investment but that does seem to be paying off for them as Resolute throwing out bucket loads of cash at the moment.

Augean - things seem to be on the up but the cautious investor might reflect that its about time given the £ 130 million + that has been invested by shareholders in its short life. Not a penny has been returned yet. Major concern perhaps is that the LLW revenues are not as high or as easy to get as hoped. Will wait to see if they deliver on the forecasts for LLW in H2 2012. Cashflow is something to watch as others posted but as they have chosed to bolt on more acquisitions not surprising it dropped. The recent acqusitions are at much lower prices than in the past for other parts of the business.

[cerrito] 04/10/2012 16:59

Doing some homework to see if I wanted to go into the new zero to be issued by UTL,1.6% of whose portfolio is in AUG I see that in their annual report they state that the total Utlico Group have 19.6% of AUG so they would be Ingot Capital Management referred to in AUG's annual report-my impression is that they are long term holders, who do not chop and change their portfolio much, and good shareholders for AUG to have.

[stluke] 03/10/2012 11:47

Excuse my ignorance only just taken a interest here but what is with all the One51 stuff!?

[stluke] 02/10/2012 19:15

Yes nice bounce back today, new CEO appointment or takeover driven perhaps?

[cerrito] 02/10/2012 19:07

surprised at today's rise and the first thing I did was to check volume- 250k more than average but there have been 5 days in the last 22 with greater volumes.

[lbo] 27/9/2012 13:20

One51 had their AGM yesterday.

[cerrito] 25/9/2012 22:24

Not really surprised at the fall in share price as I thought it had got ahead of itself(but to be honest did not have either the attention span or the strength of commitment to sell) and the loss of the CEO.
To me CEO loss is a negative but hardly surprising that after 7 years he wants to go to challenges new especially as the next few years seem to be hard graft.
With first half profit before tax and exceptional at £858k they are obviously expecting to have a really good H2 to meet their forecast of £2.7m. Not clear to me how this will be achieved even if LLW does take off but I do have confidence in management in this respect.
The following figures caught my eye: revenue of £20m is if not record certainly the highest since I started tracking in 2008; net cash flow from operations not very good, largely due to an increase in receivables; and too bad given their focus on offshore oil and gas, too bad that the operating loss of £1.3k in the half was a bit up from £1.2m the year before.
Do not anticipate either selling or buying at these prices.

[stluke] 25/9/2012 10:41

Slightly disappointing share price response to a good set of figures, can only guess it reflects the CEO departing, provides a window of oppurtunity to add at a lower price however.

[lbo] 25/9/2012 10:25

Going before its taken over?

[lbo] 20/9/2012 09:12

King's Cliffe radioactive waste site stays open until 2016

[lbo] 17/9/2012 14:46

is a takeover bid back on the table?

[lbo] 14/9/2012 12:24

1.25m shares traded today and new 2 year highs

[cerrito] 24/7/2012 15:54

See that today's trading statement drew a big yawn with virtually no trading and an unchanged share price This is to be expected but I now realize that I had not completely grasped what they said in their AGM statement about increased expectations so good that they continue to be comfortable with these.
Did prompt me to look at Digital Look to see broker forecasts; I see that for this year they are at 1.93 and for next year 3.14p eps much in line with the forecasts of the last three months and well above the forecasts of 1.15p and 1.14p respectively 6 months ago.
On another point, as a shareholder in both AUG and Shanks, I have been going through the Shanks annual report to see what they are up to in what they call Hazardous waste, especially in the UK. They have 5 product lines and this is the one with overlap with AUG.
It appears they are not up to much in the UK hazardous waste market with 2011 revenue falling to £8m from 2010's £15m.Their focus here is on the contaminated land services business which organized the treatment and disposal of clean up projects and is no longer a principal activity. This was foreshadowed in the 2010 annual report where they said this would happen because the land fill tax exemption of contaminated soils ended in April 2012 and so there will be a reduction in contaminated soil treatment. Cannot find any reference to this in the AUG statements but perhaps I am looking in the wrong place.
The share price seems about right at the moment

[woodcot] 05/7/2012 17:31

Anyone got anything to say about AUG, I'm looking to buy a few, think there maybe some potential here.

[lbo] 10/6/2012 22:09

Augean is to tap into another new source of income from mineral extraction at Cook's Hole in Northamptonshire.

The old quarry contains three million tonnes of limestone that can be used in road building and construction. Augean plans to extract the limestone through a contractor so its involvement is as a landlord.

The group said the expected £200,000 a year income from the quarry will be a helpful addition to cashflow.

[cerrito] 08/6/2012 16:42

Good update this morning for the AGM
Had planned to go there but things happened and it was only this morning that I have been able to have a good catch up with 2011 figures.
If I had gone I would have focused in on when we can expect to get to a situation where net cash flow from operations can exceed capex on a consistent basis. This did happen on 2010 but in 2011 the two figures were the same and already this year £3m has been earmarked for purchase of Augean North Sea. I see that in the March presentation talking about £3.5m capex which would be down on 2011 but not sure if this acquisition is included in this figure.Also see that in the bowels of the footnotes they talk about 2011 capex being one off items.
Have looked at the footnote no 9 on Goodwill; interesting to see that not expecting any revenue increases in landfill. See that they count on revenue growth of 4.7% in the Treatment Division(which was the underlying increase in 2011) and after all the capex it has received I think that is appropriate.

Banking situation with £10m of facilities in place till March 15 fine.Note very good covenant cover.

Note that one51 who did not change their shareholding in the last year no longer the largest shareholder as this is Ingot Capital/Utilico who now have 18.8m shares or 19% of the company. Following the Henderson takeover of Gartmore not surprising that their combined shareholding fell somewhat from 11.9m to 9.5m shares.
Let's hope they do hit a PBT of £2.7m-a good increase from recent years even if falling well short of 2007 and 2008.
In conclusion:Share price seems to have a more solid base than it has had in the last couple of years; could dip below 30p in market turmoil but should trend up in rather a slow but solid fashion, barring banana skins.

[lbo] 08/6/2012 13:59

'Strong' revenues being delivered at Augean

[lbo] 29/5/2012 09:08

ANSS represents an excellent opportunity to combine the existing assets, knowledge and skills of Augean and Scomi in the UK to develop a business which is expected to deliver annual revenues of GBP6.0m and EBITDA of GBP0.75m

Augean aims to clean up with offshore JV