Avanti Communications Share Discussion Threads

[sg31] 06/5/2011 11:13

yorgi 5478.

When I first started investing I subscribed to some tip sheets to see if they were any good.

They were rubbish and TW was in charge of the worst one.I bought a couple that were tipped after doing my own research (AVN was one) most of the others tipped were dire.

Just some of the dire ones Myhome,Speymill,Minoan,Pan Pacific,Radicle projects.

Go back over the last 5 years and look at the tips, see how they are doing now.

I can give investors 1 tip, do your own research never use tip sheets.

[greengiant] 06/5/2011 10:22

Personally, I like what he is talking about

12:30 HYLAS 1& 2: Advances in Providing Ka-Band Technology for Milsatcoms

Brief technical overview of Hylas-1 Ka-band Payload

Presentation of technical results of initial trials on HYLAS-1 Ka-band

Technical scope of Hylas-2 Ka-band Payload for Milsatcom support

Next phase technical trials and service provisioning of Ka-band on HYLAS-1/2 Satellites

Kumar Singarajah, Director Regulatory Affairs & Business Development, Avanti

gg

[jeffian] 06/5/2011 10:17

"He is actively involved in the ongoing development of Avanti's technical and commercial activities relating to provision of Avanti satellite capacity to government customers."

I wonder if Simon's informant has any info on the pricing of that.

8-)

[greengiant] 06/5/2011 10:09

Good to see this, note especially what he will be talking about (download programme)



gg

[yorgi] 06/5/2011 09:00

Pleasant change but AVN is my only stock showing blue today :-)

[colva] 06/5/2011 05:52

Thanks to alfred cat on ii.

[colva] 06/5/2011 05:40

Simon,

You maintain that your informant is intelligent and honest.

I am prepared to believe that he may be one or the other but don,t see how it is possible for him to be both .

[yorgi] 05/5/2011 21:02

Sg31,

Why was and is TW wrong ?

[marksnsparkle] 05/5/2011 20:01

Simon ... where the price goes who knows ... but I find it very hard to believe that you can read the two official statements below and honestly reach the conclusion that the Avanti business model is uncompetitive and that Avanti are struggling to fill their satellites

"The average prices per MHz per month are materially ahead of expectations."


"Avanti is pleased to confirm that at service launch, having confirmed contracts and orders, the peak utilisation rate under HYLAS 1 aggregate contracts is 35.1% which comfortably exceeding the 25% target set pre-launch."


Or to put it another way do you (or your "informant") believe that either 1 of the statements above is a lie?

[sg31] 05/5/2011 19:04

TW was and is wrong.

He usually is. I still think Avanti is a good long term investment despite TW backing it and SC shorting it.

[yorgi] 05/5/2011 18:44

I have been saying something similar for weeks Greengiant, he is not going to listen but continue bringing out something along the lines of "my informant tells me......." and this is a stonking short so as to keep making himself money and temporarily make it appear that TW was and is wrong. Will he let facts get in the way NO. Will he listen and accept any case put up by anyone here who has worked through the figures or AVN's statements NO. So for the time being he makes money and some of us for the time being sit on losses.

I don't think SC is going to let the truth get in the way of his shorting plan and will continue to quote his intelligent and honest informant's information, not his of course !

[greengiant] 05/5/2011 18:32

I wouldn't bother with SC, the simple facts are these:

1) AVN are selling capacity faster than they budgeted

2) Avanti are selling that capacity at prices which exceed budget

3) Directors and Institution buying

4) The initial argument by the bears was - oh look they can't possibly be competive in rural broadband - eeerrr 50%+ of their business is Enterprise and military.

Simon is an accountant, not a very good one if he doesn't understand the simple Sales Price and Sales Volume variances. Both of Avanti's at this moment are favourable. I doubt he would care to engage in this discussion because he knows the simple truth, if both are favourable, his argument is fuc*ed

gg

[jameswilkie] 05/5/2011 17:21

SC's comments above about the lenders are inaccurate.

(1) He is wrong to say that Barclays has so little at risk that it doesn't care about the loan and, by inference, it's Due Diligence. Barclays will have done its DD with as much thoroughness as normal because no bank's credit committee is ever going to make any loan that might lose money and is not properly documented, regardless of its size. (Yes - loans turn bad, but no credit committee ever plans for this); and

(2) He is wrong to infer that Coface gives up it's responsibility for DD because another French company will win a contract so who cares about a potential loss on the loan. There is little if any overlap in shareholders between Coface and Arianespace so no reason for such cross-subsidy exists. Coface is owned, through Banque Natixis, by BCPE, which is a co-operative organisation of a number of smaller French banks. It is not French government owned. Arianespace is owned by shareholders from 10 European countries. Yes, French shareholders make up >50% but this includes quoted companies (including EADS and SAFRAN) and, again, it is not a French government owned operation. Perhaps Simon can explain why Coface shareholders should risk taking a loss on a loan so that a company owned by another group of shareholders can make a profit on constructing a rocket?

Both banks will have conducted thorough due diligence - they both have significant capital at risk and people's careers at stake if the loans go bad.

In addition, Coface is very active in the space financing market (as a quick Google will show). Someone who wasn't focused on trying to short the stock by spreading misinformation would recognise that it's involvement validates Avanti's business model.

All the facts above can be easily Googled if anyone wants to check the shareholding relationships etc.

[jeffian] 05/5/2011 16:51

Simon,

I accept that your informant is expressing an opinion, which he is entitled to do, so you are correct to pull me up on that as truthfulness doesn't come into it as far as he is concerned, but it does with regard to statements made by the company via RNS or Mr. Williams in interview. In those cases, the gulf between what your informant says and what the company says can only suggest that they are not being truthful in recent statements. What other conclusion can be drawn?

[simon cawkwell] 05/5/2011 16:38

Jeffian,

Perhaps you are right - though I think the use of the term "porkies" is unhelpful. It is a question of the timing of the remarks and the evidence to hand to support them.

Personally, I long ago learnt to doubt the assertions of a broker/bank (BarCap in this instance) where he/it was not taking personal risk but certainly banking a large fee.

Simon Cawkwell

[jeffian] 05/5/2011 16:27

Never mind Hylas2, Simon, the point remains that Hylas1 was financed with £194m debt guaranteed by US and French ECA's; £86m equity finance was raised in December 2009 and a further £70m was raised via the Placing on 12/7/10. At each stage of the process, lenders, guarantors and equity providers will have done dd or been provided with a Prospectus crawled over by the Nomads which would have covered the issues of demand, pricing etc. including the threats thereto. It just isn't feasible that they would say "Well let's just stick it up there in space and see what happens; maybe we'll sell the capacity, maybe we won't". These expectations are in the public domain, so if your informant is saying that they will struggle to sell capacity fully or quickly enough, and not at the prices expected, that must have required a warning. In fact, as many posters have commented above, the Trading Updates have said quite the opposite. There is a clear gulf between what your informant is saying and what the company says and the only implication that can be drawn is that one of them is telling porkies.

[colva] 05/5/2011 16:23

Simon

So your previous comment at 12:58 suggesting that BarCap may have "changed their mind" turns out to be total nonsense then.

[simon cawkwell] 05/5/2011 15:51

Gentlemen,

My informant now advises as follows:

"The BarCap financing of USD 112m is to fund the launch of Hylas 2 by Arianespace and is 95% covered by French ECA Coface. In other words, BarCap are taking relatively little risk (and are certainly not making a call on the level of returns equity holders might get). The funding may be viewed as more or less a state subsidy from Coface to help get the launch business (similarly the funding for the satellite itself comes from the US Export Import Bank and presumably helped to get the manufacturing contract for Orbital Sciences Corp). See:

Avanti Communications gave a pretty good indication of how commercial lenders view their business model in the 12th July 2010 press release relating to their latest equity fundraising, commenting on "the general absence of commercial banks from the project lending market"."

This does not look good for bulls. AVN remains a stonking short sell at down to well under 300p.

Simon Cawkwell

[billytkid2] 05/5/2011 14:53

I liked that interview. I have topped up.

[marksnsparkle] 05/5/2011 14:43

pojscott ... the past is gone ... surely the question you should be asking now is if I go short today will I make any money?

Avanti is clearly beating expectations, so talk of Avanti being uncompetitive is nonsense

However the question is what valuation does the market currently place on its sales and assets ... valuation is always very subjective and therefore always open for discussion

[pojscott] 05/5/2011 14:23

The problem is--if we had all followed Simon just after the launch, we would all be much richer now so we have to give him some credit, like him or not!

[yorgi] 05/5/2011 13:54

Bear in mind there are none as blind as one that will not see Marksnsparkle :-)

[dnfa1975] 05/5/2011 13:47

80p target for me