Burford Capital Share Discussion Threads

[nigelmoat] 07/4/2022 12:26

DonaldIf as you suspect YPF settles before trial, apart from any rumour mill speculation presumably nothing formal would become apparent until an RNS lands? This could substantially change the share price overnight?

[donald pond] 07/4/2022 11:52

The summary judgment arguments are due to be lodged about now from memory, then 6 weeks for replies, court hearing in June and judgment in July iirc. So settlement could come at any time but normally on steps of court

[three black crows] 07/4/2022 11:31

YPF / PETERSEN - out of court settlement.If this is going to be the conclusion, when would we likely see this being reported ?

[tradertrev] 07/4/2022 10:57

Feu, if Argentina believed in privatisation this case would never have arisen. I doubt whether there would be many buyers given past experience - certainly no international ones.

[feuguru] 07/4/2022 10:30

Thank you, Donald. That makes a lot of sense. I was considering however that the Argentine Government would be able to float / privatise / sell down their holding to fund the due reparations.
Perhaps this would be a neater and more pragmatic, face saving solution. Additionally, being seen to sell an asset at the most recent top of the market would be a politically acceptable way of righting past Government wrongs.

[donald pond] 07/4/2022 08:42

Feu,You are completely right in theory. The problem is the government could always seize back what they give us. But if this went to court, one of the options that might be open would be to grant specific performance as a remedy. In other words, the court could say that the plaintiff is entitled to receive 49% of the oil and gas fields back. But in reality that is unlikely and Burford wouldn't want it as you can't operate half a gas field in an uncooperative jurisdiction. I very much suspect this will settle before trial, but we are getting very close now.

[feuguru] 06/4/2022 15:16

Thank you, Donald. YPF Market cap currently $1.69bn.. that's the current freefloat value on the Argentine exchange, which is owned by private investors. However, the total value is $3.44bn. The Argentine Govt share holding of 51% having a value USD 1.65bn, currently.
Since 2017, the ARP value of YPF has more than doubled and despite the problems with the states oil purchase programme, the price of oil is going higher, making this a more valuable proposition.
Perhaps the way forward for settlement of the claim against Argentina is to take back control of the government's stake in the YPF?

[donald pond] 06/4/2022 13:16

Sort of. The case is against YPF and Argentina, so in theory any judgment can be enforced against either and YPF could be sued into bankruptcy if it can't or won't pay. So the stronger YPF is, the better. Though the reality is that they aren't that strong and sell all their oil on the cheap to the state. But the court won't be impressed by that.

[feuguru] 06/4/2022 12:54

Can anyone advise. Does the current value of YPF affect the value of the Burford claim arising from the litigation case?

[laughton] 06/4/2022 12:08

Or you could say this is 156% higher than 2 years ago or 23% higher than 1 year ago.

[lomax99] 06/4/2022 11:45

A reminder that BUR is appearing on Shares Investor evening tonight, here is a link if you wish to register:Https://www.sharesmagazine.co.uk/events/event/shares-investor-evening-london-0604

[flare1] 05/4/2022 12:35

And if the directors decide to hold onto their newly acquired shares in favour of greater gain, that's a few less shares available for you or me in the open market.

[laughton] 05/4/2022 11:11

Presumably the directors believe that the shares will be worth considerably more than $3m in the future otherwise they would have spent the cash on something else.

Yes, I'm a holder so biased.

[loglorry1] 05/4/2022 10:45

My point is that if 5 top exects just pay themselves an extra $3m in cash and then spend that cash on shares (open market purchase) it isn't exactly bullish. They have taken $3m out of the pockets of shareholders and bought shares with it and given the shares to directors.

You can argue that the directors would not work so hard or work at all for BUR withouth the incentive but I think that is a bit naive.

Is it material? Well given operational profit was about $6m I would argue yes!

[three black crows] 05/4/2022 10:03

Loglorry what is your point ? What are you talking about

[loglorry1] 05/4/2022 09:45

OK my bad not new shares but regardless I'm sure the extra cash is in there just for this reason rather than as a true component of their salary. $3m across 5 execs is a lot of "spare" extra salary isn't it?

[houseofpain1] 04/4/2022 11:20

@loglorry1 I think you're getting this wrong. The cash refers to the cash element of their total remuneration not cash from the business. And there is no dilution. These are purchases of existing shares. Sure, all done in a tax efficient manner but they don't have to do this so it can and should be interpreted as confirmation that they see value in the shares at this level. How much weight, if any, you put on the signal is of course up to you.

[loglorry1] 04/4/2022 10:10

This all assumes they didn't just add the extra share renumeration to thier salaries in the first place. I'm afraid you are being a bit naive to think otherwise.

As for paying in cash? What cash? The operational free cashflow is tiny at present. Should they have increasd borrowing to pay senior staff more?

Here's a novel idea. Pay them on performance - that is when the share price hits £20.

[greyingsurfer] 04/4/2022 10:05

They could have chosen to spend their remuneration on what they wanted, but they would have lost the "tax efficiency".

[lazg] 04/4/2022 10:03

They should buy back shares to gift to management, not dilute the value.

[loglorry1] 04/4/2022 09:42

They could have worked elsewhere and maybe got the same compensation in cash but on the flip side they didn't have to dilute us either did they?

Most of the bulls spend time posting here about how cheap BUR is but then go on to say that's it's ok to gift these underpriced shares to management and get diluted at "low" prices. Odd isn't it?

[laughton] 04/4/2022 09:30

They didn't have to spend the money on Burford shares though, did they? Or maybe they did and I missed that.

[greyingsurfer] 04/4/2022 09:12

Handy way of avoiding paying tax and then selling it as a great vote of confidence in the company.