Capricorn Energy Share Discussion Threads

[last of the mohicans] 26/9/2023 16:14

Hi churchill2,

Thanks :)

I didn't look into the offer in the greatest of detail, I just knew the value came to £2.70 per share effectively.

Which meant they must have seen at least that value within the business to make such an offer & compete with Tullow (and obviously make a reasonable return on the price they were prepared to make - but I'm ignoring that part & just saying it was worth £2.70 back then, but because of the company buying back all these shares by way of special dividend & share consolidation at way less than that price. the equivalent offer today would be over £4 per share come the 6th of October when there are just 95.2M shares in issue).

The Tullow offer was considerable in value to.

LOTM

[churchill2] 26/9/2023 15:40

I see that on LSE comments are still being made about the aborted NewMed deal. Capricorn offer was 172p plus 99p cash. Unfortunately the NewMed share price declined rapidly after the offer and the pound was in freefall ( result of Lis Truss shenanigans). It was eventually pulled by Capricorn. At that point it was at approximately 240p. NewMed did receive another offer from another source once Capricorn had exited the scene.

[last of the mohicans] 25/9/2023 07:29

Bought another 4,250 back at £1.737

Just waiting to see if they are going to be silly enough to try & push the price lower before I buy the next batch, which will be 3,750 so you'll know it if it goes through the LSE as well

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 24/9/2023 23:09

If your an Institution & you've lent your stock to someone else for a period of time are you going to risk selling it ahead of the share consolidation or even just after that knowing that at least 3 other institutions are long by 19.5% of the company ?

Add in there are 3 small shorts out there for around 2% of the company, so they've borrowed stock to sell as well & may need to buy it back in a hurry as well

And to top it off the company buy-back is about to begin again for another $10M or so which will be competing as well while buying up possibly 4% of the company.

Given the above I've removed the sell orders I had in place around the £1.81 mark which has been the sort of recent cap on the price.

I have a feeling this is going to get squeezed much high in the next few days, its a pity I only got 1.75K of my last sale bought back around £1.71 & I missed out on more early Friday :(

Lets see if I right & how panicky the institutions get this week.

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 23/9/2023 10:39

There was a further announcement regarding institutional holdings in Capricorn -

A new name has just emerged Centiva Capital, LP They have acquired the indirect voting rights to just over 3% of the company !

I'm actually beginning to wonder how many voting rights Capricorn has !

Yes I know it can only be 100% but seriously that is 3 company's that have acquired significant indirect voting rights in the company. The latest indirect notifications have

Goldman Sachs - 6.3389% see announcement 19th Sept

Bank of America Merrill Lynch - 10.187% see announcement 5th Sept

Centiva Capital, LP - 3.05% see announcement 22nd Sept

So combined there indirect control is just over 19.5% of the company.

So who has sold them there actual shares ?

Well it has to be at least 3 different institutions !

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 23/9/2023 10:38

churchill2

I will get there eventually ....... there are a number of conflicting bits of data in there that I need to get my head around (relate to tax by the looks of it) before I want to post more facts & figures regarding production etc.

I've checked out the Senegal stuff & what has been said is correct. If Woodside get 1st oil by 30th June 2024, then Capricorn will be due a payment provided the oil price for Brent is above $55 per barrel for the following 6 month's ($25M) if its above $60 on average then its $50M. Because its oil price dependent Capricorn wouldn't receive any payment until early 2025.

So all eyes will be on Woodside announcements & the FPSO leaving for Senegal Q1 2024 to have a chance of qualify. Its a pity they structured the deal that way FAR who sold there stake in the field just afterwards, have part of there contingent payment tied to production levels etc until 2027 with a payment cap on it.

Randy was talking about the new board not the old board. He was also saying that he found the staff to be good, but wrongly assigned etc, wrong priorities given to them. That's why there even going to have to hire some new staff for Egypt with the right skill sets for what's needed.

LOTM

[churchill2] 21/9/2023 14:48

Hi LOTM
I am surprised you have not commented on the half year presentation document. It contains plenty of information re cost reduction and management plans to make the company profitable. The pages of real interest are 16-17-18 and especially 23.
Their are points I disagree with such as claiming the possibility of a return from Senegal which flies in the face of what Woodside have announced.
The other point I found baffling was Randy telling us shareholders the merits of the management and the Board and then going on to list a woeful set of failures leading to a huge waste of resource.( money).

[last of the mohicans] 18/9/2023 19:38

I thought I'd write this for anyone new here or for anyone who wasn't paying attention back in May when the company distributed $450M via a £1.15 special dividend & 70 old shares for 33 new share consolidation.

When I first looked at it the share price was around £2.25 - £2.30 a share & the share buy-back was active, which I found really strange because they were in effect over paying for the shares they were buying back!

I think someone in the company eventually picked up on that & the buy-back stopped until the share consolidation was done.

In actual fact they should have stopped it until the share price was below £2.177 & then continued again, why ?

Well the inflection point with a dividend of £1.15 & consolidation ratio of 70 to 33 works out to be £2.177.

I think examples are the best way of demonstrating it to you.

So 70 shares priced at £2.177 give a total value of &152.40 You then receive a dividend of £80.50 (£1.15*70), the ex-d price of the shares should then be £1.027 (£2.177- £1.15) multiple it by 70 & you have an equity value of £71.89. You then divide that equity value (£71.89) by 33 (new shares) & you get a price of £2.178 per share.

The consolidation ratio (70/33) means there are now only 47.14% of the shares in issue compare to before. So you have a large multiplier effect if the closing share price isn't £2.177.

If it was £2.24 instead, then the dividend is the same but the closing equity value is not £71.89 its £76.30 & when you divide that by 33 it works out at £2.312 after the consolidation. In other words the original £0.063 difference turns into one of £0.134 Which means you really wanted to still own the shares at the ex-d date because you were better off.

Conversely if the share price was £2.12 at the ex-d date, the consolidated shares should only return to market at £2.058 which makes you worse off holding them at the ex-d date you'd be better off selling out before hand & then buying them back afterwards.

-------------------------------

This time round the dividend is £0.56 & the consolidation ratio is 3 old into 2 new ones. So the inflection point is £1.68

This time the compression ratio is 66.66% so there is a lot less gearing than the last time round. So the effect isn't as dramatic as before, but it will still make a difference to your bottom line.

At an ex-d close of £1.74 the shares should return to trading at £1.77 & if its £1.62 then they should return at £1.59

--------------------------------

In May I expected the share price to rise ahead of the ex-d date that didn't happen & the share price was very weak on its return to trading.

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 18/9/2023 14:32

Company website has just been updated with the largest 10 shareholders as at 8th Sept.

Plenty of movement during the 2 week period between the 25th of August & 8th Sept.

Goldman's & BofA's holding's both increased.

4 holdings didn't change at all.

Dimensional's holding decreased by a tiny 4,518 shares.
Vanguard had sold 84,058 shares 0.06%
Irenic Capital had sold 196,878 shares 0.14%
Blackrock had sold a whopping 3,317,175 shares or 2.32% taking there holding down to 3.13%

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 18/9/2023 13:54

controlledmadness,

Everyone knew there was a $100M payment coming & most likely a share consolidation with it.

The reason for there being no buy-back since the 4th August hasn't been revealed.

Now maybe Capricorn decided to pause the buy-back themselves.

The buy-back was being conducted through BofA, therefore if BofA were trading the stock for there own business at that time it would result in a conflict of interest.

Now the holding notices they issued show that they were acquiring a large position in Capricorn.

So logic says that was the reason behind the suspension of the buy-back rather than Capricorn stopping it themselves that all.

So that there was no insider trading.

The playing around with the share price & all these indirect holding's etc that are changing daily especially with Goldman Sach's is them trying to make money!

I hope that helps

LOTM

[controlledmadness] 18/9/2023 13:22

So is I understand the logic from LOTM then the reason no buy backs since the beginning of August is that BofA knew there was going to be a consolidation and Goldman Sachs also knew which explains their playing around everyday.
This sounds like insider trading.

[last of the mohicans] 18/9/2023 06:39

So not long after my last post the circular was released & the consolidation ratio is 2 new for every 3 held.

Not the ratio I was looking for, but can't have everything. So they'll be roughly 95.224M shares in issue once the consolidation is complete & the outstanding share buy-back amount of roughly $10M will reduce that number by close to 4M shares thus leaving us with around 91M in issue come the 1st of Jan.

I sold one lot of 9,500 shares on Friday afternoon at just over 175p

It's good to see that they've leant from the last buy-back situation & are waiting until after the consolidation is completed before the program re-starts.

LOTM

[1doodlebug] 15/9/2023 16:25

Another share consolidation !

[last of the mohicans] 15/9/2023 13:54

I see the trader's have tried to flush out the weak stop-losses on Brent / WTI ahead of the weekend, doesn't look to have succeeded with the price bouncing back up yet again.

The afternoon bots are not working like they usually do so far this afternoon with CNE, perhaps its to do with this large O trades that have gone through.

This has a different feel to it somehow.

I was hoping to see the circular has been issue notice at lunch time today, but sadly that hasn't occurred.

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 15/9/2023 11:04

churchill2,

Yes I saw the mistake straight away yesterday morning (someone obviously didn't change the date when editing the previous one).

-----------------------

I'm not sure its a bag of worms (Egypt portfolio).

So net cash was $176M at the end of June let's now call that $76M after the $100M distribution to shareholders.

There is $144M of receivables still to come & $85M of payables to deduct (although I'm not sure its actually that high, its not been well presented this time round).

Capex is down as $40 - 50M in the 2nd half.

Your also failing to see how that $50M annual saving in G&A costs gets used.

I did a rough calculation on the Waldorf consideration due for 2023. Yes they have the figure lower than I'm getting but the average price of oil in the 1st half of the year was $79.75, which is where they would base there's on. If it stays roughly where it is now the average for the year rises to over $84 per barrel. Which increases the payment by around $7.5M

There was also the production issue with Kraken in May/June. So they may have a lower total production number than is the case.

I'm currently penciling in $57.6M as the sum due in March 2024.

LOTM

[churchill2] 15/9/2023 09:43

While I am on the subject did anybody actually read the RNS from our Chief Executive Randy Neely.
In his H1 Operational and Strategic Highlights covering the Net Cash position for the six months from January 1st 2023 to the 30th June 2023 the 31st December 2022 is inserted instead of 30th June 2023. It begs the question how many highly paid professional staff and Auditors have read this statement and allowed it to go to shareholders.

[churchill2] 15/9/2023 09:20

Hi LOTH
I do admire your optimism but notwithstanding the rise in the oil price Egypt is a bag of worms. So where do we go from here Capricorn as at the end of Jane 2023 has $174 thousand less the $100 thousand being returned to shareholders. I do not believe we can sell Egypt for any realistic value so we will have to soldier on hoping they pay what is owed to us.
Senegal is gone which leaves $50 thousand approximately from our ex North Sea Assets.
So I am concerned that the future prospects for Capricorn look far from healthy.

[silverstone1] 15/9/2023 07:51

ANOTHER 56P SPECIAL DIVIDEND NEXT MONTH!

[last of the mohicans] 14/9/2023 15:57

taxi1,

I listened to it this morning.

Give the guy some time, he's got a good history by all accounts & knows Egypt well, from a how to do business point of view.

I think we'll learn a lot more at the end of November when they are discussing the assets in detail.

I think there is a lot of hope, I came across something about a week ago, that could be really exciting indeed, but first I need to let it play out & see what the result is before I want to say any more. If it turns out positive then it will be big news, but unfortunately its going to be a few weeks yet before I really know any more.

If it wasn't for technical issues our production profile would be even better than it is now & they have a number of additional wells that will come on stream near the end of the year which will mean good production at the start of 2024.

Just relax & let it all happen the money will be rolling into there bank accounts & then into ours.

LOTM

[taxi1] 14/9/2023 15:42

LOTM
I’ve just listened to the webcast
It’s on the company’s web page
Good to put a voice to a name
But dosent fill me with any great hope
Listen to it yourself let me know what you think

[last of the mohicans] 14/9/2023 14:34

As I said I think there are under instructions to get this to a close of £1.68 (3x£0.56)

Oil price is up nearly $2 currently so that's another $12,000 more to bank today than they banked yesterday for the same amount of production !

$$$$ everywhere

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 14/9/2023 13:28

hmm Rolls Royce aren't going to be paying that out annually.

DEC do roughly 16%

GKP were doing 41% before they had the pipeline issue with Iraq/Turkey.

And I think my 25% is being conservative ! but we'll see.

Its not going to be helped if those insto's are deliberately pushing the price up to close at £1.68 so that the ratio is 2 new for every 3 :( :( :(

LOTM

[taxi1] 14/9/2023 13:06

Where else are you going to get such a fab return on your money

Rolls Royce

[last of the mohicans] 14/9/2023 12:41

taxi1,

I wasn't here when the share price was £2.50 or the 2 bids of around £2.70 a share were rejected.

I only got interested just before the £1.15 payout, so roughly the beginning of May this year.

I really like the story & what the new board are trying to achieve.

People have totally lost sight of the value here.

There were 315M shares in issue back then when they rejected £2.70 or £850M valuation for the company.

They paid out £362M (£1.15 per share) & reduced the shares in issue to 148.5M when the share price was like £2.18 a share. Which meant they effectively added £0.56 to the value of the shares that were left in issue to that previous £2.70 people had been willing to pay to buy/merge with the company.

The buyback has only enhanced that value further with 6M shares bought so far.

Now they are going to payout another £80M or £0.56 per share to reduce the number of shares in issue even further & they are doing it at an even cheaper price than before !

If you add the numbers up we will end up having 95M shares max in issue having paid out a total of £452M (362 + 80 + 10).

So if you think about it that means £400M (that someone was willing to pay previously at similar or lower oil & gas prices) is in those 95M shares ie the offer would be over £4 per share now.

The cost savings the new board are doing shows just how staggeringly badly the company was run previously. They are going to be saving roughly $50M a year in admin costs. That's a saving of $0.50 per share (post consolidation) saved going forward each year for many years to come.

Think about it, over 4 years that the current value of the company post consolidation retained for the benefit of shareholders & not needlessly waisted.

--------------------

Yes its being played by the institutions while they try to hoover up as much stock as they can. Goldman Sach's, Bank of America & possibly others have seen the potential value here & are getting as big a slice of the pie as they can.

I expect this to become a dividend stock next year (although the company's not saying that yet). In 2 years time CNE most likely will be yielding 25%+ annually on the money invested today.

Where else are you going to get such a fab return on your money .......

LOTM

[taxi1] 14/9/2023 11:05

LOTM
I wish you all the best
But when this was £2.50 they all knew the divi was comming look were we are now.
All this share is now is s hedge fund plaything do what they want with it.
So now we wait on their next plan to maximise shareholder value I don’t think anyone in that office has looked up the definition of the word.
But on a lighter note hope I’m talking rubbish