Capricorn Energy Share Discussion Threads

[aspect100] 06/10/2023 08:32

I think these ex dividend shares should go up to 246p.

[silverstone1] 05/10/2023 23:41

CNE HAVE BEEN A GREAT INVESTMENT FOR ME BECAUSE I BOUGHT A 7 FIGURE SUM AT 125P IN AUGUST 2021, SO AFTER THE TENDER OFFER, I WAS ALREADY IN PROFIT, PLUS A SPECIAL DIVIDEND ALREADY PAID AND ANOTHER SPECIAL DIVIDEND PENDING!

[last of the mohicans] 05/10/2023 13:50

I'm glad to see all the resolutions were passed today.

So now we can look forward to a very interesting afternoon by the looks of it !

Try putting in some dummy orders & then you'll know what I mean.

They are wanting way over the offer price, if you put in a decent sized order, something I've not really seen with Capricorn before.

Prime Examples

177.314 4000 O 175.0 176.8 12:41:58
176.97 3500 O 175.0 176.4 13:02:44
176.69 3936 O 175.2 176.4 13:32:10


So either they are already short of stock or they don't want to be short of stock ahead of the share consolidation - effectively overnight (but officially 8am in the morning)

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 04/10/2023 09:25

Just a reminder for everyone.......

The meeting to approve the Special Dividend of £0.56 per share, followed by the share consolidation of 2 new shares for every 3 existing ones is tomorrow Thursday 5th Oct.

The shares will then effectively go EX dividend at the close of business on Thursday 5th Oct. The share consolidation occurs ahead of the market opening on Friday 6th Oct.

Only this time round unlike in May ahead of the previous special dividend & share consolidation. The share price is above the balancing point. That means the gearing is in our favour this time round not against us.

The balancing point is 3 x £1.68 = £5.04 less the 3 x £0.56 dividend (£1.68) leaves you with £3.36 which when dividend by the 2 new shares would equate to a price of £1.68 each.

If the current price of £1.80 turns out to be the closing price on the 5th Oct, then the new shares should return to trading around £1.86 (£5.40-£1.68 = £3.72 / 2) to have the same market value as before.

If the share price goes higher then the gap will grow out from that £0.06 difference, if it falls it will shrink in size.

Tick Tock, Tick Tock especially for those institutions that have sold/lend for cash there voting rights to other's (all 19% of them) , which might be the reason behind the scramble for shares that looks to be occurring.

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 02/10/2023 17:15

Some interesting trading today, there appeared to be a number of trades going through at well above the market price at the time!

177.478 17000 O 176.2 177.0 12:46:17 17,000
179.98 20000 O 178.0 178.6 12:55:45 20,000
179.42 91648 O 176.2 177.0 16:25:29 91,648

It will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings with the clock ticking & only 3 trading days left until XD of the special dividend & share consolidation.

I think we may see some more "Holding announcements" before then

Tick Tock

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 30/9/2023 09:26

Hi hsfinch

If you look at the previous wage bills they were very high indeed (eye wateringly so) for a company with 180 staff. Somewhere in the region of £2M+ a month plus pension & other perks.

I doubt they are paying out any more than the minimum entitlements in the contracts of employment for the 80% of staff leaving. You have to give 3 month's notice & then probably x weeks per year of service etc

The size of the ESOP & SIP Trusts are frightening for so few staff as well.

The previous board lived in a world of grandeur & spent share holder money like confetti.

Paid themselves very handsomely - after all they were with the big boys in the FTSE-100 at one time !

You should be glad the gravy train has all come to an end & shareholders are the ones who are finally going to get rewarded instead.

As I posted previously if I see any ex-CNE director's on any company I'm looking to invest in I'll be running a mile in the opposite direction & avoiding them like a plague.

LOTM

[hsfinch] 30/9/2023 08:25

Why do oilies like this pay out so much in redundancy to folks they're never gonna see again and way above legal obligations. Its shareholder money they're giving themselves. I don't get it.

[last of the mohicans] 29/9/2023 15:46

Hi churchill2,

I think there are one or two places where they forgot to change the date :( but we know what it was meant to be :)

Yes the progress to date has been breath taking.

Randy got 538,502 awards at that price & Nathan P got 107,700 depending on performance over 3 years.

The other cost saving that will also be in the 1st half numbers & drop dramatically going forward is those around the ESOP & SIP Trusts.

So too the possible future dilution for staff awards etc as 80% of UK staff will have left by the end of the year.

With so many changes happening its hard to know which are fully accounted for already & which have still to occur.

It will probably only start to reveal itself fully when we get to next years half -year & full year accounts.

LOTM

[churchill2] 29/9/2023 10:32

Hi LOTM
Thanks for the interesting information you have provided.I did notice a mistake on section 2.1. The comparison on the top line should be $228.9m year end 2022 and not 2023 as stated.On current trend I anticipate the number will not be far short.

The numbers you have provided just confirm the encouraging progress that has been so far.

If I remember correctly Randy was given a substantial incentive at 187.5p so your purchases look good value.

[last of the mohicans] 29/9/2023 09:42

I see they want to play games today, perhaps trying to trigger some stop losses etc. to get hold of some stock !

Got to love a tree shake

Well I've just done 2 topup's with another 5,000 shares at £1.7374 & 500 shares at a similar price neither is showing up on the LSE.

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 29/9/2023 01:02

Hi churchill2

I'm glad someone else see's the true value here as well ! :)

I think there will be some upgrades to the Egypt reserves by the end of November but nothing spectacular.


The G&A savings going forward are the game changer.

I've just been through the half year accounts looking at them & a lot of the $70M expected in G&A this year has already been paid.

"Administrative expenses of $34.4m include $13.0m of redundancy costs. $6.9m in other expenses relate to expenses incurred on proposed merger which did not complete."

For comparison the figure was $21.2M to June 2022 & $40.8M for the year to Dec 2022 so $34.4M is an ouch but expected. The $6.9M is a one-off type of expense.

There is also "The total additions of $16.8m in right-of-use assets include $16.0m addition in connection to additional office lease contracts in the UK."

Which was the posh new office in Edinburgh no longer going to be used & so I presume now leased to others.

The previous board spent money like confetti

----------------
this was the bit I was looking for yesterday ...... in the half year accounts in notes section 2.1

Oil and gas revenue in Egypt for H1 2023, was $98.3m (H1 2022: $137.4m; YE 2023: $228.9m), from net entitlement volumes of 2.4 mmboe (H1 2022: 2.6 mmboe; YE 2022: 4.7 mmboe). Oil sales price realised averaged $78.56/boe (H1 2022: $110.9/boe; YE 2022: $98.8/boe) (excluding expected credit loss adjustments) and gas sales prices remained at $2.9/mscf (H1 2022: $2.9/mscf; YE 2022; $2.9/mscf). Other income represents additional entitlement to cover tax due which is paid on Capricorn's behalf by EGPC; see section 5.

Cost of sales over the period were $27.5m (H1 2022: $32.8m; YE 2022: $71.2m), or $4.8/boe (H1 2022: $5.1/boe; YE 2022: $5.7/boe) (on a WI basis).

LOTM

[churchill2] 28/9/2023 17:54

Hi LOTm
I suspect we are both in agreement to the potential future value in this Company.

Revenue in excess of $200 million for this year from Egypt plus enough cash to see us through short term.

Longer term a strong management team to deal with the difficulties in Egypt to the benefit of shareholders

Hopefully at the end of November the planned update will be more rewarding than some in the past.

[last of the mohicans] 28/9/2023 02:08

churchill2,

Still really struggling to get my head around a few things :( anyway I'm going with this for now ...............

Depreciation of $21 per barrel
OPEX costs of $13 per barrel

If we go on G&A being $2 per boe starting in January 2024 (which in reality works out at close to $6 on a WI basis) then the current number is around $21 per barrel

So our all in costs are around $54 per barrel currently dropping to $39 per barrel in January.

If we go with current net oil production (net of Egypt tax) of 5,500 bopd then at $95 -$2 for grade differentials (ie $93) then the margin is $39 per barrel & that's being very conservative.

So the company is banking a net $215,000 per day from oil alone now (its actually a lot more because depreciation is not a current cash figure its historic expenditure)

That's over $6.5M per month net being on a ultra conservative side more likely north of $10M

But I'm going to make more enquires to try & get a much more accurate read of what's going on.

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 27/9/2023 09:17

I really didn't want to be paying this price for the parcel, as its the highest I've paid for one in a while, but I finally pressed the buy button.

Its not showing up on the LSE trades so it most likely took place elsewhere 4K at £1.767257 at 9:12

PS Barclays seem to have a source of stock that the rest of the market hasn't access to

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 26/9/2023 17:25

I know it wasn't a lot of volume just over 48K in the closing auction, but it's the first time I can recall the matched price being above that of the last quoted trade in normal hours.


26-Sep-23 16:35:07 176.40 48,184 Buy* 175.40 176.00 85.00k UT

So this maybe the 1st signs that there is a shortage of stock out there & the insto's are starting to scramble to get hold of those shares that are available.

Tick Tock - only 7 days to the consolidation

LOTM

[last of the mohicans] 26/9/2023 17:14

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 16:40

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 08:29

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] 25/9/2023 00:09

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 11:39

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 11:38

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 15:48

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 20:38

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 15:32

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 14:54

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