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| Share Name | Share Symbol | Market | Stock Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forth Ports | FPT | London | Ordinary Share |
| Price Change | Price Change % | Share Price | Last Trade
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.00 | 0.00% | 1,627.00 | 01:00:00 |
| Open Price | Low Price | High Price | Close Price | Previous Close |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,627.00 |
| Top Posts |
|---|
Posted at 20/3/2007 07:38 by gateside Forth Ports Forth Ports sits alone as the only listed ports operator in the UK. Its rivals - ABP, P&O, Mersey Docks and PD Ports - have been bought. A surging demand for infrastructure assets is the reason. Investors are willing to pay ever higher prices to secure access to low-risk, highly visible earnings. Forth's network of seven ports grants its customers access to markets across the UK and makes it an attractive target. That was shown in 2001, when Duke Street Capital tried to buy the company for 750p a share. The board of the day was right to reject that approach: the shares closed last night at £21. The group can have confidence in where 90 per cent of revenues are coming from this year, with recently signed contracts with big industrial groups extending for decades to come. The group's Tilbury facility on the Thames should prove a key access point for the import of construction materials for the development of facilities for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. The company also has another attraction: property. It owns 400 acres on the waterfront near Edinburgh, which it reckons will prove more valuable as housing and shops than dockland. Shares, which give a dividend yield of 2.3 per cent, look expensive, but they are worth holding. |
Posted at 20/3/2007 07:34 by gateside Go to Forth and it could multiply - especially once it attract biddersForth Ports Shares: £21.00 +10p Questor says Buy What's wrong with Forth Ports? While Associated British Ports, Mersey Docks and PD Ports have all been taken private, bid target Forth remains just that. Judging by yesterday's full-year results, the business is in reasonable shape, even if underlying profits from the port operations, at £37.3m, went nowhere last year. The issue for a prospective bidder is not just a share price already containing a bid premium, but the fact that, unlike its rivals, Forth is two distinct businesses: ports and property. The cargo operations at Grangemouth, Dundee, Rosyth and Tilbury share all the characteristics beloved of the infrastructure funds that battled for ABP or PD Ports - scarce capacity, long-term contracts with shipping customers and regular, predictable cash-flows. The value of the ports' investment properties keeps going up - last year from £137m to £164m - due to such things as a 35-year lease with Cemex for a new Tilbury cement facility. By contrast, the property wing - broadly 400 acres of prime Edinburgh waterfront - appeals not to infrastructure funds but property developers. As our chart shows, property chipped in negligible profits last year, but it is here the real value lies. Forth is having the estate independently valued each year, with its "market value" - the sum if sold tomorrow - up 6pc to £277m and the longer term "calculation of worth" up from £362m to £402m. Even the latter is likely to prove conservative, assuming that Leith property prices keep rising and Forth wins permission to build more luxury flats than social housing. All this means that Forth is really a target for break-up bidders. Analysts' sum-of-the-parts calculations range from around £21 per share - close to the current share price - to £25, depending on assumptions over property development. With a yield of just 2.2pc, the shares are not cheap, but for patient investors they're a buy. |
Posted at 24/1/2007 13:06 by ed 123 Good comment, haydock. Agree, it's the combination of ports and land that has kept Forth from a takeover bid. Also, the property side has both commercial and housing assets, which may mean that two buyers are needed for the property side itself. It's still "do-able", though. An operator/investor of ports could reach a conditional agreement with someone like LAND to take on the property assets and they would sell on what they don't want to keep.Not holding my breath but not selling out of this one either. IMHO, there should be another 20% share price uplift to come ........... eventually. |
Posted at 02/12/2006 17:01 by gateside Market Report: Bid rumour mill boat comes in for Forth Ports By Andrew Dewson Published: 02 December 2006 If the word among traders is correct, there could be no independent port operators left in the UK. P&O and Associated British Ports have already been swallowed up and it looks like Forth Ports will not last much longer as talk of an imminent bid approach did the rounds yesterday. Traders are convinced that an offer is in the pipeline for Forth, although one claimed that the bidder is "definitely not" Macquarie Bank. However, others said that a bid from the acquisitive Australian infrastructure investor cannot be ruled out since Macquarie lost out in the AB Ports takeover. Traders said that Forth Ports, which includes Tilbury docks on the Thames and Leith and Grangemouth docks on the Forth estuary, could attract a bid worth an initial 2,300p per share, but a bidding battle could see that priced pushed significantly higher.The shares were in demand all session and closed 113p better at 2,128p. |
Posted at 12/10/2006 23:00 by ed 123 Tailing off now. 1750 coming?I read the Property Day Presentation. It looks impressive; loads of land. The plan remains for about 15 years of gradual development - which should give 15 years of increasing value for shareholders. Currently property is very attractive to investors (especially pension funds). Somehow, I can't see Forth being left alone to progress this to its completion. |
Posted at 15/9/2006 23:48 by ed 123 I can't, "wait for a bit before getting back into this," I was never out of it. Global imbalances, etc., make the whole market uncertain. However, I hang onto Forth because it should be a relatively stable performer with strong asset backing and a chance of a bid.You sold close to the high point. Well done. I don't trust my timing skills and can afford to wait .... bit more of an investor than a trader. I may get £25 per share one day .... we'll see. |
Posted at 26/8/2006 22:14 by gateside The Questor columnTime for Forth Ports to dust itself down and get off the shelf The ports sector was once the also-ran of the stock market, sitting there, gathering dust, with few taking much interest. Take P&O for example. For years, while Lord Stirling built up the group into the gem it became, the majority of commentators focused on its past ownership of the La Manga resort, or its troubled ferries. And so while the British ports were hidden under their own bushels, foreign port operators such as Hutchison, Temasek and Dubai Ports World, were able to amass global ports businesses to much fanfare. That is not to say that British port companies have been lagging - after all, P&O had a veritable collection of global assets before it was taken over - just that perhaps they were not rated as strongly as their foreign counterparts. Such a rating disparity was one of the reasons companies like DP World, which bought P&O following a battle with Temasek, are able to offer top dollar for British port assets. So where once lay a plethora of port assets, only one, Forth Ports, remains. The question is, what will happen to it now PD Ports, Mersey Docks, P&O, ABP, and even Simon Group are off the market. Given the recent speculation that Peel Holdings is willing to sell 49pc of its Peel Ports business, will a bid for Forth Ports be in the offing? Rumour abounds that one of the many infrastructure funds that have been sniffing around the sector for months may yet pounce on Forth. This, and the activity in the sector, has seen Forth's share price jump from £13.47 at the start of 2005 to £18.45 at the time of writing. Is there any value left? Well, a number of brokers seem to think so, with analyst Alastair Gunn of Arbuthnot keeping his price target of £20.98. But Mr Gunn argued, based on the take-out multiple Goldman Sachs paid for AB Ports, Forth's shares could be worth as much as £30 a piece. Forth's value is underpinned by a suitably strong land bank in Leith, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, which has significant development potential. Chief executive Charles Hammond refers to the 400-acre site in Leith as the biggest property project since Canary Wharf in London, and it certainly boosts the company's value. Lest we not forget the ports business, which provides a good cashflow to ensure the dividend is still paid, and funds the development activities. In the past, Mr Hammond and his board have always pointed out that investors should not wait for a bid, and instead focus on what he and the rest of them can do to unlock its value. However, a would-be investor would have to be very foolish not to consider the prospect of a takeover when considering Forth's shares, particularly as a number of the acquisitions in this sector have been the result of bidding wars between rivals, which has the added benefit of pushing up the price. Questor rated Forth a hold back in March at £17.61, and this was not the best call. Given the activity in the sector, and the development potential otherwise, Forth's shares are a buy. |
Posted at 24/6/2006 08:15 by gateside Forth Ports ripe for takeover bidWITH 400 acres of prime Scottish waterfront ripe for redevelopment, and investor appetite for UK port ownership at an all-time high fuelled by growing demand for raw materials, Edinburgh's Forth Ports continues to be seen in the City as a prime takeover target. Now Britain's third-biggest ports operator, the company issued an upbeat trading statement yesterday which revealed more progress on its future plans for Leith's coastline, sending its shares up another 1.75 per cent. Charles Hammond, the group's chief executive, refused to speculate on whether he thinks anyone is running the rule over it, concentrating instead on how the strength of trading underlines how well it is delivering for shareholders. "I don't comment on speculation, but the statement shows we are focused on the business and delivering value," he said, adding that the company itself is "always looking at expansion opportunities if they arise". Forth Ports shares have risen more 35 per cent in the past year, and added another 32p to close at £18.60 yesterday, giving it a market cap of around £848 million. Analysts consider the stock a strengthening "buy". Hammond said that this year should be "another year of progress", and that half-year results should be bang in line with expectations. The City is now expecting the firm to turn in a pre-tax profit of around £34m for the full-year, compared with £58.3m the previous year, reflecting its impressive property portfolio and strategy. As well as Leith and Grangemouth, it operates Rosyth, Methil, Burntisland, and Dundee in Scotland, and owns Tilbury near London - one of the biggest container operations in the UK - which has just won a three-year contract with Ferryways for a new daily roll-on-roll-off service to Ostend. Forth Ports also has a 50 per cent equity stake in Multi-Link Terminals, a container terminal operator in Helsinki and Kotka in Finland and St Petersburg in Russia. Within and around the Forth and Tay estuaries, it manages and operates an area of 280 square miles of navigable waters, including two specialised marine terminals for oil and gas export and provides other marine services, such as towage and conservancy. It has already benefited from London's successful bid for the 2012 Olympics which has prompted inquiries from companies looking to bring in construction and building materials to Tilbury, which is on the River Thames. Its rival, Associated British Ports - Britain's largest ports operator - remained at the centre of a potential bidding war yesterday after a consortium led by investment bank Goldman Sachs raised its takeover offer for the company to £2.8 billion. ABP chiefs recommended the new 910p per share bid, raised from 840p. The Goldman group decided to raise its offer after Australian bank Macquarie and allies also offered to buy ABP. With further bids expected, ABP shares ended up another 38p, or 4.3 per cent, at 919p, giving it a market cap of £2.76bn. The owner of 21 UK ports including Southampton, Grimsby and Hull, ABP is just the latest UK ports group to attract bid interest as global trade booms. In a controversial move in March, Dubai Ports World bought ports and shipping firm P&O for £3.9bn after winning a bidding war with Singapore's PSA International. Mersey Docks & Harbour was also snapped up a year ago by Peel Ports - the owner of Clydeport on the west coast - for £770m. When ABP goes, it will leave Forth Ports as the only listed ports company left in the UK, and possibly the next in line for takeover attention. Port operators such as ABP and Forth Ports offer investors a relatively steady stream of business and earnings, as well as valuable real estate and property holdings. Forth Ports' land bank is as attractive as any in the UK, given its ambitious plans to turn derelict land on the Firth of Forth coastline into prime residential, leisure and retail developments. Hammond yesterday said that, by the end of the year, he would be in a position to release details of what he described as "the largest planning consent ever submitted" in Edinburgh, and that he was close to appointing an international firm of master-planners for its "strategic hub site" at Leith. The timescale is the same for details to be released on a second ocean-going liner terminal - plans which collectively will provide, when completed, some £40m to the local and Scottish economy. Add those blueprints to container volumes at Grangemouth and coal tonnages at Leith, both improving, and it becomes increasingly likely that predators will be circling for a piece of the action. |
Posted at 19/6/2006 07:16 by abcd1234 This from the Daily Mail Newspaper Group this weekend:#################### Midas is edited by Ben Laurence 18 June 2006 Midas Update: Bid battle puts Forth in spotlight THE extraordinary tussle for control of Associated British Ports has turned the spotlight on Forth Ports, tipped here on January 8. AB Ports has been targeted by two rival bidders, one led by Australia's Macquarie bank and the second by investment bank Goldman Sachs. The battle for control marks the third time in a few months that bidders have fought over a ports group. PD Ports and container terminal operator P&O have both been taken over. The excitement over AB Ports last week lifted the price of Forth's shares. They ended the week at 1807p, marking a 13 per cent rise from their price when we suggested that you buy. Forth operates principally in Scotland, but also runs Tilbury on the Thames and has a half-share in a container terminal business with operations in Finland and Russia. But Forth also owns huge tracts of land, most notably at Leith, just a couple of miles from Edinburgh city centre. The company has declared that it wants to retain a stake in this land rather than sell it off for someone else to reap the development profits, hence it hopes that its own investors will share in the benefits. Forth is as much a property company as a ports operator. With other ports companies having fallen to bidders, Forth may well be the next to go. But we are emphatically not suggesting that you hold the shares merely in the hope of a bid. Forth's value is underpinned by the value of its assets. We think that over the next couple of years, the value of those assets will become clear. Don't be tempted to take profits. Hold on. #################### |
Posted at 08/1/2006 17:22 by lundhousegreen Land bank gives Forth potential (Mail on Sunday)Midas is edited by Ben Laurance 8 January 2006 THE past 12 months have provided an extraordinary amount of activity among ports companies. P&O, the big daddy of them all, accepted a £3.3bn bid from Dubai. PD Ports, tipped here at 112p, agreed a takeover giving investors a gain of 33%. Mersey Docks also succumbed to an offer. So is that it? Surely things are bound to calm down after such a flurry of activity? Not necessarily. One company that so far has retained its independence is Forth Ports. Certainly, its shares have risen strongly as the City has woken up to the sector's hidden potential. Indeed, investors who followed our advice two years ago and bought the shares have profited handsomely. But the Scottish company still offers an intriguing investment opportunity. As its name suggests, Forth operates principally in Scotland. It has five ports on the Firth of Forth - Rosyth, Leith, Grangemouth, Methil and Burntisland - plus Dundee on the Tay Estuary. But the company also operates Tilbury on the Thames and has a halfshare in a container terminal business with operations in Finland and Russia. With the shares now at 1595p, they appear expensive when measured against likely earnings per share of less than 60p for the year just ended. But this is a company whose value should not be measured simply by short-term earnings. Forth owns huge amounts of land, most notably at Leith, only a couple of miles from the centre of Edinburgh. And chief executive Charles Hammond has wisely decided that the company should remain involved in the land's development, rather than simply sell it, hence investors retain a slice of the gains. Put simply, Forth Ports is about more than just ports: it is also a valuable property play. The benefits of this strategy will take time to show through. But taking a three-to-five year view, the value of the shares appears to be well underpinned. And no investor will ignore the potential for a takeover. Indeed, there has been a welter of speculation over the past couple of months about the possibility of a private equity bid. Midas verdict: Investors who followed our advice and bought Forth shares at 1102p in January 2004 have had a great run. But even at their current price, they are a buy. A bid may or may not come, but the shares offer solid value and should not disappoint. |
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