Forth Ports Share Discussion Threads

[ed 123] 25/5/2007 13:38

Good luck, prankster2.

I'm hanging on here. May be a market correction coming, who knows? Tangible assets and steady income give support to Forth. Additionally, planning permission, tram and Olympics trade give some upside scope. Agree, bid looks less likely now. There are certainly faster moving shares out there and if a correction comes, cash will be king, of course.

[prankster2] 25/5/2007 11:57

I'm out for a 4% loss as I'm trimming my portfolio, was only hanging around for a potential bid which does not look like it's going to materialise seeing that a couple of directors off loaded some stock a couple of weeks back.

Good luck to any holders.

[ed 123] 15/5/2007 10:20

Rumours have dried up but it looks to be getting support at £20.00. May be quiet now till the interims, 11 September.

[acliff] 15/5/2007 10:18

I was wondering whether the directors selling such a small amount of shares actually makes an offer more likely in a perverse sort of way, if you see what I mean?
alex

[jodi17qad] 15/5/2007 10:16

What has become of the takeover rumours, I wonder?

Any news?

[gateside] 10/5/2007 20:34

Payment of final dividend tomorrow

;-)

[gateside] 02/5/2007 07:05

AGM statement due out later today

[gateside] 30/4/2007 08:24

Looking very oversold and unloved at the moment. AGM statement due on Wednesday, so maybe that will help to keep the share price afloat.

[gateside] 19/4/2007 08:23

The more it falls towards £20

The more likley that the bid rumours will start up again.

[leeaadvfn] 11/4/2007 12:24

...good point

[gateside] 11/4/2007 08:13

FPT has gone Ex-div today... hence the drop this morning

[haydock] 03/4/2007 09:46

Item yesterday in either Inde or Daily Mail that FP was running the rule over Baltic ports.
Listed AIM stock, apparently with port & land, & gold mining????
FP supposed to be in need of pepped up profits, so I don't take it too seriously.

[ed 123] 31/3/2007 21:46

Is this the most frequently rumoured takeover never to take place?

Ex dividend on 11 April - a little reward for my patience.

[lbo] 31/3/2007 14:04

The FT today

Forth Ports faded 0.5 per cent to £20.75 in spite of rumours of a £25-a-share bid from Rreef, the property and infrastructure investment arm of Deutsche Bank.

[prankster2] 20/3/2007 16:21

This is one of my stocks that fell in the 20% bracket (of not working out), results were poor, usually I would sell a stock that came out with these numbers straight away, however as my average price is £21.13 I'll hold as Gateside points out in his post if a bid is going to come in, now is a more appropriate time. The publicity in the press may flush some potential bidders out. We'll see.

[ed 123] 20/3/2007 11:24

From the FT:-

A valuation of 15 times earnings for the ports business and the calculation of worth figure for the properties comes out with a valuation of around £23 per share, however, making the company at least a hold and, given the potential for a takeover, a speculative buy.

[ed 123] 20/3/2007 11:17

Thanks for the posts, Gateside.

Shareprice looking soggy at the moment (-35p). However, only 40,000 shares traded. Some who hoped for a bid announcement with the results may be exiting. Could present a buying opportunity for the long termers.

[gateside] 20/3/2007 07:45

FPT actually gets a second mention in The Times.....


Forth Ports climbed £1.03 to £20.15 amid rumours that it may face a takeover approach at about £23.50 a share, valuing the group at more than £1 billion. Macquarie, the Australian bank, has been mooted as the bidder, as is often the case when an infrastructure company is on the block, but dealers believe that another private equity firm could move first.

Forth, the last of Britain's publicly traded ports operators, has long been considered a bid target, for its property portfolio as well as its core business. The company owns land in the Leith district of Edinburgh, which analysts believe could be worth more as a housing development than a dockyard.

[gateside] 20/3/2007 07:44

Good to see FPT getting lots of mention in the daily newspapers. Whether FPT gets to £25+ via a bid or not it will get there at some point.

[gateside] 20/3/2007 07:38

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.

[gateside] 20/3/2007 07:35

Forth Ports

Our view: Hold

Share price: 2,100p (+10p)

Annual results from Forth Ports yesterday were far from impressive. The operator of Dundee, Fife and Tilbury ports reported a 5 per cent drop in its pre-tax profits to £55.6m. The poor performance was caused by a one-off event - three customers had simultaneously shut down their operations to carry out maintenance work.

Nevertheless, Forth shares staged a modest advance. Driving this was news that the value of its land bank, which consists of 400 acres of waterfront land near Edinburgh, had risen 6 per cent to £277m. This is a conservative valuation of the portfolio. Once it has been redeveloped, analysts believe the site could be worth as much as £400m.

Another reason for Forth shares holding up so well is the hope that the company will one day be taken over. Such a scenario is quite likely. The group is the last remaining listed UK ports operator. Given its extensive property portfolio, it would make a perfect acquisition for private equity which at present has record amounts of cash to spend on buyouts.

[gateside] 20/3/2007 07:34

Go to Forth and it could multiply - especially once it attract bidders

Forth 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.