Great Portland Estates Share Discussion Threads

[18bt] 15/11/2006 18:26

They don't seem to be doing many deals. All the other VCs are buying things here and there, but nothing from Graphite .... are they getting long in the tooth. I still hold, but wondering whether SVIIT or HG aren't better bet.

[goldthorpe] 15/11/2006 18:14

NAV will be announced in a week or two. Special dividend again, I wonder?

[nil pd] 11/11/2006 19:49

Hi goldthorpe. Yes I noticed that! Good eh? I guess we will bounce around at this level for 6 months or so, with the psychological 400 barrier in the way. Then again, maybe not, as GPE do seem to deliver consistently.

I wonder when the FTSE option will be sold?

[goldthorpe] 09/11/2006 14:42

Nil Pd, largeish 7p spead at moment; but offer price now 398p!

[nil pd] 25/10/2006 11:32

Indeed goldthorpe. Also I see the share price getting close to my minimum expectation of 397p. Could be 400 plus soon, hopefully.

[goldthorpe] 24/10/2006 08:14

More shares bought back last Friday, at about 10% discount to NAV. There must be more cash around than I thought. Perhaps there's reasonable inflow of cash?

[thedaidai] 21/9/2006 13:35

For some reason, GPE included the line "As in previous years, the directors do not propose to pay an interim dividend" in their 2005 interims but did not include such a note in this year's interims. I do not expect an interim dividend to be paid.

Note that comparisons with previous years are muddied by exceptional dividends paid when they received a larger than expected income associated with particular disposals

[nil pd] 21/9/2006 10:18

Regarding my question about an interim dividend, this statement (in my opinion) does not say "an interim dividend of 3.4p will be paid":

'The revenue return attributable to shareholders for the period was £2.9 million or 3.4p per share (June 2005: £3.8 million, 4.3p)'.

Anyway, I'll read the announcement in detail to see what sense I can make of that.

BTW, I don't mean a discount of 95%, I mean (of course) 5%: multiply NAV x 0.95. Soz!

[nil pd] 21/9/2006 09:41

NAV of 418.6p, and applying a reasonable market discount to NAV of 95%, indicates that we should be valued by the market at about 397p.

Do I understand correctly that there is no interim divvy?

EDIT: GPE are modest with their achievements aren't they? I missed the announcement, timed as it was just before market close.

[goldthorpe] 20/9/2006 12:12

Anyone know when the Interim results are due out?

[nil pd] 10/7/2006 14:10

Thanks goldthorpe.

[goldthorpe] 10/7/2006 08:56

Nil Pd, a reference to the award:

[nil pd] 04/7/2006 16:50

Wish I'd followed you then (in May) goldthorpe! The discount will offer pressure northward.

[goldthorpe] 04/7/2006 16:19

According to last annual/half-yearly report or two, they say they are cautious and don't want to over-pay whilst Private Equity has been booming. It seems to me that Graphite Capital receive the largesse of the bigger firms that seem to provide the exits recently (Maplin in particular). They've effectively returned some excess cash to shareholders by buying back at a reasonably large discount. I'm happy with that.

I bought more in May when they followed the market down. Discount now >10%.

[nil pd] 04/7/2006 12:58

Changed my mind on the above post, EPS looks better and dividends will rise. In fact, a few more hefty buy-backs might just be in order. One of the best Private Equity businesses according to a report (sorry, can't quote reference as it was word of mouth - will seek the reference, unless anyone has it).

Having reduced a while back, not sold out, I am a buyer of GPE again.

[nil pd] 21/6/2006 14:00

I've come to the conclusion that share buy-backs are cosmetic. They cannot by definition have much of an impact on the sp, due to the small percentage that's allowed to be bought back and the shares must be cancelled, rather than held in "treasury", otherwise they can potentially be re-issued later.

BP has been buying back shares in a massive buy-back program every day for over a year and it has had no impact on the share price, which has dropped.

It would be far better to raise dividends or invest the money in the company's core activities. What makes a share price rise is good performance in the company's business.

[cimbom] 20/6/2006 14:18

Good article just out.The site is free to register and read.

www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk

GPE: Share buy back programme ongoing.
By William Foss

Yes, an investment trust. Why not?

Investors spend a monumental amount of time blabbing on about 10 baggers in the oil sector, but have you looked at the charts of some investment trusts lately? You should. There is nothing disgraceful about the performance some of these trusts put in over the medium-long term. Value investors have the advantage of a regular dividend, and in the case of Graphite Enterprise (GPE), an ongoing share buy back programme.

When I say ongoing, I really mean it to. GPE started buying back shares over 2 years ago, and still is!

[nil pd] 22/5/2006 12:30

Well, the directors clearly think the shares are priced low at present:

RNS Number:3095D
Graphite Enterprise Trust PLC
22 May 2006





The Board of Graphite Enterprise Trust PLC announces that it has bought back
some of its own shares. The details are set out below:





Date of purchase: 19 May 2006



Number of shares purchased: 500,000



Highest and lowest price paid per share (excluding expenses): 355.9425p



Shares in issue following this buy-back will be: 84,375,000



Name and telephone number of contact for queries:



Martin Crayton - 020 7825 5300



Name of authorised company official responsible for making this announcement:



Martin Crayton, for and behalf of Graphite Capital Management LLP, Secretary



Date of notification: 22 May 2006








This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END

[nil pd] 13/4/2006 09:22

Agreed golthorpe - thedaidai please keep in touch if you have the time.

I sold a small fraction the other day too. Only because I needed it elsewhere and the share price looks to be flattening for a while. We still maintain a good holding.

[goldthorpe] 12/4/2006 07:36

thedaidai,
I have 2/3 of my holding in F&C Pension and the rest is in self-select PEPs and ISAs. Agreed, the lack of flexibiliy with F&C is annoying.
Sounds like all your GPE is gone. I hope you keep in touch here. I, and I think the others, have appreciated your input.

[thedaidai] 11/4/2006 16:55

I have sold all my stake now which was held in a PEP account and transferred cash value to another provider.

F&C were the PEP plan manager but wouldn't allow me to transfer my shares across - they insisted I had to cash them in. I now intend to buy a third of them back, hopefully for about the same as I got from the sale (369.5p)

I got a bit peed off with F&C. I repeatedly tried to sign up to manage my holding electronically so I could sell a bit off after any surges in price but they kept telling me they had sent me out a username and password when they hadn't - so I'm gonna save myself the annual fee by transferring to my ISA manager who don't charge any extra for managing the PEP and allow me access to a much wider range of stocks

I still think GPE will be a steady performer - but I'm looking to diversify the two thirds of an overweight holding into a few hopefully higher risk high reward opportunities