Fisher (james) & Sons Share Discussion Threads

[roddiemac2] 09/9/2019 21:47

So It will be tax relief , not direct payments.

[roddiemac2] 09/9/2019 21:42

DECOMMISSIONING IN THE UK
Brent is just one of around 470 installations that will be decommissioned in the UK sector over the next 30 to 40 years. In the wider North Sea, industry experts expect to see around 600 installations decommissioned.

So far, around 10% of the North Sea has entered the decommissioning phase. Some 40 decommissioning programmes have been submitted to the government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) – the government body that regulates the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas installations and pipelines in the UK. The BEIS website provides a comprehensive overview of decommissioning programmes which can be accessed here:

BEIS Website

This presents the UK with the opportunity to become a global leader in decommissioning – with skills and experience that can later be deployed around the world.

There are around 1000 people currently working on the Brent Project, both offshore and onshore, and the majority are employed by UK companies. The Brent Project is contributing to the positive impact on the supply chain, and local companies.

In terms of overall Brent Decommissioning project spend to 2025, we expect greater than 85% UK content. The final number will likely be higher as some contracts have still to be awarded.

Tax and Decommissioning Relief Deeds (DRDs)
Decommissioning is a cost incurred as part of the lifecycle of the field, and is therefore tax deductible. This is not unusual – corporate tax is paid on profits, which for an oil field is calculated as the sum of the income generated by the facility, minus the costs of setting it up, operating it and decommissioning the field at the end of its life. Like other investments in infrastructure, decommissioning costs are subject to tax relief.

The government has agreed a legally binding framework with the oil and gas industry to ensure long term certainty on the tax relief regime for decommissioning costs, which helps to safeguard continuous investment in the North Sea. The agreement, known as Decommissioning Relief Deeds (DRDs), ensures operators can plan for and quantify the future decommissioning costs.

Shell and Esso will be paying the decommissioning costs for the Brent Field. The tax relief we will get back is not a subsidy or a new cost to the taxpayer – it’s a refund – i.e. the tax has already been paid by Shell and Esso in previous years.

Given that the government has received more than £20 billion (in today’s money) as tax from the Brent field, the tax relief Shell and Esso will receive once decommissioning is complete, will have been paid for many times over already.

[roddiemac2] 09/9/2019 21:38

Illis,

I must do a little research into the removal of obsolete or redundant oil and gas rigs . We discussed this in mid 2017 . From memory, the UK government will have to make payments towards this activity. Most of the decommissioning will be done by foreign companies , but Fisher is well placed to provide various specialist services.

[bouleversee] 09/9/2019 18:58

Thanks, Illis. I feel reassured and shall ignore the share price and await next figures and dividends.

[illiswilgig] 09/9/2019 18:00

roddie - thank you, praise indeed.

Bouleversee - no, I have no knowledge of the new boss - other than the info in the rns releaae. I am relieved that the new CEO has an engineering background, though I admit to some bias.

Its always discomforting when such a successful leader as Nick Henry steps down. On this occasion my faith in the current management will have to extend to their ability to choose the right succession.

I see no problem with the oil and gas business. Global demand for oil and gas is still rising. I am sure that it will fall, eventually, but it's going to take a long time to go away - a few decades at least - and with the US current policies perhaps longer, to the detriment of the planet, unfortunately.

I anticipate Fisher's marine support and specialist technical services will more than replace the oil and gas business - although I also anticipate signicant business in the removal and decommissioing of the oil and gas installations for many decades to come.

cheers

[roddiemac2] 09/9/2019 11:45

illiswilgig,

Well summarised.
FSJ continue to be my largest holding.

cfro,

Renewables are likely to grow at a pace, regardless of what economies do.

[bouleversee] 30/8/2019 12:27

Yes, I wasn't worried about the current year and the fact that they have upped the interim div. shows confidence. I just wondered whether there were any long term issues over which they have little or no control that should concern us. This has been a great company and hopefully will continue to be so. However, any company is only as good as its current management and a lot of my other great companies are now in dire straits.

[cfro] 30/8/2019 11:59

Although the interims were flat the board has intimated that profits will come through in the second half - there is no reason to disbelieve the directors and especially that they have increased the divi which is done with confidence.

However what really attracted me to this company is the renewable angle to the business. They are proving now that they are capable of winning some quite major contracts in this sector and i believe there will be many more large contracts to win in the future.

[bouleversee] 30/8/2019 10:18

My largest holding, too, and that of all my immediate family members. Looking ahead, with all the environmental concerns and encouragement to switch away from oil and gas, how do you think this is going to affect FSJ? Do you think there will always be enough demand for oil to keep them busy and that their windfarm and other work will compensate?

What do you know about the new boss?

[illiswilgig] 30/8/2019 09:47

All quiet on the Fisher Front? And the interim results passed with barely a murmur.

Thought I'd take a moment to summarise them as the headline figures don't really justify the current rating of the share.

The company invested over 50m in acquisitions and capital investment (two dive ships and a tanker)

Revenue up by 10% (4% excluding currency and acquisitions) is over shadowed by the profit down 3% and 4% underlying.

On the face of it - not much growth - but to be fair the company had already signaled that the results would be skewed to the second half. But will they - there is always a danger that anticipated work will be further delayed?

Performance of Marine Support and Specialist Technical - the two divisions which have driven recent growth - marked time as acquisitions and capital investment (two dive ships) underpin future growth in Africa, South America and Middle East.

Overall performance would have been much worse had it not been for the star performance of Offshore oil - revenue up 24% and op profit up 275% albeit from a small base - and in tankships the unloved coastal tanker cash cow of the group - revenue up 17% and operating profit up 37% - buoyed by a temporary increase in the fleet but also with investment in a 5yr contract to the MoD for a sizeable additional vessel.

So all remains to play for in the second half. While I am a little concerned that the lacklustre performance of Marine Support and Specialist Technical might continue - I am more than impressed by the good results from offshore oil and tankships. I see the boards raising of the interim dividend by 10% - and this is not a company profligate with its dividends - as the strongest possible signal of the boards expectations for the full year.

I hold very firmly (FSJ is once again my largest holding) and with significant weakness I will be adding to it (subject to availability of funds),

cheers

[cfro] 07/8/2019 08:11

Nice acquisition announced - Brazilian company SM international for a total consideration of £7.5m.

[illiswilgig] 10/7/2019 09:14

For what its worth a quick search of the internet reveals that there are at least 4 broker analysts following FSJ.

Which seems likely given that it's an FTSE250 company. Platforms like HL will only display information from those analysts willing to provide their product for little or nothing. I'd question whether such 'free' analyst information is either meaningful or useful. I do watch such information to keep an eye on what the 'herd' is thinking. I find the most imteresting situations where my research and views differ most strongly from the 'herd'. Of the 2 broker views currently on Digital Look - one rates FSF a strong buy, and the other a neutral.

My conclusion is that the herd is milling around and doesn't have a clue. At the moment I rate the track record of the company and its management well above the track record of the broker analysts.

Forecasts - presumably from these same analysts - are for a 6% increase in profits this year. Which is weak compared with the current shareprice of around 20x forecast profits.

That should be contrasted with the Chairmans own forecast in the last results of a return to double digit earnings growth in the medium term - which makes the share price look much better value.

If the share price continues to drift downwards towards anyting like 1800 I will top up again - even though FSJ is currently my largest holding.

cheers

Illis

[roddiemac2] 09/7/2019 22:44

In recent weeks I have had no time to properly follow my investments. I need to catch up. On the basis that your own ideas are often the best, I rarely pay much heed to broker comments . Strong sell? ---Penny Shares( not something I read ) said that when the price reached 300p. They had no idea about the company`s potential, and were merely keen to recommend their readers to lock in a quick profit; nothing wrong with that , but history shows that the real money is made long term. Without delving further, Tempus seem about right. I will, however, ask a few questions this week.

[bouleversee] 13/6/2019 16:28

Write up by Tempus in The Times today has FSJ as a long term hold; "only relatively low yield prevents it from being a buy". I wonder if the failure to appoint a successor to Nick Henry as yet has anything to do with the drop, or maybe they have decided on someone and word has got out and he is not liked. OTOH I have just seen on HL's website that the one and only broker following FSJ has marked it a "strong sell"; no idea why. Anyone have any suggestions?

I have had my shares for many years and although the yield on current share price has never been high, am getting a decent yield on my original purchase price as well as a decent profit. I can see, however, that the low yield and fairly high p/e ratio might put new purchasers off. We have seen quite a few growth shares reverse direction with little or no income to compensate. (My latest examples are WPCT and HZD where I am losing a large chunk of my capital without having received any dividends.)

[neurolodger] 13/6/2019 15:44

Any reason for drop in share price in last two days?

[shiv1986] 07/5/2019 08:50

ADVFN is hosting an investor event for a firm within Industrial Transportation; Avation plc, on the 21st May to find out about their future prospects.

Sign up to attend this event:

[illiswilgig] 04/5/2019 08:49

Sharecast broker consensus shows 4 brokers covering FSJ:

1 strong buy (who is that?)
2 hold
1 strong sell

from which I can deduce nothing? Except to say that the brokers don't know any more than we do. Possibly less.

cheers

[bouleversee] 02/5/2019 09:22

S.p. rather disappointing recently. I was debating whether to add to my already large (for me) holding but yield is only 1.16% and P/E is high at 21.9 and I see the only analyst quoted on HL website has them down as a strong sell, so I think I'll hang on to my spare cash for the moment.

[illiswilgig] 02/5/2019 08:57

Steady as she goes 'Trading in line with expectations' Update this morning.

Very positive wording on the performance of Tankships and Offshore Oil

'first quarter financial performance at its Tankships and Offshore Oil divisions in the first quarter is well ahead of last year.'

Which of course means that at this stage marine support and specialist technical are behind expectations - though the wording is less negative and leans towards timing and H2 weighting.

'Marine Support and Specialist Technical will be more second half weighted this year due to the timing of projects. The pipeline of opportunities in Specialist Technical remains strong.'

Overall I am pleased to see that Offshore Oil is recovering strongly after a few bad years and Tankships, long the cashcow of the business, continues to surprise.

There is also some media-and-market friendly news on the renewables

'Our renewables business within Marine Support won its first contract for Triton Knoll, a 90 turbine windfarm being built 32 kilometres off the Lincolnshire coast and our high voltage engineering specialist business, EDS, has been awarded a 15 year operations and maintenance contract for Offshore Transmission (OFTO) assets at Greater Gabbard.'

Small stuff in the scale of things, I should think, but it shows that a base of long term contracts is being established which will be fruitful in the longer term,

very happy. Strong hold - forever.

Should there be a sudden drop in the share price, which does happen occasionally I will look to buy a few more.

right - time to go back to sleep now I think,

cheers

Mark

[roddiemac2] 20/3/2019 09:03

I thought it was rather unusual to see a soon to depart CEO buying more shares!

There were about 720,000 shares traded on Monday; marked as buys included three of 75,000 shares each , two of 34,000 shares each, and one of 66,000 shares, and one of 72,000 shares. There were two large trades, marked as sells ,of 90,000 and 93,436.---all at near record highs in the share price.

An article in yesterday`s Times commenting on wind farms producing record power in the recent storms said --" Almost 10,000 offshore and onshore turbines generated 38% of electricity in Britain in the seven days from Monday to Sunday, far outstripping any other source.----Offshore wind farms accounted for 61% of last week`s power, and onshore wind farms 39%.----The capacity of offshore wind farms could quadruple by 2030 under an agreement reached this month between the government and wind industry to help it expand.--- Emma Pinchbeck, deputy chief executive of Renewable UK, said -This record comes just after last week`s announcement of the Offshore Wind Sector deal, which will see our industry grow to support 27,000 highly skilled jobs by 2030, and the UK`s offshore wind supply chain generating billions every year in exports, as well as providing more goods and services for offshore wind projects in UK waters. "

FSJ is well placed to benefit from this growth in the UK, ---and then there will be growth in other parts of the world.

[bouleversee] 18/3/2019 17:20

LOL!

Pity they didn't have someone like him running IRV. Have just lost a significant amount there. As the govt. continued to award them big contracts, I assumed they would be OK in the fulness of time so didn't sell and was too busy battling with the council over my road to keep a close eye on them recently and try to fathom out the pros and cons of the offer, though I think we were stuffed either way.
Thank heavens for FSJ! Am probably tempting providence.

[illiswilgig] 18/3/2019 14:42

I agree with you on his achievements. Quite remarkable.

Sadly the RNS was in error - now amended - it turns out that Nick Henry and his wife have sold shares. A modest amount. Though given he's about to step down, surely it's not a big deal and the market seems to have taken the news in its stride.

cheers