Lonmin Share Discussion Threads

[lazyhisnibs] 17/6/2015 21:11

Eskom and its load shedding (confusing) policy much in the media today.

Erring on the side of good news if it proves to be reliable but a lot depends on how much of their plant breaks down during winter and it doesn't sound like their track record is very good this past year.

There may still be quite a lot of stage 2 electricity rationing even if things go to the latest plan but by the sounds of it that won't weigh on big industry as much as it does consumers and retail.

[lazyhisnibs] 16/6/2015 13:16

Platinum miners on the belt get some coverage.

hxxp://www.businessdaytv.co.za/shows/newsleader/2015/06/04/mining-giants-on-the-ropes

NB: copy paste in to your browser if the link isn't live.

[lazyhisnibs] 15/6/2015 23:53

Last Thursday there was some messy news around Lonmin including a video clip on that site I've provide the link for of locals living in proximity of the sites. They were protesting about money they claim Lonmin was going to spend on their township(s). Lonmin disputed same. There were two other bits of news which weren't so oddly visual.

Platinum at six year lows, again.

[dealy] 15/6/2015 18:18

Capital Group just bought 7m shares. Every bit helps.

[salpara111] 12/6/2015 16:12

It would appear that as I suggested here some time ago, the Glencore shares are going to create quite an overhang.

[careful] 10/6/2015 16:43

the answer is simple toggle.
buy another 10000 lmi and then you will have a decent amount to sell.

[togglebrush] 10/6/2015 16:22

LMI shares from Glencore arrived in my Barclays Stockbrokers Account Today.
All 7 shares for my £2400 Glen holding. They will cost more to sell than they are worth but with option to take cash as a dividend NOT taken by Barclays I have 7 UNTRADABLE shares hostage to fortune !!!

[lazyhisnibs] 10/6/2015 15:49

hxxp://citizen.co.za/400675/eskom-implements-stage-2-load-shedding-2/

Eskom are trying to minimise disruption to business by mostly sticking to late afternoon and in to the night up to about 10 p.m.

The tricky bit is that they weren't coping well from about late summer and then things really started to go pear-shaped in Autumn. Their communications (in junction with certain high ranking politicians & others) have been confusing a lot of the time but one part of the message is clear and is that cold is bad. Winter peaks in roughly the same eight week period summer does in Europe.

Eskom don't seem to bother with stage 1 most evenings with them simply jumping to stage 2 with warnings of higher (and far more problematic )stages almost on a whim from a users point of view.

The smelter will be a 24 hour business. The miners' shafts too if maintenance activity is included.

To any of you in to the end of year financial statements did management make any provision for a drop off in production due to load shedding? If they did then less production might not be so bad particularly as the two bigger miners on the Platinum Belt will be similarly effected.

[lazyhisnibs] 08/6/2015 17:34

hxxp://ewn.co.za/2015/06/07/Bleak-start-to-the-week-as-load-shedding-kicks-in

As little as an hour or two ago they were talking about stage 1 load shedding through the media but actually went straight to stage 2. Big industry apparently get a call with notice to reduce power from 10 to 20 percent with as little notice as one hour. That must be very difficult for miners and an absolute nightmare for the smelter.

On the other hand there is too much production for the platinum price to move up strongly it would seem.

hxxp://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/06/08/Eskom-to-implement-stage-1-load-shedding

hxxp://www.enca.com/south-africa/rush-hour-gridlocks-expected-load-shedding-kicks

hxxp://www.fin24.com/Economy/Eskom/Eskom-to-implement-load-shedding-from-5pm-20150609

[careful] 02/6/2015 16:24

The overhang of the Glen holding must be almost clear.
Share register will be tidier within a couple of weeks.

[lazyhisnibs] 26/5/2015 10:37

Stuff in the media.

Some or all of the latest BEE provisions have not been adopted (yet). I forget the detail but would have thought that was a welcome respite from the perspective of many a big business.

The Load shedding (electricity rationing to industry, commerce and households) which got dire these past two months might be less disruptive for a while. That has positive implications for smelting too, not just production and associated mining activities.

DYOR

[lazyhisnibs] 14/5/2015 11:51

Unions compete by way of wage demands.

hxxp://www.iol.co.za/business/news/amcu-tables-r12-500-salary-demand-1.1858125

Amcu usurped the NUM in the platinum industry. The article is about the play in SA' gold industry. The agreements negotiated in the platinum sector were for three years and the one involving Lonmin was back dated.

Also in the news:-

The regulator is making Eskom jump through a few more hoops regarding their latest plea to put up electricity tariffs. (It's gone up hundreds of percent over at least five years with massively above inflation increases and SA's inflation is relatively high.)

There is probably a regional solution to the daily shortfall in electricity but no solution sounds like it can be implemented quickly.

One of the reasons a credit agency is worried about the country's performance is that rationing of electricity to industry and consumers is accelerating.

----------Dollar being helpful--------

[lazyhisnibs] 12/5/2015 20:12

Here we go again. Like his predecessor the mining minister is limbering up to interfere in a company's implementation of downsizing on jobs. The last one reportedly threatened Anglo Platinum over licences when they announced 14000 redundancies a few years back. I think in the end they were 'allowed' to make less than half the planned redundancies.

At the time the Angloplats CE / CEO whatever made a point that has stuck in my head ever since. Words to the effect that the PGMs can only be taken out of the ground and sold once and if it sold at a loss then it is lost forever.

OK, one could be cute and say some of it will be recycled in the future and sold again but that's not the point. Was is is that all three of the majors should be mining less PGMs for at least two years because the price of platinum is now even less than it was when the quote was made. For that to be viable they need to close shafts and make redundancies. The miners' sons will be born in to a highly mechanised and reduced industry where few of them are needed.

hxxp://www.fin24.com/Economy/Mining-minister-concerned-about-job-cuts-20150512

hxxp://m.news24.com/fin24/Economy/Mining-minister-concerned-about-job-cuts-20150512

What follows is a bit of ministerial overstep from early 2013 as referred to above. It was a different minister and the platinum price was circa $1500 then. No wonder Anglo American are trying to sell their platinum mines. Without success it seems.

hxxp://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/8eb318004e333ad9baa0bff251b4e4e2/Minister-Shabangu-livid-at-Amplats-planned-job-cuts-20131601


Lastly, unions in the gold industry reportedly will kick off wage negotiations with a demand of an 80% rise plus other goodies for the lowest paid worker. See below.

hxxp://www.iol.co.za/business/news/num-gold-producer-stand-off-in-the-wings-1.1857563#.VVMkQ3mJjIU

A CEO from their gold sector recently said that what the big three platinum producers agreed to last year will be a factor (indirect?) in negotiations. A vicious circle unless it stops with the gold sector.

[lazyhisnibs] 11/5/2015 16:37

Results article

hxxp://www.bdlive.co.za/business/mining/2015/05/11/lonmin-takes-earnings-knock-still-upbeat-about-future-demand

Anyone wanting more could do worse than the Business Day TV site although they sometimes don't post the interviews till the next day. The analysts that appear on the program seem more upfront than encountered in the West.

[careful] 11/5/2015 07:15

results are poor.
this will take a long time to turn around.
production ok but prices low, overheads high.
management are tackling the problem which is encouraging long term.

[lazyhisnibs] 08/5/2015 15:27

hxxp://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/lonmin-job-cuts-num-will-fight-1.1855774#.VUzHk3mJjIU

hxxp://www.enca.com/south-africa/lonmin-could-cut-3-500-jobs


hxxp://www.bdlive.co.za/business/energy/2015/05/08/eskom-asks-nersa-for-25-increase-in-electricity-prices

The above on top of increasing prices by several hundred percent over the past five years or so.

[careful] 08/5/2015 12:06

timetable.
when do our shares appear on our accounts?

[bouleversee] 07/5/2015 21:39

careful -

Interactive Investor's default option is also to receive Lonmin shares, which is not Glencore's default option.

[lazyhisnibs] 07/5/2015 19:34

Lonmin to cut workforce? Voluntary?

hxxp://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/lonmin-aims-to-cut-jobs-due-to-weak-platinum-price/

hxxp://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2015/05/07/lonmin-may-cut-3500-jobs-amid-platinum-slump

[lazyhisnibs] 07/5/2015 12:52

Shafts may be closed. No layoffs by the sounds of it but potentially greater efficiency and lower costs.

hxxp://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/implats-lonmin-to-close-shafts-closures-1.1854860

Even without job loses shaft closures at Marikana will almost certainly be tricky.


-----------
22 commodities up

hxxp://www.azernews.az/bloomberg/81625.html

[lazyhisnibs] 07/5/2015 12:04

Eskom are extensively rationing power yet again and the six week strike at the already massively delayed Medupi power plant construction project continues. The southern hemisphere winter approaches.

The relevant Government department changed the Black Empowerment provisions in the past month or so. There's media coverage and it's one for sophisticated HR functions but even for them the ambiguities continue to grow. Difficult and expensive to plan for let alone implement. Shifting goal posts.

hxxp://www.iol.co.za/business/news/business-confidence-plunges-1.1854828

Extract:

"The Expropriation Bill, Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill, Private Security Industry Regulatory Amendment Bill, Land Act Amendment Bill and the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Act all feature legislation in one form or another which will force both local and foreign-owned companies to relinquish a significant part of their shareholding either to the government or to a designated group."

[careful] 05/5/2015 16:28

you can opt to sell the shares and get cash or keep them.
interestingly if you do nothing the default action is to get the cash on Halifax.
on hsbc the default is to get the shares.

there will be a share overhang but they will be mopped up no bother.
Lonmin is still only valueD at £890m after todays rise.
Hence the whole of the 23.9% Glen holding is only worth 213m.
peanuts,small potatoes.

[blippy2] 05/5/2015 16:23

IIRC, Glen shareholders are expected to vote on the distribution on 7 May, so it's not a done deal yet.

There is a notice by Glencore at: hxxp://www.glencore.com/assets/investors/doc/shareholder_centre/20150507-Supplement-concerning-distribution-in-specie.pdf
"IF YOU HOLD 30,000 GLENCORE SHARES OR FEWER AND ARE ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE LONMIN SHARES UNDER THE LONMIN DISTRIBUTION, YOU ARE REQUIRED TO TAKE
ACTION IF YOU WISH TO RETAIN YOUR LONMIN SHARES". It does say:
"Payment of net cash proceeds of sale to relevant Glencore shareholders 9 June 2015".

Reading further down, I see that if you hold fewer than 30,000 shares, Glen will sell the Lon on your behalf, and credit you with the proceeds. Shareholders can elect NOT to have their Lon shares sold, though. The Lonmin distribution is equivalent to approx 1.3p per Glen share, compared with a Glen share price of 314p. So the relative amounts look fairly trifling, so Glen are basically doing you a favour if your holding is small.

[bouleversee] 05/5/2015 15:45

I thought one had to elect whether to receive shares or cash. I have heard nothing from my on-line broker (ii) so am only going on what I have read here and elsewhere.