Media And Income Share Discussion Threads

[rk23] 02/3/2002 12:45

thank, y would i need ot panic on monday morning?

[redsonning] 02/3/2002 12:35

Hallo rk23 - Glad to see you are still up and working - in that case there is hope. I will be doing some more work on this one as details emerge. But briefly, I would expect to see at least another £30m of debt be paid back in the not too distant future (but it could be more). This might leave a trust of some £50-60m in size for the time being (but it could be less). At this stage there are a few too many variables to say what the dividends might be, but given that the Prefs, after expenses and loan interest are paid, are entitled to around 8p per share before the Ords get anything, there won't be a lot left. However, there may be something. Given that you are currently unlikely to obtain more than 1p for your shares I would suggest waiting at least a little. There is at the possiblity of some volatility in the price as other speculators try to trade the stock too, and try to guess what the potential dividend level might be. This might give you an opportunity to get out in somewhat better shape.
Don't panic on Monday morning!

[rk23] 02/3/2002 12:13

Is there any chance that a reovery of any sort is possible, even a couple of pence , so are you basically saying that ive just thrown away my £1925 which I spent on wednesday, what advice whould you give in regards to my shares which i now have, thanks

[redsonning] 02/3/2002 12:09

rk23 - May I suggest that you take a little time to go back over this thread. All you need to know is included therein. If you had done this before purchasing, rather than after, you could have saved yourself some £1900.

[rk23] 01/3/2002 21:39

Hi everybody, on Wednesday I bought 75,000 MEI ORD shares at 2.5p, I normally buy and sell within 2-3 day, cashing in on small profits, I bought without doing any research as the shares had fallen by a large percentage,

Can somebody please give me some information as to whether there are ant dividnets payment to come, and is it likely that the shares will go up, are they worth holding on to, does any one have a realistic idea what the price may be with end of march, or april and finally does any one think that Ive madea huge mistake purchasing these shares, all views and comments welcomed, Thank

[redsonning] 01/3/2002 21:13

As expected MEI has now repaid the first large lump of its huge debt, from its not quite so huge cash mountain (ie £30m repaid). Company still has to work out how it will repay more in order to keep the bankers off it's back for the time being. Expect to see a further announcement from the company on how and when this will happen. Since the Prefs are entitled to any divi in front of the Ords, we can be pretty sure by the time this trust has resized itself downwards, that there will be not very much revenue left to make available to the Ords. So far as capital is concerned, well such of it that remains all belongs to the Zeros.
But there's always someone who thinks they're getting a bargain.....

[johnmeeson] 01/3/2002 18:11

Many thanks Redsonning.

[redsonning] 28/2/2002 12:39

jm - Thank you for your enquiry!

GIC got itself in trouble some months ago due to falling asset values. GIC is a rather important trust within the sector because it is both large, and very has a very long life (until 2018). The board have been trying to put together a refinancing for some time, and are supposedly on the verge of doing so (they had indicated around end of Feb for further news of the deal. Difficulties have revolved around the subsidiary nature of the Zeros, but these difficulties are not necessarily insurmountable, and since this is such an important trust I would expect to see support for this reconstruction from the other institutions. Neither the Incs or the Ords have any asset value at present, but both are entitled to dividends. It is not of course clear at this stage what level of dividends might get paid once the refinancing is in place, and whether that level will be enough to support the present price at which each class of share is trading. At present therefore still very much a gamble. Personally I’m not touching them until I see the refinancing terms.

GMM is a different problem. It is not primarily an investor in other trusts (although it has some), but holds a portfolio of blue chips. It has some £200m of assets, but the zeros have the right to get their cash in April this year, and if all the zeros want their cash back the trust will have to find over £110m. Since it also has bank loans of some £72.5m this will mean that some of the bank loans would then have to be repaid in order to keep the bank covenants in check. GMM have offered the zeros the chance to stay in for a further two years instead of cashing, but the terms are not exceedingly attractive, and therefore it remains to be seen just how many zeros get pulled out. Depending on how many want cash, so the size of the trust will adjust itself. The difference in potential (post zero decision) size is a very large range indeed, and again this therefore leaves the dividend situation extremely unclear at this stage. The Ords do however have some asset value (recently around 17-18 pence) and therefore some people are betting on a favourable conclusion, given that they also have a little comfort from the assets. As a result the Ords have climbed a little from their low over the last couple of days, with quite a volume of purchasing. However as you can see the spread is huge, and therefore there is no prospect of trading in and out of this stock. Anyone purchasing is doing so on the prospect of the trust remaining of a reasonable size and getting a reasonable dividend. This of course is also something of a gamble, although once again this is an important trust for the institutions, and therefore one would expect them to be working hard in the background to hold this thing together. However, if I was a zero holder (which I’m not) I would be wanting my money back in April and I think there will be quite a high level of redemptions. Therefore so far as I am concerned there is no rush to purchase.

[bsg] 27/2/2002 17:51

Looks like some people think they are getting a bargain!

[redsonning] 27/2/2002 12:01

Aberdeen Asset managers and the board will want to try to nurse it through, but it really does look as if it would need a refinancing of some sort in order to survive with any decent size. At present there is only a pretty thin layer of assets on top of the bank loans, and the banks have only been patient for as long as they have because of the large volume of cash which the company has kept on deposit.
Bank loans total around £105m, and we can expect to see the bank wanting a great deal of this back if there is no refinancing. If they wanted to see the loan down to £30-40m, then there wouldn't be a very interesting trust left, unless new money comes in. Even with the loan down to £40m, at present there wouldn't be enough gross assets to give the banks the sort of cover which they would normally look for.
Interestingly the release from the company does not say that the board are investigating a refinancing at this time, and therefore I suspect that the institutions are going to pass on this one for the time being, whilst they deal with more important issues such as GIC, GMM, and one or two others which are in the queue.
Things look bleak for MEI at present.

[johnmeeson] 27/2/2002 11:33

Redsonning, could you give your take on the important issues at GIC and GMM.
Thank you

[redsonning] 27/2/2002 10:37

N - I presume that's a general expression of pain, rather than a personal one? You were out of these weren't you?

[bsg] 26/2/2002 16:57

Do you think it will survive ?

[redsonning] 26/2/2002 02:03

Well... I see we have an announcement by the board, which appears to have noticed that it's in some difficulties. It would appear that the bank would like to see some of it's money back.
No doubt this will not have come as a surprise to the correspondents of this thread.

[redsonning] 23/2/2002 21:33

Novision - very nice to hear from you. Yes I remember you made some money here - one of the very few I should think! Hope you continue to do well with the day trading....that's a very dangerous game.
I, on the other hand am a patient man as you know....sometimes too patient....

[novision] 22/2/2002 17:39

Hi redsonning - all fine here, you also I hope. I was out of these some time ago - at a profit luckily. I'm not looking at ITs at the moment - I think some further lows need to be tested in the market and I'm not a patient investor (big fault!). Just day trading various FTSE shares at the moment. Doing okay but it's a volatile business and you have to be very careful! One small cap I think looks good is TRN - I sold out at 13p, but regret it a bit now. There's a thread explaining it all on the boards somewhere, if you're interested.

[redsonning] 18/2/2002 10:02

Hallo Novision. Hope you are well.
The glimmer of hope with this stock is that it still exists at all! This may indicate that there are hopes by the board to raise new funds. However there are still quite a number of other trusts in line.
On current numbers I'm afraid that this stock still remains well overpriced (you won't be surprised to hear me say!!). It's not just that the Ords and the Prefs have zero NAV, it's that they are significantly below zero. This means that we need to see quite strong upward movements before we are back to zero. This, together with the difficult structure and environment for raising new funds, means that you can still expect to see it go worse.
Are you having success in any other areas?

[novision] 17/2/2002 22:11

deeper and down

[billywhe] 07/2/2002 16:32

Redsonning - hit the nail on the head again:-

Media & Income Tst - Net Asset Value(s) - Replace
RNS Number:0574R
Media & Income Trust PLC
6 February 2002




The issuer has made the following amendment to the Net Asset Value(s)
announcement released 5 February 2002 at 17.56 under RNS No 0318R.

The unaudited net asset values per share should read:

n/a Ordinary and not 7.27 Ordinary
n/a Pref Inc and not 249.58 Pref Inc

as previously stated.


Cheers
Bill

[redsonning] 06/2/2002 16:39

Someone had the numbers wrong - zero is more correct than the above!

[redsonning] 06/2/2002 00:47

Looks interesting - any ideas BARI?

[currypata kai] 05/2/2002 20:00

ABERDEEN ASSET MANAGERS LIMITED announces the unaudited net
asset values of the following Investment Trust as at close
of business on 04 February 2002:


TRUST PENCE PER SHARE
SHARE CLASS

Media and Income Trust 7.27 Ordinary
Media and Income Trust 249.58 Pref Inc



Suddenly the ordinary shares have an asset value

[bari] 04/2/2002 14:48

ok then , new broker ? what going on ??????????

[redsonning] 30/1/2002 15:40

Another 20k today at 6.5p - does somebody know something which I don't??
Cheap it is. Good it isn't!!