Petrofac Share Discussion Threads

[ghhghh] 10/5/2024 12:02

My understanding is that half of the $6bn backlog is renewables with better margins and lower risk since in collaboration with TenneT/Hitachi. PFC now a key HVDC player and this position should grow.

[geckotheglorious] 10/5/2024 10:13

The chapter closes on this company.

Witless 123 is no longer around - wondered if he still believes this is a "StrongBUY"

Feel sorry for all of you who listened to his idiocy and remained invested.

Good luck in the D4E restructuring.

This company is now off my radar so unfavouriting the board.

Therefore this is the last from me where PFC is concerned.

Good luck to all.


p.s Wonder if Witless123 will ever apologise to Jaknife/ loglorry - the puerile name calling, the vitriol, the incessant ramping.

As a last reminder:


whites123 - 04 Mar 2024 - 17:10:45 - 38610 of 39827 Petrofac - PFC
I must confess that my holdings are not substantial, totaling less than £92,000 in value, albeit with a profitable margin since the majority were acquired at 17p.


.whites123 - 12 Apr 2024 - 08:26:43 - 39520 of 39826 Petrofac - PFC
I have added, And quite substantially.


So that's up to £135,000 hosed at a rough guestimate. (Emphasis on "Substantial" being at least 50% of the £92,000)

Are you okay hun?

[loglorry1] 10/5/2024 09:30

Thanks @pogue - I don't intend to hang around in any equity I might get from my bonds. I'm pretty sure some advisor or other will be able to put enough lipstick on this pig to get some daft idiot to buy the new equity. There were plenty of daft ones that bought the old now worthless equity.

The next hurdle is will the bond holders put the $300m in or not. If not then I've likely lost most of the profit I made on my short by buying bonds. C'est la vie.

[jaknife] 10/5/2024 09:11

Thanks pogue,
JakNife

[pogue] 10/5/2024 08:41

Jaknife
as promised a more detailed explanation of why I believe tighter management wont work at PFC. I have not got the time I am afraid to cover this in as much detail as I wanted time is very short at the moment.
Basically tighter management will cause even more costs and problems I believe. I have seen management on large projects before crack down on manhours, manhours is what contractors sell, and by doing so they try to rush a project. This has the knock on effect of wasting time producing poor documentation which begats even more as other engineers use that information to do their part of the project. Its like building a house with bad foundations. A project will take the time it needs if you rush it all you do is bury problems which emerge later much bigger and costly to fix when time is short.
PFC have 2 added problems. They have I am pretty certain underbid for the contracts as they needed to win them to bolster their share price and balance sheet. That means they are starting behind already and profits will be slim even if they execute properly which is unlikely as I said projects will take the time they will take, they are non linear as the design progresses things change and rework is needed and if you are short of manhours to start it all gets very tricky. I am pretty sure this is part of the reason they are in the trouble they are in i.e. taking on work cheaper than other contractors, as I said before very few contractors will bid for ADNOC projects as their demands are too difficult to meet for the price they want to pay.
Second problems is their main design office for the Middle East is in Sharja and is mainly populated by Indian national engineers. In my experience of working with departments of Indian engineers is that their culture in engineering is very odd, they hide problems to the point of blatantly lying about anything. I have seen 2 projects I have been on suffer badly from this, one where I was in charge of them. I now avoid any role where I have to be in charge of Indian based departments. You can see how this would compound issues when trying to manage tightly any work force. To do it you would need more engineers to check everything pushing up costs. Again, a reason I see why PFC have suffered in the past with back charges from the clients.
As for selling PFC’s main asset if you want to call it that is their pipeline of projects without that they are just offices with one or two engineers as when there is no work engineers are fired in this industry literally to the point where work forces can go from 1000s to 100s and all experienced engineers leave as fast as they can leaving the inexperienced and useless ones behind. So as the pipeline of projects I suggest are mainly underbid and some with ADNOC who very few want to work with why buy the company? Why not let it fall and wait for the contracts you want to goto rebid? The industry is very busy just now I get calls every couple of days about jobs. The price would have to be very low for someone to want PFC.
All in my opinion, I don’t hold, DYOR.

[bones698] 09/5/2024 23:20

Writing has been on the wall since the big shorts appeared yet some on here continued to try and ramp it up.. Now we see the true scale of the issues and why it was shorted.

Shareholders will get wiped out of they didn't sell before suspension. Another example of a very good company being very poorly ran into the ground. British management ranks as some of the worst in the world. It think it's fair to say that's very accurate, but there are some good ones out there too. It's finding them that's very difficult indeed

[wshak] 09/5/2024 10:02

Bid for John Wood

Restructured PFC must be worth something?

[geckotheglorious] 08/5/2024 21:08

I dont follow John Wood (got this via end of day II summary) but presume their debt situ wasnt as bad, their contracts have better margins, and their management is better.

Perhaps you could elucidate on such Leoneobull?
Do you follow JWood?

[leoneobull] 08/5/2024 21:06

Jwood and pfc same sector, broadly. What a pity given both had such recovery potential

[geckotheglorious] 08/5/2024 20:59

Plot thickens...

John Wood Group rocketed 12.12% surge after rejecting a takeover proposal from Sidara, valuing the company at more than £1.4bn.”

Among London's mid-caps, John Wood Group jumped 17%. The consulting and engineering firm for energy and materials sectors rejected a fresh takeover attempt.

John Wood said it had received an "unsolicited, preliminary and conditional" proposal from Dar Al-Handasah Consultants Shair and Partners Holdings Ltd, Sidara, regarding a possible cash offer.

Sidara is a family-owned engineering company, founded in Beirut, with more than 300 offices in 60 countries.

The proposal, received last Tuesday, valued each John Wood share at 205p each, around GBP1.41 billion in total. John Wood concluded that it "fundamentally undervalued Wood and its future prospects," and rejected the proposal unanimously on Wednesday.

[gozzy88] 08/5/2024 20:56

Assets getting sold this will fly once sold. No need for D4E

[pogue] 08/5/2024 15:23

Jaknife
Easy said but very difficult to do in this case. I will explain when I get time. The good news is that that approach will work for about a year, so time to get out, then the wheels come off spectacularly, have seen it before.

[jaknife] 08/5/2024 12:35

With some competent management in place and some proper risk controls on the contracts then it should make a sensible business. Renew Holdings is a perfect example of where new (competent) management came in, implemented tight contract negotiation/review processes and completely turned the business around.

Also, Wood Group have just rejected another bid!

[loglorry1] 08/5/2024 12:28

@noramping - if the bondholders don't put in the $300m they will have concluded the same as you. If they do then they probably think its worth saving.

[bouleversee] 08/5/2024 12:01

Do I gather that it is still trading on other exchanges and only suspended on the LSE?

[noramping] 08/5/2024 10:51

Log, but they don’t have history of that and that’s what we have to go off.

I’ve no skin in this game.

[pogue] 08/5/2024 10:45

Log
The contracts they have are not going to be very profitable if at all. Many companies refuse even to bid for ADMOC work as they are so demanding on cost and during project execution always wanting something extra and not wanting to pay making it hard to make a profit. My feeling is PFC were desperste for any contract wins to try and support the company short term they have agreed to some very poor projects not just with ADNOC. Add in their propensity for making errors and it's going to be a hard one to turn around.

[loglorry1] 08/5/2024 09:17

@noramping the bulls say that the new orders will have been priced properly and they will make a decent margin on them. They argue the mistakes of the past won't be repeated.

It's possible to make money in this space see Wood Group. A lot will depend on the new debt structure but current equity will be wiped out regardless.

[noramping] 08/5/2024 09:08

I assume the shorters want the company to survive and a D4E happen as otherwise they may have to wait months to be paid.


A D4E provides the the shares to close and them to get paid.

Trouble is whilst PFC has an order book of billions it loses money on its orders so what’s to say more money need in 18 months?

[topazfrenzy] 07/5/2024 14:27

I doubt this is coming back.

[dealy] 04/5/2024 08:36

that is shocking. 14 cents on the dollar for the senior debt

[leoneobull] 04/5/2024 04:15

https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/bond/usg7052taf87-petrofac-ltd-9-75-21-26

[geckotheglorious] 03/5/2024 21:28

Witless123, Witless...

Are you okay hun?

[leoneobull] 03/5/2024 19:33

Excellent, same goes for equity.

[wshak] 03/5/2024 19:28

Leonebull,The bonds might well go to zero.One thing I can guarantee is no one buying them will be crying about it if they do, and blaming anyone else ...