Pressure Technologies Share Discussion Threads

[orinocor] 30/5/2018 07:59

Question. Is this company in financial danger? Debt, liabilities, that is a scary statement of financial position.

[nw99] 30/5/2018 07:37

Not good news at all strange rise as well in this on back of strong oil price recently

[orinocor] 30/5/2018 07:20

Don't you just love it when companies talking about project timing issues. You'll make up the shortfall next year then. Except they never do.

[molatovkid] 30/5/2018 07:15

uh oh.....

[arthur_lame_stocks] 15/5/2018 20:24

Nice to see the price rising, i'm back around breakeven at last, although not for the first time. I presume the price rise is on the back of the rise in the price of oil.

Let's hope that that is finally translating into increased orders and the outlook is a lot more rosy. The company have said that with the cost cutting they have done they are now very highly geared to an improvement in their markets so we'll see.

Not long now until the results, i'll pay particular attention to the outlook statement.

[cockerhoop] 06/5/2018 22:20

Cerrito,

Yes I attended, Joanna (FD) & Keely (IR) were there representing the company. They had a stand in the sunken lounge but didn't present.

Had a quick chat, but no real revelations - though I got the impression that a couple of the bio-gas contracts mentioned in the AR had converted.

Very busy event so i didn't have too much time.

[cerrito] 06/5/2018 21:56

Did anyone here go Mello?
PRES was due to be there and interested if anyone picked up anything interesting.
I did not go as I have quite a lot on and the companies there generally speaking had little appeal for me.
I see that neither the main corporate website or the Greenlane one has any info on new contracts in AR

[likitorma] 19/4/2018 23:09

Surely, with the oil sector picking up and them winning down good defence contracts, any takeover approach has to value them above £2.50. This used to trade at £7.50 during the good years. Shareholders are mainly IIs and maybe, they will reject any offers below £3.00

[arthur_lame_stocks] 19/4/2018 22:36

It does seem that things are looking up for companies exposed to the oil & gas industry.

NTQ's recent trading update was encouraging.



The Board is pleased to report that both full year revenues and underlying EBITDA are expected to be significantly ahead of its expectations. The cash balance as of 31 March 2018 was $15.5m, up $0.2m compared to 31 March 2017.

Hopefully PRES is similarly benefitting from the improving outlook.

[gonzela] 19/4/2018 21:49

Absolutely no buy quote available at 160p, even for £1000. Kept going to NT. Massive buying pressure with high volume day and good luck to those trying to buy tomorrow morning.

[likitorma] 12/4/2018 08:14

End client for HPSCS are friendly Navies.

[cockerhoop] 12/4/2018 07:35

Likitorma,Encouraging - Defence cylinders are excellent margin work. What end application are the high pressure safety critical cylinders orders you refer being used in?

[likitorma] 11/4/2018 23:36

They have won a number of significant contracts which have not been RNSed, including a major one to supply gas containment systems for two new submarines. A lot of orders relating to safety-critical high pressure cylinders have also been won.

[cerrito] 11/4/2018 09:49

Share price reacting as I would expect with a USD70 oil price and I see no news on the main corporate website on any Greenlane contract wins.
Intuitively I do not see them as takeover material

[cerrito] 11/3/2018 21:14

I see a weak few days for the share price 25k shares traded over Wednesday and Thursday...quite alot in PRES terms given fact that shares are held so tightly.
People waiting for news on Greenlane bids and the Greenlane website has yet to be updated from 2015,and nothing on the main corporate website

[stevemarkus] 19/2/2018 08:59

My thanks too, very comprehensive and sounds quite interesting. I took an initial holding at the time of the last results as the commentary sounded much more positive than previously. Fingers crossed for further oil and gas recovery.

Steve.

[james188] 18/2/2018 22:02

My thanks as well for a very comprehensive post. I also attended and asked the first question about the sufficiency of the cash balance. There is a lot to admire about the company, although the drop in share price over the last few years coupled with the dividend block has been a very painful experience for many shareholders. I do wonder about the future prospects for the AE business. It is the toughest of tough markets. I can see much better prospects for other areas in which the company is involved. Expect an announcement of a refinancing of the debt facilities - maybe expanded - in the next few months.

[cockerhoop] 18/2/2018 21:16

Cheers Cerrito,

I was intending to say hello but think you may have gone on the factory tour whilst I remained chatting in the conference room.

[bdaonion] 18/2/2018 20:14

Cerrito, thanks for taking the time and trouble to post your summary. Very informative.

[cerrito] 18/2/2018 19:44

Sorry a rather delayed report of how I saw the AGM and look forward to comments from anyone else who was there, especially if they think I am off beam.
As always a good meeting and am glad that I made the trip from London.
We started with the formal meeting which was V quick and all resolutions
passed easily. Given the very stable institutional shareholder base I was surprised that only 6.7m of the total of 18.5 m were voted.
We then had a presentation on the oil market from the Chairman which is now on the website.
The CEO went through the three key businesses.

On the Oil and gas market they had a good first quarter in this FY and felt a different dynamic and that something had changed- is it was more than replacing inventories that had been run down or the annual budgeting pattern of the oil majors, which they had declined,. An example they gave was that Schlumberger had asked for one year fixed price contracts. Alot of capacity had been taken out- both of plant and skilled labour- and Indeed they were finding among their customers that there had been an exodus of experience. They see the need for discipline in bidding and making sure you get the appropriate margin
They could easily see oil and gas revenues which in 2014 had been £40m and had fallen to short of £14m last year rebounding to £25mpa in the not too distant future.
Almet is doing well concentrating as it does on wear parts,Roota in the middle and Quad Scot who have been hit the hardest have not felt the recovery yet. Hydraton which is focused on capex is a year behind.
Most of their business in oil and gas is done on the spot market-ie specific tenders- rather than framework agreements.
No discussion at all as to what if anything they are doing in US shale-I assume not much,

Defence which is supplying cylinders to submarines is going well. Very pleased with the way German operation had grown over the last five years and said they had taken the whole of the market . Nothing concrete from the Pittsburgh operation as yet but realized that it could take up to five yrs and they are still in year three. The contract for the Australian submarine order had yet to be placed but v confident that they will get it as and when.
Extensive discussion on the AE business but as they recognise difficult to see the way forward. While of course the AE is a very wide sector and much has little or no overlap with what PRES do, I myself am not very gung-ho given the bad experiences I have had and am still having- including in the past a Quebec company called Xebec.
I agree with the company that there is alot of potential and indeed in the AR they reference a sales pipeline of US200m+ but they could not point out another company who has made money out of this... partially because they are divisions of larger companies.

Some of the issues are legislative and they cited the Uk's Renewable Heat Incentive which is finally in Parliament and they hope that the once this has passed all the hoops by the end of March, they will get some deals. Another is the complexity of the contracts where their part could be 10/20% of the total package. No news yet on the three deals referenced in the AR as being at final negotiation.
Comfortable with the HQ in Vancouver and a good steam of graduates from UBC and close to interesting potential developments in the US.
They were clear that a different business from the other ones and would never have the same margins.
We then moved onto Q&A
The first question was on their cash and banking situation given that at year end they had maxed out on the RCF and asked would they need another fund raising over and above the £4.8m net received in October?. It was also noted that as of December 11 ie after the fund raising proceeds received they had just repaid £2.7m of the RCF. Suffice it to say that both the CEO and CFO were both adamant-orally and via body language-that they had sufficient cash/ banking facilities even if the pick up in order activity continued and necessitated more working capital. Note that their broker has net cash from operations at £2.4 this FY,

They pointed out that at year end they had £4.8m in cash/ cash equivalents. I assume this was freely available as the accounts do not say these sums were restricted. No one asked why they were running what seems at first glance to be an inefficient cash management set up ie with large cash and RCF balances.
Confirmed that they have no need to do major capex the year and as per AR said this was in any way financed by equipment finance.
They played down doing acquisitions-although of course something may come up opportunistically. They bought out Martrack as it was available and a competitor was sniffing around.
The question was asked about why they did not have to pay the earn out.
The answer was that when the deal was struck there had been a difference of views between PRES and Martrack as to the profitability of the business and not that the company had failed to perform.
The CEO explained alot of work being done to improve coordination with the group at operating level ie on a group wide Google communication system and not only getting depth of management but also of leadership.
Where does this leave us?
The way I see it alot depends on how one sees the oil and gas market.
I note that the house broker has revenue this year at £48m up from £38m last year. One can assume that with an order book at 9.17 at just £5m compared to £14m the year before and my understanding that no AE contracts have been won since year end, AE revenues will be less than last year's £15.8m. (That said I understand the broker has this year's AE revenues at £18m).With the Dreadnought deliveries we can see a modest increase in defence revenues from last year's £6.4m.
The heavy lifting will need to done by oil and gas. As per above, Management were happy to talk about revenues in the main twenties £m, although there was no specifics on time frame.
I see that the broker has adjusted operating profits at £4m for the current year compared to a loss of £1.5m this year. I am not aware at this time of any adjustments that would need to be made. This is a big swing.
Are these figures possible?
Yes if you buy into the scenario painted by the company. The loss of capacity taken out in the oil and gas supply chain; the high operating gearing that the company has following its restructurings; the continued growth on worldwide oil demand; limited new supply coming in; given profitability and financing issues, questions about how strong growth will be in US shale output; 2017 offshore liquid discoveries 90% below 2010;premium for those suppliers who can supply quickly.

As my exposure to Oil and gas is not all that great, I am happy to hold.

I am not expecting any news that will move the price up or down very much till the interims come out-normally mid June. The company stressed that they only issue a RNS for significant news-not sure if they would consider winning all three AE contracts as significant.

[cockerhoop] 08/2/2018 11:01

Greenlane Project

[mfhmfh] 07/2/2018 10:50

This from the chairman when final results were published on 12.12.17:


'It is heartening to report that, towards year-end, we were approached by institutional investors who expressed a desire to make further investment in the Group. I see this as a sign that many market observers anticipate that the oil and gas market is about to rebound and they see Pressure Technologies as an enterprise that has been resilient in the downturn and is primed for growth. This investment gives us more fire power to react to opportunities as they arise.'

[mfhmfh] 07/2/2018 10:49

AGM on 13.02.18. hopefully a good AGM statement and subsequent rise back up to around 200p.