Sse Share Discussion Threads

[marktime1231] 16/9/2021 13:04

Well I take it back then because the FT is making the same mistake as others, saying "has taken a stake" in the headline followed by "according to sources" followed by "declined / also declined to comment". Shame on Arash Massoudi and Natalie Thomas, I was just praising you for being better than that.

There is still no evidence for any of this, just whispers from Bloomberg's unnamed sources. Shameful, why aren't the orderly markets authority insisting on transparency from both parties, this could be clever insider manipulation and as you say now the speculation is creating its own momentum. It could easily be true of course.

The price movement today flirting towards my trim trigger. Not yet.

[bountyhunter] 16/9/2021 08:45

Renewable energy stock split?
Activist investor Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management has just called for a breakup of SSE into its regulated electricity and renewable divisions. Having built up a large stake in the company, this strategy will come as no surprise to anybody watching the stock closely. Elliott has taken similar action in the past. In 2019, it pushed EDP-Energias de Portugal SA to spin off a renewable energy arm. And the share price in the new business has tripled over the past four years. An Elliott-backed SSE stock split could easily be profitable to existing shareholders.

[bountyhunter] 16/9/2021 08:43

"Breaking up SSE is right out of the fund’s playbook, with Elliott having pushed Portugal’s EDP-Energias de Portugal to sell part of its electricity distribution business and put proceeds into renewables.

SSE has reorganised its business in recent years to focus on green energy, with the company planning to treble its renewable output by 2030.

The group also sold its 33 per cent stake in gas firm SGN for £203million last month to fund its growth plans."

[wad collector] 16/9/2021 08:32

Not far from an ATH now ...
Funny how the Elliot thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy , bit like shorting in reverse. Gosh this must be bad as everyone is shorting, let's sell.

[paulo435] 15/9/2021 22:52

Further articles now also appearing today in the FT and Times re Elliot. Adding to the chatter from many weeks ago.

[wiganpunter] 15/9/2021 10:02

hi everyone. SSE is Morgan Stanleys top pick in the space. they are essentially saying that at current levels you have the offshore wind business for free. as for the Elliot spec I think they will be using swaps in 2/3 banks to prevent disclosure - thats been the modus operandi in the past in uk deals - bhp for example . with the green play / egg funds etc this feels like it can keep grinding higher without an activist. with one just like with edp we would look at getting renewable spun out and a much higher return. there aren't a lot of these names around - I like siemens energy too in the space but my point is I think we see higher prices.

[marktime1231] 14/9/2021 22:34

Thanks bountyhunter, a good example of the press headlining things like Elliott "has built a stake" only for the article to say lower down that it has not filed a holding or announced building a stake in public or confirmed any of the media reports, no comment from Elliott or SSE. The FT sets rules for itself in these situations, it will want to have more than one independent source or hard evidence before it reports rumours, otherwise you look pretty foolish if you have been whispered in to spreading rumours, indeed you can end up being accused of scheming to manipulate markets in concert with traders, as FT was accused of doing over Wirecard. Others in the media are not so cautious.

I'm not saying it is or isn't true, but people repeating what other people have reported does not make rumours in to facts. It certainly is plausible, and it has obviously occurred to others including SSE themselves that there may be more value in the individual parts of SSE than in the whole.

Enough has been printed now for punters to want to speculate, and I will trade my own position on the balance of probabilities whether something might come of this.

What do you reckon? A 25% chance that the share price might get to £24. A 75% chance that it will fade back to £14 when nothing comes of it. That means trim in the high 16s I think. Where is your money?

[bountyhunter] 14/9/2021 21:01

John Musk, an analyst at RBC Capital, said earlier this summer that investing in SSE was “an excellent way to play the energy transition via both renewables growth in the UK and a solid base of growing regulated [network] assets”.

But industry analysts claim that the company is undervalued in the market, despite the overhaul, and could reap big financial benefits from splitting the renewable and energy networks business.

Deepa Venkateswaran, an analyst at Bernstein, said in July that the company’s renewable energy portfolio was undervalued by the market and SSE could increase its market value more than 50% by disposing of its networks business.

[marktime1231] 14/9/2021 19:28

Yes well done 1.4GW obvs

[pierre oreilly] 14/9/2021 19:05

1.4MW?

I think you mean 1000x that, 1.4GW.

1.4MW would charge about 5 Teslas on superchargers.

The French constructed nukes as close as possible to the UK to supply the French 2GW interconnector. Not really surplus nuke power, the french wisely took advantage of our suicidal 50 year anti-nuke policy and has supplied us with nuclear power for several decades. It's the proximity of france to the se which ensures we take all the link can send us much of the time away from low demand periods.

[marktime1231] 14/9/2021 16:35

Unable to post the image so here is a link to the wholesale price of gas chart in the UK, up x3 from this time in 2019 ...



Not Brexit or covid19 then, not directly anyway. And nor as the militant green press would have us believe is it down to an over-reliance on gas power in the UK's transition. We would love to be less reliant on gas already. It is just that nuclear has contracted without replacement. And not so much because renewables are intermittent. It is that they have been largely absent this year, mostly overcast weather since early May and the wind has hardly blown at all.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that the new North Sea Link cable from Norway has been brought online today ahead of schedule, delivering up to 1.4GW (corrected) of their hydro surplus to Newcastle. Relieves the pressure on gas or coal a little. Better than paying the French for their surplus nuclear, but we continue to do that too.

[bountyhunter] 14/9/2021 13:21

I had a great fixed rate deal with PFP Energy to the end of July next year.

...but they have just gone bust and BG has sent me an email to say welcome to BG! Needless to say they won't be honouring the fixed prices and worse still advise me not to try to move elsewhere until their aquisition of accounts has been completed!!

[pierre oreilly] 14/9/2021 13:13

My one year fix is ending soon. Got the renewal notice from edf. Night rate going up 100% (5p to 10p) day rate going up 25% (20p to 25p) daily charge up 20%.

Many more will be driven into fuel poverty once they get their new tariffs.

I've shopped around and, very surprisingly, i can't find anything less, infact the next cheapest night rate is around 12p/kWh.

A few more years of this and even the most brainwashed green will realise intermittent generation isn't cheap (or free!) - it is extremely expensive. And we'll soon have power rationing on top.

Just bought an ev. As predicted the ability to use fast chargers around peak periods will be disabled. Home chargers already moderate the charge at high demand times (quite rightly, but it's not appreciated by most).

Probably bad debts for suppliers will increase purely because many simply won't have the money to pay them.

[marktime1231] 14/9/2021 13:07

Good point, if it was true it would have required Elliott or SSE to post what the share holding is. Unless he is borrowing someone else's stock or hiding behind a proxy maybe, but why do in secret what you want out in the open ... if he has built a stake Singer makes himself an immediate return by pouring fuel on the speculative bonfire, he should be shouting about it on the record.

[bountyhunter] 14/9/2021 13:03

Any idea why we haven't seen a TR1 yet from Elliott? Presumably they have acquired more than 3 or 5% (reporting thresholds depending on where held).

[marktime1231] 14/9/2021 13:01

This is just other news services reporting as fact what Bloomberg are reporting as rumours from "knowledgable sources". When it is in the FT or an rns we can believe it.

[bountyhunter] 14/9/2021 08:12

Thanks Mark.

Here's the link but a bit tricky to read without subscribing!

Elliott Investment Management Pushing for Breakup of SSE -Bloomberg

[marktime1231] 13/9/2021 23:57

Yes Bloomberg were the first to report the rumours in early Aug that Elliott has been stake building, with the thrust that the exciting renewables development part of SSE is where all the value lies while the rest of the company is dull so break it up.

Not sure I have seen an announcement of how big a stake Elliott has built, I thought it was a market requirement if the stake was significant. Nor has there been confirmation of these rumours, so they might just be a plausible theory.

So here Bloomberg go again, reporting as fact knowledgable but off-record unnamed sources that this is indeed Elliott's plan and that Singer is now actively engaging with SSE insiders and shareholders ... which if true also ought to be made clear in a market announcement.

"Elliott Is Said to Push for Breakup of British Power Firm SSE

Bloomberg News, Dinesh Nair and Scott Deveau, Sep 13, 2021

(Bloomberg) — Billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management is pushing for a breakup of SSE Plc after building up a stake in the British power company, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The activist hedge fund sees value in separating SSE’s renewable portfolio from its regulated electricity businesses, the people said, asking not be identified because the information is private. Elliott has been meeting privately with representatives from SSE, which is based in the central Scottish city of Perth, as well as some of its major shareholders, according to the people.

Shares of SSE have risen 36% over the past 12 months, giving it a market value of 17 billion pounds ($23.6 billion). The company has developed clean energy projects across the U.K. and Ireland, with about 4 gigawatts of wind and hydroelectric power assets, according to its website. It aims to triple its renewable power output from 2019 levels by 2030.

The company also runs a regulated power grid business in the U.K. and owns a number of gas-fired power plants and energy storage operations. It supplies electricity to 3.8 million customers in northern Scotland and central southern England.

Elliott has pursued a similar playbook before with EDP-Energias de Portugal SA, pushing the company to sell a stake in its Iberian electricity distribution business and offload a Brazilian unit to reinvest the proceeds in renewable energy. Shares of EDP’s listed renewables arm have more than tripled over the past four years, and it’s now worth more than its parent company.

The SSE investment comes at a time deal activity is picking up in the utilities sector, aided by investor interest into assets offering a steady long-term returns. National Grid Plc is working on the sale of a majority stake in its gas grid business, after agreeing to buy PPL Corp.’s U.K. electricity distribution business for 7.8 billion pounds as part of efforts to prepare for a low-carbon future.

...

Betaville was first to report Elliott’s holding in SSE. Representatives for Elliott, SSE ... declined to comment. "

If you strip away the padding and the mistakes in this story there is very little content and nothing new. We should take note, but until there is attributable comment from any of the actual parties involved it is not clear what if anything is really going on. But even if it is just a rumour it is a good one so we should watch for another surge in the share price and speculation as to how much SSE might be really worth.

[paulo435] 13/9/2021 23:01

Poorly written article but nonetheless.
Bloomberg:
“Billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management is pushing for a breakup of SSE Plc after building up a stake in the British power company, people with knowledge of the matter said. The activist hedge fund sees value in separating SSE’s renewable portfolio from its regulated electricity businesses, the people said, asking not be identified because the information is private. Elliott has been meeting privately with representatives from SSE, which is based in the central Scottish city of Perth, as well as some of its major shareholders, according to the people. “

[pierre oreilly] 02/9/2021 23:20

Jeeze, where did 'conspiracy theory' come from?

Soz you don't like reality.

Think i'll say bye now.

[pierre oreilly] 02/9/2021 18:56

I have no problem with intermittency

....

Not sure what you mean by that. Intermittency is a (mega) problem for the grid.

The grid has to balance demand and generation every instant, so when you put the kettle on, another 2.5kW is generated. Part of the problem with a high penetration of wind is that you may get a big drop (or indeed a big rise) in generation from a windfarm in a very short time, and other generation, or reserve, has to be increased or decreased to maintain the demand/generation balance (otherwise the frequency may breach limits and the grid will shed load to protect itself).

You seem to be talking about just one of the intermittency problems, which is meeting the peak demand (5-7pm on winter weekdays). You have to have enough dispatchable generation ready to meet the peak just in case there's no windpower at that time.

It's largely the provision of attempts at solutions of those two factors which is increasing bills rapidly atm (as i said before, the capacity market is there purely for this reason, and is a 1bn pa cost which wasn't necessary before the high level of wind penetration we have today).

If you think batteries or hydrogen is a solution to intermittency, then just do some maths to discover how many batteries or how much hydrogen you need. A quatitative analysis shows much more than a qualitive analysis.

btw, the reason new pumped storage in scotland is being delayed is largely due to capacity constraints on the english/scottish border, and the transmission losses getting it to the south of england where the shortage is. As an aside to that, many outfits are rapidly building windmills across the border exactly for that reason - they want to be constrained off due to transmission constraints. Windmills being constrained off - wait for it - produces more cash in subsidies to the owner than actually generating electricity. Lots of people are getting very rich exploiting these subsidies.

[marktime1231] 02/9/2021 18:18

Of course we need to finesse the intermittent nature of wind and solar, by storing energy smartly in batteries whether utility or domestic or in EVs. Insert "balancing" for "rationing". Or store energy in hydrogen. Or etc etc. Actually SSE owns the development rights to our only new grid scale hydro project in Scotland, but the engineering cost and time to deliver it is eyewatering which is why it is still on the drawing board after decades of discussion. New nuclear ditto.

In the meantime we will just have to keep adding wind power capacity, so long as it is offshore and out of sight, it is the relatively cheap and quick option And keep burning natural gas, biomass, waste and importing 15% of our energy from France aaaaagh. On paper we are only using up to 2/3 of our gas power generation capacity, to keep ghg emissions down and because the market price of gas is painfully high.

The cost of energy is rising because demand exceeds supply and because successive UK govts did not commit to introduce alternatives before phasing out coal, old gas and old nuclear. I have no problem with intermittency nor with wind, we just need to build the ability to manage it, and I am happily invested in both ends.

We can all do our bit too, a few kW of solar on the roof coupled with a big battery is solving my intermittency problem so well it is driving the meter backwards at times.