Uil Share Discussion Threads

[vacendak] 19/9/2020 13:31

Yeah the markets.ft.com entries indeed miss 80% of the holders, but this is the best I can think of to get some info on shareholder ownership.

I have had a quick look at the UIL Finance annual and half-year reports, but they do not list who owns the ZDPs. UIL Finance is 100% owned by UIL Ltd... and that is it.

I would disagree on the not being small investor bit in the sense it is unlikely that only one or two big institutional investor would hold much. The shares have no voting power so unlikely to be owned by big whales. The ZDPs are most likely spread thinly across a wide array of accounts run by IFAs. In small amount, they provide ballast in a portfolio with reasonably small risk.

About requiring a big effort to repay the 2022, I had forgotten that the 2020s would have gone already, thus reduced gearing, which would increase the cover of the 2022, 2024 and 2026. In turn, with an improved 2026 cover, they should be able to sell them on the market at a likely premium - assuming the Wuhan virus is behind us by then of course - to help repay the 2022.
Further down the line, the 2024 and 2026 would then be easier to repay assuming they can afford to wipe out the earlier bigger ZDP issues.

Still, my bet is on an exceptional/not-really-planned redemption for the 2020s due to the current background situation. I would expect them to at least rollover part of the 2022 in a year and a half from now.

Now... Will I have the balls to manually rollover the proceeds of my 2020s into ZDP 2026s? :)

[morton2011] 19/9/2020 11:17

Thanks for the links - less than 20% are institutional so who owns the other 80%? cannot be small investors.

They have said in the past they want to keep gearing below 100% and narrow the gap between NAV and share price Repaying the ZDP from selling some assets does both

[vacendak] 19/9/2020 09:46

Shareholdersprofile for ZDP 2020 (pretty recent data).


The biggest one "Premier Fund Managers Ltd" does not return any name known to the UIL Ltd cabal, so this could be genuinely independent.


It would not make much sense for Saville and Co to hold them in any case. The ZDP have no vote and since risk-wise the ZDP rely solely on UIL Finance being afloat or belly up... well... they would already know that from running UIL/UIL Finance.

The profile of the holders for the ZDP 2022 is similar.


Back to the decision to phase out the ZDPs - if this is not uniquely linked to the ZDP 2020 and the current crisis - it runs counter to the strategy of late. By moving to the special listing and the Saville people owning more and more of UIL Ltd; why would they bother about simplifying the capital structure? Why now?

Could it be they actually intend to offload their UIL ordinaries they hold and return it to a normal Plc, being actually held by the public at large?
That would be a costly exercise over the years and requiring a lot of oomph for repaying the heap of 2022s coming in two years time.

As for me, the ZPDs are like Pokemons; I have collected them all. Luckily my amount in the game decreases with the issues so I could afford to lose the 2026s. The current situation will spare me having to decide what to do with the 2020s. :)

[morton2011] 19/9/2020 06:58

@V - they need to use cash as overdraft maxed out at the moment unless the bank are going to change the terms of their debt and loan more.
An unknown is who holds the 2020 ZDP. If significant % is its ICM or their clients then that could give them some flexibility.
I wondered about the 2022 zdp myself as at 8% yield, their cover should be pretty solid. If the 2020 is repaid by some kind of debt then that would put me off.

[morton2011] 18/9/2020 06:37

Been vaguely following UIL and noted in the latest factsheet for August that came out this week this:
"UIL is focused on redemption of the 2020
ZDP shares in late October and realisations
will rise over the coming months as ICM
executes its strategy for full redemption."

Odd wording as anything other than full redemption would be catastrophic I would have thought. If they mean there is going to be no issue of any more ZDP or new debt that is good as I see it. It should help clear some of the uncertainties as to values, they need £ 60 million to repay the debt in October.

Zeta has a bonus issue ongoing which is stated to largely pay down debt, which is owed to UIL. As UIL owns 90% + of the shares not sure how that works unless Zeta sells the bonus shares in the market at a profit as why pay 25 pence for a bonus share the proceeds of which may only be used to pay back your own debt, which is earning interest. It has had the benefit of increasing the share price but does not seem to raise any cash.

The factsheet disappointed in Resolute so perhaps they might sell a big chunk if they can there.

Ascendant sale not gone through yet and early October is supposedly a date for regulatory decision on quick google search - ttp://www.royalgazette.com/business/article/20200814/ra-in-forensic-review-of-belco-deal so going to be close in timing. This is worth around £ 25 million.

All the ZDP beyond 2020 trading around 8%

[ceaserxzy] 27/7/2020 19:26

rsg may be their next apt. This trust has the unfortunate habit of selingling out big winners like aug and apt though and keeping the underperforming shares.

[vacendak] 27/7/2020 16:24

I never got into RSG in the end. Still a mystery to me as to why it is still so low relative to other gold miners.

I chose to enter GPM two months ago, then added a bit more the other week, I am now close to 30% profit even before banking today's rise in my spreadsheet.

I feel like having bought Bitcoins!

[spectoacc] 27/7/2020 16:14

Keeping an eye out for this week's NAV. RSG been (finally) dcb'ing with the gold price.

[davebowler] 27/7/2020 09:09

26% in resources here -mostly gold should improve this at last.

[vacendak] 25/7/2020 11:02

@Morton: Good points about the potential sale of assets.
However, from experience, ICM usually manages to conjure up some cash from the repayment of "loans to investee companies" (Somers and Zeta for instance).
The Ascendant deal you mention would help too.
Talking about Zeta, it still seems to be in the doldrums, even with a decent exposure to gold mining.

However as you imply, while they do not really need to care about their shareholders since those are technically running the company, they need to assuage the feelings of the institutions who hold the debt.

They rolled over the 2018 early last time because people were hungry for debt, this particular rollover could not happen at a worst time especially if they roll in as 2028s.

[morton2011] 25/7/2020 08:11

The 2026 zdp they hold in 'treasury' always been a bit of a mystery to me as to how they worked. If they never paid for them originally then when sold at a premium in the market they create a small profit and cash for the company alongside a matching liability so NAV goes up slightly. If they sell them now in the market create a loss and NAV goes down. In October they need cash to pay back the 2020 zdp that do not roll over. £59 million if no one wants to roll over. Looking at the 2026 zdp price it's a brave investor who wants to roll over to the end of the debt chain without a yield over 10%.All UIL need to do is demonstrate the NAV they publish is correct and sell down 10% of their portfolio for cash. Repay the 2020 in full, the NAV will stay the same and the discount will reduce as we all have confidence in the valuations.The delayed sale of Ascendant group would be very helpful at this point and maybe they are expecting this.

[spectoacc] 24/7/2020 16:18

Thanks both.

[vacendak] 24/7/2020 16:04

I had been thinking along the same line earlier. They seem to be postponing the rollover offer as much as they can, likely to adjust the proposed yield as you say.

From my point of view:
The ZDP 2020s will rollover into 2028s, thus adding two years to their lifetime. They mentioned their desire to extend the lifetime of the ZDPs by two years when they issued the 2026s (at that time the 2018s had just rolled over into the 2024s).
The 2026 "sort of in treasury" shares will likely be used to pay for the 2020s that will be required for redemption.

This indeed would explain the discount on the 2026s, because their cover is still decent.

As for the discount, with the company becoming less and less public and more and more private, no amount of hoovering via buyback will bring more trust in the company.

I am now only a lender/ZDP holder, so only monitoring the covers at the moment.

[morton2011] 24/7/2020 14:53

The mysterious zdp holders have a role here as well. The 2026 zdp is persistently at discount with high running yield. Suggests UIL may have some trouble rolling the 2020 zdp over easily in October or at the very least struggle to do so at low yield.

[spectoacc] 24/7/2020 08:27

Lol - fair point! Hence the frequent comedy spread.

Still waiting for that "medium term" move nearer to NAV..

[vacendak] 24/7/2020 08:26

Well, this one is down to two shareholders, you and Duncan Saville, you should contact him directly for an OTC deal. :)

[spectoacc] 24/7/2020 08:24

Been nicking a few - averaging down - but MMs not giving many away lately.

[vacendak] 17/7/2020 20:55

The factsheet is out.


Still no mention of the ZDP 2020 rollover. We are getting close to October now.

[vacendak] 10/6/2020 12:46

Good old Duncan Saville selling to himself again.

[spectoacc] 18/5/2020 08:37

Persisting with the spread it seems - 30p. At least a dcb (& a good one from RSG).

[ceaserxzy] 13/5/2020 22:02

thanks Morton.

[morton2011] 13/5/2020 21:36

They owned over 10% 18 months ago of Afterpay - would be worth over £ 600 million today. They have sold close to or all of it for a lot less but still made a good profit. See UIL factsheets on their website. Those gains masking poor performance elsewhere.

[ceaserxzy] 13/5/2020 18:31

anyone knows if it still has some holdings in Australian company apt, directly or indirectly? apt is doing very well recently and is at all time high.