Uil Share Discussion Threads

[vacendak] 05/7/2017 10:51

[Zeta]
Zeta factsheet for May, this was late compared to the others from the ICM stables last time I checked, and I only picked it up this morning:

Pretty negative reading, NAV/NTA down due to gold not moving, nickel and oil down. Resolute and Panoramic down during May 2017.
The net debt is down strongly at AU$33.2m compared to AU$48.0m in April.

The cash from NZOG is mentioned, which likely helped reduce the debt, but then it is followed by a cash offer to buyout Bligh Resources in its entirety. Zeta already has 51% of it.
Bligh Resources is recommending its shareholders to accept the offer from Zeta.


Bligh Resources is about gold in Western Australia.

As days go by UIL Ltd looks more and more like an investment company for "preppers". We can't get enough gold before TEOTWAWKI. :)

Some more news gathered from the ICM website:

[Stockdale's view on UEM]

Very enthusiastic report on Utilico Emerging Markets. They also mention UIL Ltd and Somers as "buys".
As we know, Stockdale is part of Somers, Somers is run by ICM, owned by UIL Ltd, also run by ICM. Stockdale was also used for the rollover of the ZDP 2016 and additional placing of the ZDP 2020. Stockdale is therefore "family".
To be fair, there is a big asterisk that warns people about a relationship between UEM and Stockdale (broker and advisor). However heavy the pinch of salt that reports to be taken with, UEM remains a sound company doing pretty well at the moment.

[Ascot Lloyd]
Somers has flogged all of its interest in Ascot Lloyd to CPL Bidco Ltd. So £13.2 millions should be flowing into the Somers coffers soon.

CPL Bidco Ltd.

And no... This one does not seem to be linked to Duncan Saville.

[vacendak] 03/7/2017 08:51

Private & Commercial Finance (LSE:PCF) is changing its name.


We hold this through Somers. They got a banking licence recently and the name change wants to reflect that. The ticker remains the same.
They have been doing well of late, hence the banking licence, but their share price has remained lukewarm likely because of baseless fears about PCP. PCP contracts may turn sour soon enough; but "PCF group" as they are now known as, does not offer PCP, only car/vehicle finance to SMEs.
Another one of those investments "where the underlying value is not reflected in the market share price" as stated on the UIL Ltd website.

@Morton
Yeah, that what I would be expecting for Somers indeed: London listing and UIL Ltd dumping a lot of shares to increase (or even create!) a sizeable free-float that would let people trade it and help put a proper price on it. Somers has good fundamentals.

[morton2011] 30/6/2017 16:49

@V - the warrant price is stated as being at a discount to the NAV. As you point out share price is $ 13 so the UIL NAV will probably fall a bit as they are paying $ 13.50.

'.. The Bonus Warrant Issue also enables all Qualifying Shareholders the
opportunity to invest in the Company at the Subscription Price which is a 24.2% discount to the Company’s last published net asset value per share of $17.81. '

Its all financial engineering to swap the debt to equity. After September Somers will load up with debt up again. They possibly were finding it difficult to get extra loans to try and buy growth with the UIL debt in situ.

As Somers would presumably be considered on the LSE as being similar to UIL unless UIL offload a lot of shares then not much to be gained by listing in London as discount would stay the same.

Its a labyrinth as MF says but find it quite interesting to track it all and they don't appear to try and hide news if they are required to publish it.

Afterpay does seem to have good potential as pointed out in past, particularly if the model can roll out of Australia, they recently announced they are going to NZ. Paypal offering some Buy now pay later within their system and Klarna seem to be big in Europe and got some big investors in recently

[mad foetus] 30/6/2017 14:29

Yes, LMS were a shocking bunch. I sold out as soon as they did the dirty. Fool me once, shame on you and all that. I wish UIL was less opaque, but as long as the board and manager have skin in the game and are broadly aligned with investors, that is the main thing.

[vacendak] 30/6/2017 13:46

@MF
As said before, UIL Ltd and the rest of the family look a bit dodgy, but everything is technically above board. It takes a bit of efforts with Google every now and then to get new information and updates, but there is always an unassuming RNS, or a PDF that gets published on the various websites managed by ICM (Somers, Zeta, UEM, UIL LTd and BFIC). The juicy bits are buried in small prints in the Half-Year and Annual Reports, but they are there.

The saving grace remains that most of the actors have a lot of skin in the game through cross-holdings, via holding companies or nominee-accounts in Malaysia... so yes this is murky. :)

Being curious I follow the thread on LMS; now those act like proper crooks - or acted since they seem to have been replaced now.

[mad foetus] 30/6/2017 13:04

You guys certainly win a prize for being able to navigate your way through the murk. Much appreciated, though I think we would make more money if we could invest in the lawyers who get paid for implementing these labyrinthine corporate structures!

[vacendak] 30/6/2017 12:56

Touchcorp (ASX:TCH) and Afterpay (ASX:AFY) have cleared the last hurdle:


They are now de-listed:



Contrary to what the article say, the new company, Afterpay Touch Group Limited, is unlikely to have the ASX:ATP ticker, which is already taken:


It is in fact ASX:APT:



The proposed merger was hailed as a good piece of news by UIL Ltd no long ago... mucho dineros?

[vacendak] 30/6/2017 08:56

@Morton
I should have read the warrant announcement in a bit more depth. I had missed the bit about PIL and PML not being willing to exercise.
So technically, there could indeed be some Somers warrants reaching the BSX stock-market.

The lifetime for those warrants is extremely short: June 30th to September 30th, 2017. The Somers share price is only $13 right now and can only go up if traded or updated by the MMs on the BSX (are there any?). With an average of one trade a month, it might not be easy to go above $13.50. Of course, they could call their mates at Permanent Mutual Ltd or Permanent Investments Ltd and ask them to trade a couple of hundred shares between themselves to "discover the price" at around $14.

At the time prior to the last ZDP rollover, UIL Ltd wanted to gobble-up more of Somers to improve its NAV, then the proposal was shelved due to UIL Ltd stellar recovery (March to late September 2016). So with this swap we are going to own even more of Somers anyway.

I wonder why they do not want to list Somers in London, or at least as a secondary listing. Somers holds a lot of UK companies; some of them listed on the LSE, others close to be Ascot Lloyds nearly IPOed last year. Any thoughts?

[morton2011] 29/6/2017 22:55

@Vacendak

Thanks for the posts - on the warrants UIL are effectively swapping debt for equity as I see it

from your link to the warrants in 747:

'..
It is noted that as at the Latest Practicable Date: (i) UIL Limited (“UIL”) holds in aggregate 6,136,419 Shares which will entitle them to receive 2,454,568 Bonus Warrants; (ii) Permanent Investments Limited (“PIL”) holds in aggregate 4,247,984 Shares which will entitle them to receive 1,699,194 Bonus Warrants; and (iii)
Permanent Mutual Limited (“PML”) holds in aggregate 601,942 Shares which will entitle them to receive 240,777 Bonus Warrants.
As at the date of this announcement, UIL has confirmed that they intend to exercise all their subscription rights in respect of the Bonus Warrants issued to them. However, PIL and PML have each confirmed that they do not intend to exercise their subscription rights in respect of the Bonus Warrants issued to them...

..The proceeds from the Bonus Warrant Issue will be used to reduce the Company’s debt and to fund future corporate investments and acquisitions. As at the date of this document, the Company has borrowed $33.0 million from UIL and has bank facilities of $9.4 million. These facilities have been used to fund the acquisition
of a number of the Company’s existing investments...

..In particular, subscription of the Bonus Warrants by UIL will enable the Company to repay all of the funds borrowed from UIL...'

The maths unsurprisingly perhaps is that UIL pay just over $ 33 million to subscribe for new shares using their warrants and their $ 33 million debt would seem to get repaid so no real cahsflow movement on either side.

[vacendak] 29/6/2017 20:54

Latest NAV: 275.66p
Slightly down.

[energiser01] 28/6/2017 22:07

So they need $35m for the bonus warrants, which buys further nav at a 24% discount and then somers pays them back the loan/debt. Sounds like effective use of capital. The other major shareholders aren't subscribing ? Will Uil buy these in the market, if they can ? My figures may not be accurate, dyor etc........

[vacendak] 28/6/2017 16:21

And another email from ICM.

HY 2017 results are out for Somers. At three pages, is is succinct at best.

They seem extremely happy about having performed worse than last year. Nothing catastrophic mind you; but I guess this is why I am a small investor and not a fund manager, I am just too negative and cynical.

The Somers dividend is up though, so a bit more cash flowing into UIL Ltd.
Somers seems to have good fundamentals, a pity it is listed only on the Bermuda Stock Exchange. Price discovery on the stock is extremely poor.

And they use the usual ICM recipe to increase the capital: Free warrants.

2 warrants for every 5 shares owned. These will of course be traded on the BSX.

Again, this should be positive for UIL Ltd as it owns most of Somers anyway, so will collect a boatload of those warrants.

[vacendak] 25/6/2017 20:31

Just posted this on the UEM thread:

Something I got from the ICM website after receiving an email notification.
This is just the scan of an article about UEM deciding to remain invested in Brazil and ignore the problems of the Brazilian president.

[spectoacc] 23/6/2017 15:04

34k at 161.25p, that may well be what's been moving it recently, & now filled/reported.

Thanks re NAV.

[vacendak] 22/6/2017 08:25

Well spotted.I had not looked at the spread for a while.

Seesawing again, back over 160p after a week hovering dangerously close to 150p.

[edit]
Increase in NAV at 282.49p, last week was 276.66p ( 2.4% increase).
The last time it went above 280p was in April.

[spectoacc] 22/6/2017 08:09

Seems to be a curiously keen buyer around atm - don't see the spread so tight this often (was 0.25p at one point yest - beats the usual 10p!).

[vacendak] 21/6/2017 20:55

[ZDP 2022]
And the last loose change has been put on the market. The last 89,956 ZDP 2022 shares are off the UIL book.


We are now "all in" at the roulette table.
Next debt event: The rollover of the 2018 next year. We should begin hearing whispers about that in the half-year report (end of December).

These were sold half a penny below mid-price at close but still at a nice premium to the NAV of 106.07p for the 2022.

[vacendak] 20/6/2017 13:08

The Utilico Emerging Market AR was out yesterday, now in PDF on the website.


Again, good performance rewarded by an increased share price over the past few days.

davebowler has added this on the UEM and UEMS threads:
"Charles Jillings makes the point that the increased capitalisation following the UEMS swap will be enough to to put UEM into the FTSE 250. THIS WILL HAVE THE EFFECT OF INCREASING DEMAND FROM TRACKERS."

UEM is 16.4% of the portfolio, second behind Somers.
UEM has been collecting awards for a while now, as previously noted, this is used by Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust for their EM exposure (see below).
UEM is now heavy on Brazil and LatAm. Good bet at the moment, I hope this will not backfire.

[ZDP 2022]
The latest RNS was a couple of days ago.


I thought that they were going to dump the whole of the remainder after the last sale; but UIL Ltd has decided to hold on 89,956 ZDP 2022 after that 530,000 sale. Why bother holding those last 89,956?

[UEM investors, info from the FT]
I had not checked for a while, but UIL Ltd (and friends & family via ICM of course) still holds the biggest share.

ICM Investment Management Ltd.as of 10 Apr 2017 37.73m 17.85%
Lazard Asset Management LLCas of 25 Jan 2017 22.54m 10.66%
F&C Asset Managers Ltd.as of 28 Apr 2017 20.34m 9.62%
Aberdeen Emerging Capital Ltd.as of 31 Mar 2017 3.16m 1.50%
Aberdeen Asset Investments Ltd.as of 30 Sep 2016 1.40m 0.66%
BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Ltd.as of 31 Oct 2016 908.63k 0.43%
Smith & Williamson Investment Management LLPas of 31 May 2017 796.90k 0.38%
State Street Global Advisors Ltd.as of 07 Jun 2017 600.44k 0.28%
Legal & General Investment Management Ltd.as of 28 Apr 2017 571.83k 0.27%
Investec Asset Management Ltd.as of 30 Sep 2016 530.62k 0.25%

[vacendak] 13/6/2017 12:44

Bermuda First Investment Company (BFIC, #8 in the UIL Ltd portfolio) has de-listed from the Bermuda Stock-Exchange.


BFIC hardly ever traded anyway, so this puts an end to the charade.

[vacendak] 13/6/2017 09:36

The May factsheet is out.


Again a perfect timing for the report since end of May saw the share price finish at 168p.

As commented above by Morton and myself, they paid out the bridging facility. They indeed used the returned capital from NZOG through Zeta, which in turned paid back some debt owed to UIL Ltd with the cash. The only additional information is that UIL Ltd also sold some UEM to help clear the £25.0m from Scotiabank. No mention of having offloaded all the ZDP 2020 they held in treasury even though they had an RNS on April 20th related to that matter.

Looking at the numbers, they dumped three millions of ZDP 2022 on May 15th and another six-hundred and seventy thousands on May 26th. The remainder is now only 619,956, which means only one more round of sale before going fully invested. This hopefully will make the balance sheet clearer to understand and potentially lead people to buy more and narrow that discount. No matter how much 2022 they seem to dump, the UTLF share price is ticking-up nicely increasing its premium again.

Those are from the latest NAV update, not the May factsheet:
Premium UTLF 6.77% up from 5.11%
Premium UTLE 13.25% (expensive I think)
Premium UTLD 6.51%
The covers are also increasing.

In the latest report they said that the buy-backs had stopped until clearing the bridging facility. They have not done any since then though (no RNS). This means that they may even wait until issuing all the debt (ZDP 2022) before doing so, which would be the right thing to do. It is always bad for the image to be seen to borrow to fund buy-backs.

Despite the UEM sale, the top-ten remains the same. May was a bad month for Resolute/gold.

The gearing is getting better at 67.7% (previously at 75.2%). The latest published NAV is 271.77p and the one on the May factsheet was 267.85p, so despite the recent drop in the sp, things seem to be improving incrementally.

[vacendak] 08/6/2017 09:41

Going ex-divi today.
The only thing UTL is good at nowadays. :(

[vacendak] 06/6/2017 09:49

The Royal Gazette in Bermuda is talking up Somers Ltd.


That would be nice indeed to have more than one trade per month on average.


Of course to trade, those who hold some of it should be willing to sell and improve the free float. Somers Ltd, like Zeta, is mostly held by the ICM family (UIL Ltd, GPLPF, etc.).