Westmount Energy Share Discussion Threads

[cwa1] 04/11/2008 12:16

Eclipse deal just gone unconditional. That's a relief :-)

[deswalker] 04/11/2008 08:42

Finals are out.

Should get the Vattenfall money by the end of the year then they'll look at ways of returning it.

They sold 1 mill SEY at 13.96 and bought back 2.5 mill in the placing at 2p.

So hopefully we'll get most of the cash back in the next six months or so and we'll have to watch and wait for improvements at SEY and DES. Hopefully WTE management will be much more ready to sell up next time.

[whackford] 21/10/2008 19:41

Zing - I know. Let's hope that it's soon sewn up. Then at the current share price we have DES and SEY chucked in for nothing.

[zingaro] 20/10/2008 09:07

one month on from the Vattenfall takeover offer/agreement for Eclipse and still no news.

[whackford] 08/10/2008 08:26

Agreed Zingaro - especially with SEY. Hope we get some indication on this key decision before long.

Also, windfarm news awaited. Credit crunch will not help here either.

[zingaro] 07/10/2008 19:54

In the current financial crisis with not just the heavy fall in the prices of SEY and DES but also the widening of bid ask spread it might be throwing money away to mass liquidate as a "forced" seller. I would prefer the SEY and DES shares to be distributed as such (as was suggested earlier).

[whackford] 01/10/2008 11:45

Quite agree Des. Sell out all assets ASAP and return cash to shareholders.

[deswalker] 01/10/2008 11:25

Agreed. Fortunately I noticed we sold 1 mill shares before this recent drop so now hold 29 mill. Let's see if the US sale and new management improve things. The old team ought to hang their heads in shame. Clueless is too kind a word.

Next year is make or break for SEY. The US assets will be gone, debts cleared and Kurdistan and Madagascar will be firmly in focus. WTE should be looking for any opportunities prior to Kurd drilling to lighten up with the intention of being totally out by this time next year.

Likewise, next year is the clincher for DES. There'll be much interest closer to drilling and so we should be looking to sell out here on any return to close to a quid a share. Once again I can't see why we should be holding DES shares by this time next year.

Hopefully WTE management realise that we're in liquidation mode and that a speedy return of funds is more important for shareholders than holding out for an extra few pennies on DES and SEY. It's the discount going to zero that offers most of the return and once Eclipse is gone, anyone can reproduce the remaining WTE portfolio to their heart's content by simply buying the underlying. There's no need for WTE to manage these two listed investments for us.

Let's suppose they sold all their DES holding in one go and announced it immediately to the market. Then I would see this RNS and could immediately buy DES in the same proportion that same afternoon (presumably at a lower price as the sale would depress the share price somewhat). Then I get my cash back from WTE in due course.

Infact I'll go further. Why not announce a return of the Eclipse funds and then a few days after these proceeds are received by shareholders announce that both DES and SEY have been sold that day. Any shareholders can then use the Eclipe proceeds to buy DES and SEY at roughly the same price as the sale has been effected should they so wish. That way, WTE gives us the money first in order to replicate the listed portfolio just before they sell it. How neat is that !

Sorry to go round the houses, but there are ways of selling DES and SEY at any price whilst simultaneously affording WTE shareholders the opportunity to buy back in to these stocks at about the same price should they so wish.

Des

[whackford] 01/10/2008 09:45

Big placing at SEY at 2p. Gross incompetence and doubtful integrity of the management at SEY is not helpful to us.

The late DW was always doubtful about SEY - now it's all getting laid bare.

[whackford] 23/9/2008 08:29

Nice to see a tight spread.

[whackford] 22/9/2008 12:56

Des - I think I remember you saying you had done this. Your analysis is clear. Why not send it again to WTE, as a reminder?

My spreadsheet agrees exactly with your NAV of 142p, allowing for options and using last published accounts.

Desire moving up at time of writing. SEY moving down. I don't mind a liqidation because I can then buy DES and SEY to suit my own purposes. DES seems to have a future at least for the next few months - and if WTE are to sell DES then it may pay them to defer until just before drilling. SEY appears to be a hopeless case unless they can sell SEY's USA assets at a decent price.

[deswalker] 22/9/2008 11:49

Some numbers for my suggestion above ...

Following the Option exercise there would be 7.8303 mill shares in issue. If they bought (7.8303 - 5.2 = 2.6303) mill DES shares for 2.6303 * 0.64 = £1.6834 mill and 1.3212 mill SEY shares for 1.3212 * 0.06 = £0.079 mill then this would cost £1.763 mill.

By my estimation, following the Eclipse sale and Option exercise then cash resources should be about £6 mill (allowing for £221k management expenses since the start of the year).

So following the purchases detailed above we would have (6 - 1.76 = 4.24) mill in cash plus exactly ONE DES share and FOUR SEY shares per WTE share. £4.24 mill equates to 54p per WTE share and so the total receivable on distribution would be ...

54p cash + one DES share + four SEY shares = 54 + 64 + 24 = 142p at current prices.

If there are no legal obstacles for doing this then this seems an excellent move to me rather than waiting for the right time and right price to dump lots of DES and SEY shares.

Des

ps whackford, I emailed the company with this suggestion a year or so back. They thanked me for my thoughts but were noncommital as to whether they were considering such a route. At the time they talked about the options being an issue whilst Eclipse was unquoted. But now that they are going to sell there is no obstacle to exercising the options (as they are all clearly going to remain in the money from now on) and doing the distribution.

[woulduadamandeveit] 22/9/2008 10:40

Now moving up very nicely + 7.5p

Only 1 trade showing so far

[whackford] 22/9/2008 08:56

Des - can't argue with what you say. Have you expressed this view to Paul Anderson (who you can contact by email from the WTE website), who in my experience is very approachable.

The good thing about your idea is that it deals with varying attitudes to risk (DES, SEY) and timings, which differ with every shareholder. I am especially concerned about SEY which has been badly run (getting into USA) and there's still no news about selling the USA fiasco.

[deswalker] 22/9/2008 08:47

Just back from hols so this news is very welcome. Pleased I picked some more up last month in the low nineties :)

Surely the easiest way to wind things up is to distribute cash plus shares in SEY and DES to each WTE shareholder. I'm not aware of any legal reason why this isn't possible (but I'm far from being an expert).

The options would need exercising first but then we would have a fully diluted register of 7.8303 mill shares. Then a very small amount of the cash could be used to buy up the right number of SEY and DES shares in the market to give us all an integer number so no rounding errors and then simply distribute these and the remaining majority of the cash and everyone can go home :-)

That's what I'm hoping for anyway. Then I can make my own mind up about whether to hold or sell DES or SEY.

Irresepective of whether this happens or not we must be in line for a cash windfall. I can't see them holding on to all this cash whilst they wait for DES and SEY to come good.

[whackford] 22/9/2008 07:56

Would...the main thing is that we shareholders get our NAV, at least, and that it's not bought out at a discount.

Note that Foster is quoting "dealers". He is not saying that, in his opinion, a buyout is likely.

A big question is the sale of SEY, DES and the associated timings.

[woulduadamandeveit] 21/9/2008 17:30

AIM listed Westmount Energy [WTE]



DAILY MAIL

GEOFF FOSTER

20/09/08



"Westmount Energy soared 28.5p to 112.5p after one of its core investments, unlisted Eclipse Energy, was aquired by Swedish power group Vattenfall. Added to its other investments plus cash, Westmount now has a net asset value of more than £11M which compares with its market capitalisation of only £7.85M. Dealers believe it could soon attract predatory interest."

[bisiboy] 20/9/2008 18:06

let us do the taking over how about angus&ross (agu)

[djalan] 20/9/2008 15:33

Whacky

'Ching' LOL !!

Whatever happened in Mauritania ?

Did they ever achieve the 75,000 bpd ?

jal

[woulduadamandeveit] 20/9/2008 15:31

I have also been a long term holder whackford....you mention a quick bid....well either an existing listed small cap oil & gas e&p player looking for cash or a private small cap oil & gas e&p player looking for a listing could perhaps be interested in taking WTE over....why not?