IntelliAM aiming for significant growth with £5 million Aquis IPO. Watch the video here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
I wonder if we are willing to go higher than $1.25bn to secure the acquisition. Let's say we are prepared to pay $1.6bn for the assets would that be enough to convince of approval ?
Til, that would only happen if the delay is actually a problem with Petronas rather than achieving the consent of the appropriate SS ministries. I think it's much more likely to be the latter in which case the acquisition price is immaterial imo
Komakino - Perhaps, they may be some signature payments tied into the all inclusive headline price..............
I for one would be disappointed if that happened and don't believe it will.
Possibly TiL, but if the sticking point was signature payments then they'd just up those if they needed rather than increase the whole transaction price so the signature payments would increase. AK has always been clear that SAVE behaves in an ethically correct way (probably what cost us Chad) so it would be interesting to know what's going on behind the scenes, as I'm pretty sure SS are out for everything they can get. Doubt we'll ever find out though.
Komakino - I'm still surprised that UK listed companies can operate in countries such as Chad and SS given the UK corporate governance rules. I'd just like to see the shares relisted regardless of where we are on SS, so the Board become a bit more accountable and forthcoming. Shame we don't have a stronger Nomad.
Hopefully the fact that the last extension was only for an additional month and half rather than the obligatory 6 months suggests that they are close to finalising this one way or the other. Personally I'm comfortable with an additional extension if it means we get this across the line, but what I do not agree with is the total lack of communication on any aspect of the business. It'll certainly be an interesting next shareholder meeting either way.
Who knows we may even get a conclusion pre Feb 1st maybe even next week fingers crossed
K - the reason for the shorter extension is that it was mandated by AIM! Previously SAVE & NOMAD agreed dates and then AIM accepted. However, as we are so far past the initial 6 month period and a few extensions have been granted, AIM are now taking control of what’s going on. They have requested to see significant progress by 1st of Feb. I also believe that the SS debt deal is in early stages and debt providers need to see a Government commitment before they will continue their very expensive professional fees to put the finance deal together.
AIM will be pushing SAVE to relist soon if they don’t see the progress which they want to see and AIM are reviewing all progress now far more regularly than the were during the previous extension to the suspension.
In my opinion SAVE need to show debt providers that we have a committed Government before the debt package can be put together and not in place.
If we see a further extension I see this as good news as we will have to have made significant progress for AIM to allow a further extension.
RR: Has this come from your discussions with the Nomad or what you believe to be the case ?
If it goes on any longer there won't actually be any debt to incur! Not sure I'd agree with you on that RR as with these deals the govt. sign off generally comes well after the deal has been agreed between the 2 companies. With Accugas it was over a year later if memory is correct. If you are correct about AIM itself taking control and wanting to see significant progress by 1st Feb, then you'd hope that was something SAVE and the Nomad felt possible when agreeing to it.
Either way, we're just speculating to fill the time. Only 3 weeks left before we hopefully find something positive out!
K - I am not speculating and in very brief summary I’ll put it in to 2 points:-
1 AIM are not happy with the progress they were expecting to see prior to the agreement of this extension period we are now in. They have mandated that progress is made, mainly in regards to the SS by 1st Feb if a further extension is to be agreed.
2 Debt finance institutions (not Accugas finance) for the SS deal are not progressing their workstreams until we have some sort of new commitments from the SS deal. Their costs to put the deal together are very expensive and they are not prepared to spend the cash as things currently stand.
Now this bit is my opinion. If we were to get the commitment from SS Government (whatever AIM are asking for and I’m not saying a 100% final sign off) by 1st Feb, I believe the debt finance work packages will only re-start in earnest at that point. Then the debt packages would take 4 - 8 weeks to put together.
I think we will either:-
1 pull out or be forced out of the deal by 1/2/24
2 issue a half-baked AD and continue working through the tough parts of the deal
Or hopefully
3 keep AIM happy with progress to allow a further extension
Finally if it is 3 I think we would remain suspended for quite some time post 1st Feb. And as you say, the longer we his goes on, the less the debt finance required. Unless of course the Government and or Petronas start to change the rules if there is not a bi enough hard cash payment to them.
That’s all I’ll be saying on this subject for now.
Ah ok, thanks for the update RR, appreciated.
One other option I guess is to delist from AIM and carry on the deal as a private company, with a view to relisting at a later date, though that's not altogether desireable as listings are pretty expensive things in themselves. Hopefully we'll get some more clarity on 1st Feb.
RR doesn't that now put us in a very precarious catch 22 situation where debt providers won't engage without govt sources and SS govt who will be of the opinion who are you prove you have the funds ?
K - I sincerely hope we don’t take that route.
LST - precisely and was my initial thought (although my info is a few weeks old now) Chicken or Egg and all the that good stuff.
RR,
just musing on your option 1 pull out or be forced out of the deal by 1/2/24
a) If AIM tell SAVE that they must complete by x date or they have to delist, then if there is still a good chance of completion but have not completed by x date, then delisting might well be the best option. For most people I would imagine that completion of SS deal pretty much derisks their investment here (obviously dependent on average buy in price and where the sp settles) so the delist option, whilst not great, might be better than just abandoning the deal because they couldn't meet AIMs date.
b) Given AK's stated objective of completing another acquistion by 2023, then If SAVE did pull out we could possibly just go straight into another reverse takeover situation if that is ready to announce. If that is the case then you can understand why SAVE want to complete the SS deal, no matter how long it takes. Not sure many of us would want them to pull out of the deal because of a demand by AIM just to go into suspension again.
Does anybody know of any previous de-list scenarios and how they work?
AIM have not said to complete by dd/mm/yyyy, they have asked to see significant progress as they were not happy with the speed at which things were happening previously.
RR, I've not come across any company that's been forced off by AIM. I've come across a couple of companies that have chosen to delist and go private, but both turned out to be frauds so I don't think that's a comparison worth making. I'm pretty sure AIM wouldn't force SAVE off just because they got fed up with waiting, if they knew that SAVE would immediately suspend for another reverse takeover.
I was just making the observation that forcing them to abandon the transaction might not achieve their aim of getting SAVE back trading if they just popped up with another reverse takeover. Even if we get another extension 1st Feb, hopefully we'll get some sort of an update that gives us more info. than we know at the moment.
The II’s may not support going back to back into another RTO. I think if AIM don’t allow a further extension at any point we would issue a BAU AD, ie come back as we were before.
Yes, that's true. Hopefully we at least get a better understanding of where we are at in a couple of weeks.
If we do get an extension i think they should just go for a bigger extension like end of March, April or May rather than till the end of Feb 24.
A bigger extension just stops unnecessary debate and better manages expectation rather than progressive incremental extensions.
With the lack of info about what is going on within all aspects of SAVE (not just SS), and the fact that this has been suspended for over a year, I get the feeling that this is turning into a crusade for AK. Which is not good.
With no news by the end of January, the shares should be unsuspended and full info on progress across the company released. It will then be upto the market to decide what the company is worth and whether it has been performing ok or is a laughing stock. It will also allow AK to step down or be ejected and maybe a private equity firm will see value and buy us out.
I do not want the shares suspended any longer. It is dead money that I could use elsewhere.
100% full agreement with all your comments FFT.
Scotpak
Given your expertise on the topic any new thoughts on the Nigerian business and more particularly the Naira situation ?
Hi Noix
I'm far from being a Nigerian expert but if you look at Nigerian USD bond spreads (nigerian bond spread - US treasury bond spreads) they continue to tighten. There are several reasons for this. There is of course the recent pivot by US FED who are now signalling rate cuts for 2024 which has put downward pressure on the USD which has been positive for all Emerging mkts including Nigeria. More specific to Nigeria, Moodys upgraded Nigeria's credit outlook from stable to positive. Although the rating is still very low (Caa1) its still a positive development recognising the recent positive momentum from recent fiscal reforms. In addition, Nigeria's current account has improved massively to a surplus of +3.5% of GDP. All these development should help stabilize the Naira, and should help attract more foreign inflows. To conclude many fundamental and mkt pricing signals which indicate things in Nigeria continue to improve.