Market Musings 19/9/2012

It’s been a busy couple of days on the newsflow front, with a lot of the Irish smallcap exploration names prominent in this regard. Let’s round up on what has been happening since my last update.

 

To kick off with the energy sector, Kentz was awarded a $50m shutdown services and operations support contract by Exxon in Sakhalin, far-east Russia.

 

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in PetroNeft plc) Siberian oil producer PetroNeft released a reassuring update this morning, which revealed that output is steady at 2,000 barrels of oil per day, while early results from the Arbuzovskoye well 101, the first of ten planned new production wells on the Arbuzovskoye oil field, are encouraging. We should see a marked pick-up in newsflow from this stock over the coming months as the Arbuzovskoye campaign gathers momentum.

 

Elsewhere, Petrel Resources announced a “new start” in Iraq, with a new team in place that will “work with national and regional authorities in Iraq to identify projects in which Petrel can be involved”.

 

Providence Resources provided an update on its Rathlin Basin acreage. While this project is very much at an early stage, the company has identified a number of anomalies that it will now focus on evaluating.

 

In other resources related news, there was an interesting backward integration move by Samsung, which has invested in a gold mine in exchange for getting a cut of the output. This follows Delta Air Line’s recent purchase of an oil refinery, and may mark a shift by companies to ensure greater security of supply of key inputs and/or margin capture by buying key suppliers.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Smurfit Kappa Group plc) There was further M&A activity in the European packaging sector, with Mondi acquiring Duropack’s German and Czech operations for €125m. This is extremely welcome on two counts. Firstly, the European packaging sector has traditionally suffered from overcapacity and volatile pricing, but as I have previously noted, in recent times there has been a wave of consolidation in the industry. This should lead to more rational pricing and supply policies going forward, which will lift profitability across the sector. Secondly, from a Smurfit Kappa Group perspective, the multiples these deals are being done at highlight the value in the stock. As Davy note, using the Mondi-Duropack multiple would imply an equity value of €11.30 a share on SKG, well ahead of the €7.60 it is trading at this morning.

 

In other Smurfit Kappa news, following a recent similar move the company announced the sale of €250m worth of senior secured floating rate notes due 2020. The proceeds will be used to pre-pay term loans maturing in 2016/17 and while they will not make a significant dent in interest costs (the new notes will pay 3 month Euribor +350bps, versus the 3 month Euribor +362.5-387.5bps the term notes pay) they do push out the average maturity of the group’s debt, thus reducing the risk around the company and giving it enhanced financial flexibility.

 

In the food sector, Origin Enterprises released its full-year results this morning. These revealed a solid performance by its core agri-services business, with like-for-like operating profits up 7%. Net debt has fallen sharply to €68m compared with €92m a year earlier, which reflects the strong cash flow generation of the business (free cash flow was circa €70m, which implies a FCF yield of 12% or thereabouts). Given this, management has upped the dividend by 36%, which moves dividend cover from last year’s 4x to 3x now. Overall, these are solid results from Origin and shareholders (not least its majority owner Aryzta) will no doubt welcome the significant increase in the dividend.

 

(Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in Independent News & Media plc) There was some unexpected fall-out from the Irish Daily Star’s (appalling) decision to publish pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge, with 50% owner Richard Desmond saying that he would take “immediate steps to close down the joint venture“. This is easier said than done, given the troubles this would involve with redundancies, property leases, a loss of profits and printing contracts. While there has been speculation that this could be a stroke by Desmond to replace a 50% owned JV with his 100% owned UK Daily Star in the Irish market, I can’t see INM abandoning its sole presence in the national daily tabloid space. So, either this dispute is settled amicably (perhaps with INM agreeing a call option to buy out Desmond?) or not, in which case INM will likely launch a new tabloid (using a different title, as Desmond owns the rights to the Daily Star name) which should be able to more than hold its own against any imported competitor whose relevance to the Irish market could well prove to be uncertain.

 

In the blogosphere, Lewis looked at Wincanton, with his blog providing enough to persuade me that I don’t need to look at it in more detail!

 

And finally, if you’ve ever wanted to learn more about money and banking, UCD’s top-rated Professor Karl Whelan has very kindly put up his lecture slides from a course on this very topic.