Today was crunch day for Harland and Wolff’s (HARL) rotund CEO, John Wood, to deliver on the new finance agreement that he has been promising since November 2022. He failed and instead there was a garbled last minute RNS kicking the can down the road.
The three largest shareholders in Horizonte Minerals (HZM) have today announced a keep the lights on financing. They have provided a $15 million Senior Secured Loan Facility and the release of $5 million by OMF Fund III (Cr) Ltd. previously secured at Vermelho. The shares have zoomed ahead by 27% to 9.95p on the news as bulletin board morons have piled in. They will regret it.
I promised that I would report this morning on Petrofac’s (PFC) trading statement. At pixel the shares are 31.6p, up 41% from yesterday’s close. At the peak this morning they touched 37.2p, scoring a massive 67% win for the bulls, all of whom seem to be in my timeline this morning, less than politely telling me what a fool I am.
I picked this as my short for the year on the basis that Cineworld (CINE) was (a) too easy, and (b) not a 100% loss as the borrow rate at the start of the year was an exorbitant 80%!
Tom commented briefly and bearishly on Harland & Wolff Group (HARL) on Friday, I thought it was about time that I should put some detailed thoughts in writing to explain why Harland was one of my top UK small cap shorts that I highlighted at ShareStock. Personally I think that the numbers are compellingly obvious but let me start with some background to make sure that I don’t assume too much prior knowledge.
A lot of shareholders appear to be questioning whether Upland Resources (UPL) needs to produce accounts, given that Upland has changed its accounting year-end. UPL announced the change in its year-end in an RNS on 3 July: “The next audited accounts will be prepared for the 18 months ending 31 December 2023.”
This week we celebrate the official anniversary of AIM’s largest ever fake takeover. Four years ago, on 24 October 2019, Eurasia Mining (EUA) blew the starting whistle with an RNS that would ultimately see its market cap inflated from just under £10 million to a peak of £1.2 billion. During that time, whilst supposedly seeking to sell its assets, Eurasia placed to raise funds three times, raising a total of $45 million from shareholders. All that money has gone now!
It’s taken me a couple of days to get to the bottom of the story but, as of today, I will be shorting Horizonte (HZM) with the confident expectation that the equity is a zero.
Sound Energy (SOU) issued an RNS on Friday morning indicating that £500,000 worth of convertible loan was being converted at a fixed price of 2.25p. At first glance this looks really strange, as the prevailing share price is 1.05p and hence the bondholder appears to be locking in a loss. However....
I see that there are plenty of AIM suspensions for non-publication of accounts this morning, however the FCA has ignored the one main-market company that hasn’t published its accounts and for which it is responsible.