Contact Energy - CEN Chart

[trader_jackson]

My small input on CEN: although they have some good plants, dividend won't be rising anytime soon (unfortunately) and continued, high customer losses will continue... (they are the biggest loser by an absolute blue mile over the past few years with very little sign of this turning around)...

Disclosure: never touched

[sb9]

My small input on CEN: although they have some good plants, dividend won't be rising anytime soon (unfortunately) and continued, high customer losses will continue... (they are the biggest loser by an absolute blue mile over the past few years with very little sign of this turning around)...

Disclosure: never touched

Fair enough, I'm a glass half full kinda guy and feel it can only get better from here (hopefully).

I'm not picking a great result, however there'll be an element of surprise in their commentary, just my 2 cents worth.

[sb9]

https://nzx.com/companies/CEN/announcements/277564

Looks like Perpetual been accumulating since late Dec last year and they begin to have substantial holding of 6% from 9th Feb, same day when there was huge trading volume of close to 7mln shares.

I'm sure they better things....

[xafalcon]

https://nzx.com/companies/CEN/announcements/277620

[winner69]

https://nzx.com/companies/CEN/announcements/277620

What you think falcon - good or bad or just so so

Does heaps more cash flow this year mean bigger dividends?

[sb9]

The current period payout is 111% of underlying profit. And am sure we can expect bigger dividends in future based on CEO's commentary. In another announcement today they said to have sold the Otahuhu power station land to stonehill property.

https://nzx.com/companies/CEN/announcements/277600

I think we can expect better returns to shareholders as they become more leaner and efficient.

[xafalcon]

What you think falcon - good or bad or just so so

Does heaps more cash flow this year mean bigger dividends?

I am still reading the report, but I'm not liking it so far (not hating it either, say 4/10). Customer churn and switching incentives seems to be an ongoing feature of the retail consumer market. CEN did flag falling customers in November so not a surprise. But energy prices falling for 3 consecutive quarters isn't flash

[xafalcon]

IMO it's not a good report. FCF seems to be the only rising indicator. And a 7% reduction in C&I sales is a huge decrease

Potential flagged for capex if genesis doesn't keep their rankines burning beyond 2018.

But without knowing the long term situation with Tiwai Pt, there must be a significant element of uncertainty in forward projections

Interesting to note that Tiwai closure would not supress the need for more generation in the north island from 2019 due to HVDC link running at maximum. Perhaps it would make sense to add further transmission capacity into this vital link sooner rather than later

Disc - I hold this stock

[workingdad]

I think its pretty much in line with anticipations. I am happy to see the Otahuhu land sale deal and this will further increase FCF. The customer churn is an issue and they don't seem to be doing a lot about it, the other companies are offering tempting sweeteners and more aggressive marketing but at the end of the day many will be happy to move from one to another every year to get those deals. Perhaps CEN just realises on a cost vs benefit ratio its not advantageous?

Market doesn't seem too phased by it, be interesting to watch the SP in the next couple of days. Positive day mostly across the board so far so perhaps CEN caught up in that. I still think all in all they are a buy for now and have been oversold.

[sb9]

Talking to a colleague at work during lunch time who mentioned they've switched their power supply to Contact last week and did say they got good sweeteners with the deal.

While it may take time to gain more customers, I do think they're on right path and with last year's worst behind them (incl Origin sell down) they can focus on their core business.