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  1. #15971
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnPagani View Post
    Hi Share Traders




    In agreeing to recommend the transaction, the independent directors of New Zealand Oil & Gas have taken into account:
    - The compelling premium offered to New Zealand Oil & Gas shareholders;
    - The changed operating environment for oil and gas investment in New Zealand following the government's decision in April 2018 to not award new offshore exploration acreage;
    - The difficulty raising equity capital as a publicly listed oil and gas company on the NZX, especially given the above factors; and
    - The significant price decline in New Zealand Oil & Gas shares following the government's announcement in April 2018.



    Cheers.

    I feel the need to put your perspective differently.
    It,s a well known fact that independent appraisers always appraise in the range acceptable to the company that pays them. See Fish,s post number 15967 regarding true value from arbitration.
    The premium offered is based on a depressed share price,not a premium on the value of the company. Cash along is worth 80+ cents. Then there is the other assets like Ironbank,and surely those independent directors must consider a considerable value on on the board and management abilities or are they admitting we have been paying them for nil skills

    --The changed operating environment is now being used by OGOG to justify why they alone should benefit from it with this very low ball offer.
    -- Why does NZO need to raise capital? In fact as my broker has pointed out NZO sitting on 120 + million and doing nothing with it has been partly responsible for manipulating the share price lower. You will remember a year or more ago I suggested that NZO look at HZN and Tap both that have done very well.Why did nZO want to do nothing. It seems that that policy has been very useful to lowering the SP and to OGOG advantage.
    Finally I am not in the slightest surprised that OGOG is now making this low offer. By their action or more precisely inaction it has been long in the planning stage
    digger

  2. #15972
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    We only have a very small holding but certainly don't plan on letting them go for the amount offered. At the very minimum we would expect cash in the bank value plus a premium for total control of the company and assets. I'm guessing if OGOG had offered a figure slightly above what they originally offered to buy into the company initially they would have possibly had a number of willing sellers, but as the offer on the table is less than cash in the bank it is insulting.

  3. #15973
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    Quote Originally Posted by CD_CHCH View Post
    willing sellers, but as the offer on the table is less than cash in the bank it is insulting.
    That last sentence sums up how I feel that John Pagani and the NZO independents are trying to justify the unjustifiable.

    I do not care about all of the other factors, in fact they are irrelevant.

  4. #15974
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    Some additional food for thought...

    A frustration for NZOG has been its inability to deploy the significant cash balance into producing assets with upside (selling at a fair price). And as a publicly listed company, there are additional hurdles that a private company don't have - i.e. needing to gain shareholder approval once a purchase exceeds a certain value etc.

    However, given how far we have come...and with Ironbark being drilled in approx 12 months now that we have gained all of the contractual and regulatory approvals...

    At this stage it doesn't even really matter that we are 'sitting on cash'. We may as well just wait it out and see what comes out of Ironbark. If other acquisitions are truly not realistic right now, another 12 months of cash in the bank is not the worst thing in the world while we wait to spud.

    If we strike anything like the anticipated 15Tcf, the share price for NZOG would rocket. Then OGOG would have no issues whatsoever doing an additional capital raising, if they even needed to.

    And if we don't discover commercially viable gas, we will still have the majority of the cash in the bank and life will go on.

    We have come so far, it would seem crazy to walk away now. Given our relatively limited downside right now, it would take quite a compelling offer indeed from OGOG for me to forgo the potentially massive upside in Ironbark.

  5. #15975
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    Quote Originally Posted by mistaTea View Post

    We have come so far, it would seem crazy to walk away now. Given our relatively limited downside right now, it would take quite a compelling offer indeed from OGOG for me to forgo the potentially massive upside in Ironbark.
    Thanks for some great analysis recently, mistaTea.
    With regard to your quote above - absolutely agree, but what if we have no choice? I rather fear we won't, and that CUE may get gobbled up too.
    They were my part of my retirement plan!

  6. #15976
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    If Ironbark is a key future consideration, there is always the possibility of deploying any funds into Beach or Cue - although NZO has a bigger exposure than these, directly and also indirectly with CUE.

    Of course the better the offer for NZO shares, then the more to deploy elsewhere......

  7. #15977
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lion View Post
    With regard to your quote above - absolutely agree, but what if we have no choice? I rather fear we won't...
    If OGOG get the deal over the line, and the sale is forced upon us, well - 'them's the breaks'. I suspect they will find some reasonably strong pushback though, given the low price offered. Kiwi's have a strong sense of fairness, and even an imbecile would smell a rat here.

    With regards to Cue. Some thoughts:

    1. In order to buy into Cue as an alternative to NZOG, you would have to be satisfied that the price you were paying made sense. I see the market cap is now AUD 67M. If you are a Buffett disciple like me, you would need to be satisfied that $67M represented a discount on underlying intrinsic value for Cue. I offer no analysis or recommendations on that front.

    The great thing about NZOG is that, for some time, the share price was depressed well below what a true long-term investor would rationally sell their shares for. At one point the market cap was approx NZ$78M. At such a discount to equity (given the company has no debt), an individual buying in was essentially getting a crack at Ironbark (and Barque/Toroa, if it ever happens) for free. Mohnish Pabrai refers to this (relatively rare) situation as "Heads, I win...Tails, I don't lose much".

    I am not sure you can make the same argument for Cue, so simply buying in now just because they have exposure to Ironbark could amount to pure speculation. That is outside my wheelhouse.

    2. It is entirely possible that, if OGOG are successful in snapping up the rest of NZOG they would go after the rest of Cue. Why share any of Ironbark with anyone else if you can avoid it? The money required to acquire both NZOG and Cue would't even be a rounding error on Eyal Ofer's balance sheet. I hasten to add that I am not predicting that they would go after the rest of Cue, just that it is not a completely ridiculous idea.

    Hope this is useful.
    Last edited by mistaTea; 11-07-2019 at 11:30 AM. Reason: spelling error fix

  8. #15978
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnPagani View Post
    Hi Share Traders


    I'm obviously not going to go beyond the information released to market about the substance of the offer - but I am going to defend the honour of our independent directors.


    I am disappointed by some of the comments made in here today and the derogatory ones reflect poorly on the people making them. Naturally you are welcome to your views about the transaction but it's possible to make up your own mind about value without impugning your directors.


    A couple of points:


    I urge you to consider the independent appraiser's valuation. The independent directors have been crystal clear that they wouldn't recommend a price below the independent valuation. The appraiser is now preparing that valuation, but the independent directors have taken commercial advice, which would include an estimate of where any independent valuation was going to land.


    Everyone will be sent a copy of the independent report as well as the detailed thinking of the independent directors about their recommendation.


    They have a duty as directors to the best interest of the company. They'll spell out for you why they recommend the offer. in the meantime I refer you to the statement they have made:

    In agreeing to recommend the transaction, the independent directors of New Zealand Oil & Gas have taken into account:
    - The compelling premium offered to New Zealand Oil & Gas shareholders;
    - The changed operating environment for oil and gas investment in New Zealand following the government's decision in April 2018 to not award new offshore exploration acreage;
    - The difficulty raising equity capital as a publicly listed oil and gas company on the NZX, especially given the above factors; and
    - The significant price decline in New Zealand Oil & Gas shares following the government's announcement in April 2018.


    Hope that helps.

    I have made my contact details available and if you contact me I will certainly pass on your concerns.

    I am more than happy to discuss if you have queries - and a few people have taken me up on that today. john.pagani@nzog.com

    Cheers.
    Actually I feel this posting is misleading shareholders rather than being helpful.
    I admit to having a bias and a conflict of interest.
    The Independent Directors might also have similar conflicts as might John.
    I feel John and the independent directors are good people and believe they are acting honestly within their own cognition.
    The reality that cannot be avoided if we are being truly honest is that any valuation that is fair and reasonable cannot be below the liquidation value.
    However the Independent Directors have commissioned a valuation range and indicate they would recommend the offer of 62 cents if it is in this range.This range could be wide eg 60 cents to 100 cents.In which case the directors would recommend the offer even though it is not a fair price to accept.

  9. #15979
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    Quote Originally Posted by fish View Post
    Actually
    The reality that cannot be avoided if we are being truly honest is that any valuation that is fair and reasonable cannot be below the liquidation value.
    Yeah. Even though I am sure everyone involved in this offer so far are perfectly decent people, it does astound me how clumsy this takeover offer has been.

    They know damn well there is huge upside with Ironbark. Also, Barque and Toroa are not write-offs at all. Were that the case, they would have surrendered the permits already - not gained extensions.

    If they were less focussed on 'getting a steal', and made an offer that they would be genuinely happy to receive were the situation reversed, things would be much different.

    And the money involved is not huge, given the large upside. For example, they could have made the choice to offer $1 a share. That would be an easy story to sell to us...it would be liquidation value + a premium for Ironbark etc...it would be an increase of 100% on the recent share price etc etc...

    And in total it would have cost them approx $50M. We are talking a measly $20M above what they have actually offered. And, given Ironbark and Barque could be worth many many billions of dollars...it is astonishing to me that they would quibble over a few million dollars.

    That is what we all find so distasteful. Though I am sure OGOG do not mean to come across this way...it FEELS like another big corporate just being greedy.
    Last edited by mistaTea; 12-07-2019 at 08:48 AM. Reason: typo fix

  10. #15980
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    Quote Originally Posted by fish View Post
    .... In which case the directors would recommend the offer even though it is not a fair price to accept.
    If it is "not a fair price to accept", then by natural extension it is immoral to recommend it.

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