This blog gives you the latest topical news plus some informal comments on them from ShareSoc’s directors and other contributors. These are the personal comments of the authors and not necessarily the considered views of ShareSoc. The writers may hold shares in the companies mentioned. You can add your own comments on the blog posts, but note that ShareSoc reserves the right to remove or edit comments where they are inappropriate or defamatory.

Invinity Open Offer, Ideagen, and AJ Bell Results

I have recently taken a strong interest in those shares that are involved in electrification of the world. It’s not just the UK Prime Minister who wants to save the world from global warming and air pollution with Joe Biden likely to be much more environmentally conscious than Donald Trump. Those companies or trusts that are involved in alternative energy sources such as wind and solar, and systems to manage the fluctuations they impose on the grid, are of particular interest.

One such company is Invinity Energy Systems (IES) who announced a placing and open offer this morning. This was a company that was mentioned at a recent investor discussion group I attended and I did some research into it and bought a very few shares.

It produces vanadium flow batteries which are typically large batteries used in large energy storage projects. They are alternatives to lithium-ion batteries which have limitations and lithium is a relatively rare element that we might run out of or it might become very expensive. Vanadium is the 20th most abundant element in the earth’s crust and is mainly used in steel making at present. Vanadium flow batteries have advantages in that they can be cycled many times, have a 25-year lifetime, with no risk of thermal runaway and are cost competitive. They have been around for many years but not in high volume production mainly because they are bulky and hence only suitable for certain applications – Invinity plan to change that. It’s still a relatively early stage business but it seemed worthy of a punt as their sales prospects, of which details are provided, look promising.

Their placing is at a discount of 8% to the pre-placing market price and dilution is only 16% so I consider that acceptable and the other good aspect is that they are including an “open offer” so existing private shareholders can participate.

For those interested in the environmental sector the following shares may be of interest (Note: I hold some of these): Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (GSF), Greencoat UK Wind (UKW), Gresham House Energy Storage Fund (GRID), Impax Environmental Markets, (IEM), Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust (ORIT) and The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG). Some of these are effectively private equity trusts that invest in storage systems, windfarms and solar power installations. Much of their revenue comes from guaranteed prices for power supply and their assets are valued on a discounted cash flow basis. This enables them to pay high dividends with some capital growth but they are currently typically trading at a high premium to net asset value as they have grown in popularity as good reliable dividend payers have disappeared from the market. Whether the assets are fairly valued is anyone’s guess and clearly it depends on what discount rate is used – never an easy thing to determine in DCF calculations.

There is a lot of enthusiasm for these companies in the market at present so readers need to decide whether it is a bandwagon that will fade or grow stronger.

Last night I attended a webinar on Ideagen (IDEA) run by ShareSoc. I have held this company since 2012 and it has been highly profitable but one aspect I am unhappy with is that they regularly do placings, typically to fund acquisitions, but never include open offers, so I have been diluted. As Chairman David Hornsby said last night, they do at least only do placings at near the market price, but I am not convinced that is a good excuse. Market cap of Ideagen is £500 million while that of Invinity is £138 million so if Invinity can include an open offer why cannot Ideagen?

From David’s other comments it seems they are planning a placing to enable them to do more acquisitions to meet their growth plans. That might be why the share price has been drifting down of late as expectations of this have become known.

AJ Bell (AJB) announced their final results this morning (they run the YouInvest platform). Revenue was up 21% and pre-tax profit was up 29% but on a forecast p/e of 48 according to Stockopedia for next year the price is clearly discounting more growth but there must be limits on how much market share they can grab.

One interesting item mentioned in the AJ Bell announcement was that the FCA has delayed implementation of the “Making Transfers Simpler” rules due to the Covid-19 epidemic. The new rules were designed to make transfers between platforms easier so as to encourage a more price-competitive platform market. Let us hope these changes are not abandoned although AJ Bell mention they feel the new rules could be improved and have made alternative suggestions.

As anyone who has moved an ISA or SIPP between platform operators knows, it takes way too long and is too expensive. The FCA’s new rules may have helped in some regards but are not a total solution.

At least AJ Bell have substantially reduced their exit charges in their new price list effective from January. They have made a number of other changes to their prices which overall do not seem unreasonable and they will remain competitive.

Platform operators have generally been edging up their prices as the interest they receive on client cash has disappeared as interest rates have shrunk while regulatory costs have increased. This has also undermined the few “free dealing” platforms that wanted to conquer the UK market like Robinhood have done in the USA with commission free trading. Operators such as Freetrade were potentially a threat to AJ Bell but with the former offering only a limited service that threat seems to be receding.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.