Stockwatch meeting notes. ......information following the 24/11 director purchases.
Hargreaves Services has a market cap £66m and is morphing into a broader mechanical business services company and away from coal mining. Many of the divisions have interesting prospects in 2021. Of note was the June announcement of the closure of the historic coal mining division was an important break from the past which will shortly lead to a new financial structure being implemented. The year end NAV was 403p a share (£130m) chiefly made up of UK land (for sale to house developers) and a £40m pile of coal.
The AGM was last week, and the statement highlighted the first 4 months of the new financial year have been ‘satisfactory’. There has been little direct CV effect on the company aside from delaying Blindswell land sales due to the Scottish Government construction cessation order. Land sales should return ‘in the near future’. A new contract with China Light & Power in Hong Kong and with Severn Trent are valuable and lengthy and give a new direction for business services. The prospect of a 20p yearly dividends (and for several years,4?) exists meaning the share has a possible 10% yield. The share price is 200p.
A trading update is due in early December with interim's on 27/1/21. The CEO owns 8% of the stock.
I caught up with Gordon Banham, the CEO and John Samuel, the group FD last week after an acceptably uneventful 2020 AGM. The shares are one of a few that have not recovered from the CV market collapse in April. In recent weeks Schroder sold a 9% chunk of the PLC (without contact) with the stock passing to Harwood Capital who now have a 28% holding, up from 13% after other tidying ups.
The are two new NEDS in Nicholas Mills, who represents Harwood (and half the board’s age at 30) and Chris Jones who has an extensive property development experience. David Anderson, the Hargreaves Group property director joined in late 2018 from Henry Boot where David grew revenues from £10m to £220m, as MD of Henry Boot Developments. The Chairman hosted his second AGM.
HEMERDON TUNGSTEN MINE. A reopening of the Hemerdon tungsten mine (4th largest deposits of tin-tungsten in the world) near Plymouth (thus not China) will be a ‘big positive’. Hargreaves / Drakeland Restoration sold the mine to Tungsten…
