Myth465

Perhaps they can only buy a certain number of shares per day. I am unsure why, but they have done this before with other Clarke securities. I am sure it makes complete sense, but you would need to know all of the rules surrounding repurchase plans and pension assets. Perhaps a good question to email in. Clarke has so much excess cash. Not a bad place to be.

They will likely have a tender and the pension will tender shares. Generates a small safe return for the pension and perhaps allows Clarke to buy in a big block.

I liked this idea at $2. Very cheap Though it just came down to Holloway levels, and Holloway is a much better company.

All very good news. Will be interesting to see where they go next. They need an operating business to make the most out of the tax losses.

Very nice surprise. All good, I would prefer Clarke buy more stock in Holloway vs. own debt at 6%. I dont like Clarke holding debt securities though the cash flow is nice. Ideally they will continue to buy stock. O&G has been decimated. So I would prefer them investing. Also I never liked this franchise business. They were not focused on growing it and it always seemed like an odd bit. I would like all debt bought back, and a simple line of credit used for debt as well. Keep simplifying the structure.

Why? Note that Quinpool Holdings Partnership (Clarke subsidiary) sold HLC debentures to the pension plan at the same time. If I'm reading SEDI correctly: Pension plan sold 1M HLC common shares to Clarke at $5.25. Quinpool Holdings Partnership sold $6,232,000 of HLC.DB.A to the pension plan. This transaction makes sense. There is relatively little upside to the debt securities (dbs and various related party loans). Just a solid 6-8% return as they approach par. The easy money has been made with them trading up. The upside lies with the common in HLC and most other current major holdings. Better to put the debt securities in the pension and move the shares owned by the pension to Clarke. I would have preferred an overall increase in HLC to Clarke. I thought it was a million new shares based on reading the MDA. Its a good move, but would have preferred a direct market purchase.

They bought them from their own pension plan. Thats annoying news...

I like the Pension from a bullying perspective. When they buy they seem to attack with 3-4 related entities. The pension is cashed up quite a bit. They use it to buy shares, and also use it to loan money to related parties at 6%-7%. Not bad at all. I like the buyback as well with only 19 million shares it will make a big dent if they get traction.

I like Clarke because it's safe and cheap. I think they are making all the right moves, and are cashed up in a distressed market environment. Clarke has cleaned up their holdings, and will continue to do buybacks at a 20% BV discount. They have a fairly overfunded pension which is being reduced by an Asset Ceiling. The full value isn't being recognized. Pension accounting is not my cup of tea, but I would guess there is some value to shareholders there. Funded status of plans – surplus 51,175 48,134 Cumulative impact of asset ceiling (21,352) (18,475) Accrued pension benefit asset, net of impact of asset ceiling 29,823 29,659 At the very least they have the cash on the books, plus the cash in the pension to really take advantage of this O&G / Canadian market downturn. They also have quite a lot of debt securities / related party loans which will be converted to cash in the next few years. Holloway / Terravest are perfect platforms to buy O&G holdings as well as hotels. You have Clarke, Clarke pension, Holloway, Terravest, and GA's private cash to continue taking over companies. I think the new O&G holding they have will be a nice win, and think they have a gem with Holloway, which I believe is deeply undervalued. Buying back Clarke is a nice way to concentrate more on Holloway. Here is more detail on pension accounting. http://www.iasplus.com/en/meeting-notes/ifrs-ic/2007/may/ifric-d19

This sums up my position. Its getting a bit irrational, but Mr. Market can stay there longer than I can stay solvent. I wonder how many cashed up entities are out there sniffing around the oil patch. Everything is truly on sale.

I think they should sell. Plenty of other value in the oil patch, and Holloway is a gem. They could make easy money buying Holloway debt at 90%, 6.5% yield and selling assets / refinancing. The MD&A was not very nice towards Spyglass so there is a board disagreement. I wouldnt fight for Spy given where oil is trading and given their leverage.

I am looking at this for my asx account.

The entire Canadian market just took a 10%-30% hit. Good move, plenty of good opportunity out there. Love the move Clarke is making.

Its a strange situation. The Juniors have been massacred, the majors killed. Great value and once in 3-4 years ops, but most are sitting down 50%. I was fairly overwieght oil. I have sold service companies which were down 10%. Now I can buy more Manitok or wait. I think the shares I have will recover, but you can make real money buying today. Entrice is looking great, they may produce more from it in 2 years than Stolberg. Stolberg is back on line. I will listen to the call and think about it over the weekend. They have upside in Stolberg, and tremendous running room in Entrice. They can even pick up the other acreage from PS / Encana Spin CO. Lots of good options and good hedges and 50 / 50 nat gas production to help with the dip in oil. The real question is - is it a dip? Interesting. times....

Manitok announced very good results inmo. Currently down quite a bit but I still really like the company. Will review Manitok and PWE over the weekend. http://www.manitokenergy.com/files/file/manitok-corporate-presentation-2014-11-12-v005-final.pdf