RadMan24 Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 Unless I'm missing something, the market reaction (down 11% so far today) is due to the share repurchase. $250m / 11.18m shares = repurchased at $22/share Vs yesterday's closing price of $14/share. I haven't seen too many share repurchases executed at a 57% premium that benefits only one shareholder. It appears to me that ~$75m of shareholder value has just been destroyed overnight. Looks like the discussion within this thread about the majority owner's track record regarding minority shareholders was warranted. Ugh I figure Brookfield affiliates are selling 11m shares to Morgan Stanley for broker determined price. If consummated, EAF will buy $250 million worth of shares from Brookfield at the same price MS bought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brose514 Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 Yup, block trade is for 11.18 Million shares and repurchase is $250M (price of repurchase will be based on block trade price). These are two separate transactions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadMan24 Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 the market reaction is nonetheless weird. On one hand, they are reducing Brookfield’s stake and while Brookfield is increasing float with its sale to MS. On the other, Brookfield is showing it is willing to sell below $19 a share. Net net I see this as a slight positive given all the worries about Brookfield. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gokou3 Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 On one hand, the $250M buyback increases the per-share intrinsic value of EAF assuming the shares are indeed under-valued. On the other hand, I don't want to be sitting across the table from Brookfield. Disc: Long various Brookfield entities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racemize Posted December 12, 2019 Share Posted December 12, 2019 I forgot to post these a few months ago. My point is that if you invested in PIF4, which was just two years after he started, he has trailed the market over the entire life of PIF4. So, the entire outperformance is a result of his first two years of operations. True, but PIF4 is by far his worst performing fund. PIF2 outperformed PIF4 over the same time period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vinod1 Posted December 12, 2019 Share Posted December 12, 2019 roark33, If you do have the 2019 Transcript of Pabrai Funds, could you please upload or send it to me. I have downloaded the transcripts in the past with a user name and password I think Pabrai mentioned somewhere. But cannot remember it at all. Thanks Vinod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roark33 Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 I am not sure what you mean, PIF2 included the first few years of operations, and without knowing the specific holding difference of PIF2 vs. PIF4, it's easier to just look at the performance and say, if you exclude his first few years, which PIF4 does, then he underperforms the S&P. The overlap and outperformance of PIF2 vs. PIF4 is most likely because of investments made before PIF4 began that were still in the fund, but were not bought for PIF4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vinod1 Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 here is the transcript from this past meeting. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 Please do not post copyrighted material or attachments everyone. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brose514 Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 It seems like Brookfield is a willing seller at $13. They’re going to exit their position via EAF buybacks or open market sales. I don’t see how there is no short to mid term ceiling on this stock (maybe in the low to mid teens). Not only that, EAF repurchased shares at $18 last year (poor allocation). At a low price Brookfield is a seller (capping price) and at high price EAF still repurchases which may not be the best allocation of capital. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lakesider Posted December 22, 2019 Share Posted December 22, 2019 Monish goes into some details on EAF in his latest talk at boston college. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbourbs Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 interesting article: Not sure if anyone has posted this. https://events.steelmintgroup.com/needle-coke-prices-wont-fall-in-next-2-years-chinese-needle-coke-manufacturer-tells-steelmint/ possibly another 200,000 tons added to the market in 2020 if 29% of the new production is petroleum needle coke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valueinvestor Posted January 24, 2020 Share Posted January 24, 2020 Interesting article: https://seekingalpha.com/amp/article/4318408-graftech-brookfields-strategy-explained Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjakes00 Posted January 30, 2020 Share Posted January 30, 2020 I'll be interested to see if BAM screw minorities in this again how they ever come back to the market with IPOs...they are going to have to hope for a ton of trade sales in the future. Or maybe the market has a short memory. Additionally, I'm amazed Guy Spier wasn't able to talk Mohnish out of this after Guy got burnt in the TOO saga...BAM are extremely unfriendly majority shareholders - do not invest alongside these guys, ever! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnny Posted January 30, 2020 Share Posted January 30, 2020 Or maybe the market has a short memory. Check the out the rates on newly issued sovereign debt from countries that have defaulted in the past 20-30 years. Not the same buyers, but a still useful illustration of market amnesia. At some point it seems that -not- occasionally defaulting is sub-optimal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaston Posted January 31, 2020 Share Posted January 31, 2020 Check the out the rates on newly issued sovereign debt from countries that have defaulted in the past 20-30 years. Not the same buyers Not the same borrowers either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValuePadawan Posted February 6, 2020 Share Posted February 6, 2020 Looks like another 12 MT on LTA's are being effectively renegotiated with customers in 2020. Not a great look. Also spot prices based on my rough math have come down to $8,900/MT and sounds like they will continue to decline in H1 2020. Sounds like they will be splitting FCF pretty much evenly between debt and buybacks. I'll be interested to see more in the 10-K around the end of February. I wonder when they are going to sign up customers with LTA's past 2022. Any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadMan24 Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 Looks like another 12 MT on LTA's are being effectively renegotiated with customers in 2020. Not a great look. Also spot prices based on my rough math have come down to $8,900/MT and sounds like they will continue to decline in H1 2020. Sounds like they will be splitting FCF pretty much evenly between debt and buybacks. I'll be interested to see more in the 10-K around the end of February. I wonder when they are going to sign up customers with LTA's past 2022. Any thoughts? They still make bank at $8,900 and you have a couple years before new LTAs are signed. The $8,900 is as manufacturing is in a recession, globally. Steel markets down and going through stockpiles at the moment. They suspect 2H recovery, but this also depends on China-US and Europe economic expansions. The contracts were modified to be extended, some reflected likely bankruptcy of certain customers, none were restructured to reflect current prices. It's purely a demand issue. I think the market and investors are focusing heavily on short term dynamics and extending them out 2-4 years. Which is fine. RE: Brookfield concerns. I used to be a Brookfield hater, but, look at TERP. I'm not so sure they can get away with the same thing at a Delaware Corporation public shareholders than at a unit holder limited partnership anyway. If they do, you're not going to lose much money at these prices. Brookfield sold shares at $13...how do you figure they could even offer to buy out the company with those LTAs in place and predicted recovery in 2H? I still think folks are overthinking this investment, but then again, Guy Spier ain't buying that we know of so the hesitancy is not uncommon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grym02 Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 Looks like another 12 MT on LTA's are being effectively renegotiated with customers in 2020. Not a great look. Also spot prices based on my rough math have come down to $8,900/MT and sounds like they will continue to decline in H1 2020. Sounds like they will be splitting FCF pretty much evenly between debt and buybacks. I'll be interested to see more in the 10-K around the end of February. I wonder when they are going to sign up customers with LTA's past 2022. Any thoughts? Can you walk through your math on the $8,900/ton for spot prices? Is that for full year 2019 or Q4? Curious what your estimates were for spot over the year by quarter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValuePadawan Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 Looks like another 12 MT on LTA's are being effectively renegotiated with customers in 2020. Not a great look. Also spot prices based on my rough math have come down to $8,900/MT and sounds like they will continue to decline in H1 2020. Sounds like they will be splitting FCF pretty much evenly between debt and buybacks. I'll be interested to see more in the 10-K around the end of February. I wonder when they are going to sign up customers with LTA's past 2022. Any thoughts? Can you walk through your math on the $8,900/ton for spot prices? Is that for full year 2019 or Q4? Curious what your estimates were for spot over the year by quarter? It's for Q4. They had $415M in revenue in Q4 and sold 41,000 MT of electrodes. 80% of the revenue was LTA agreements with average price per MT of $9,900. Another 4% from byproducts and other revenue with the rest (16% of revenue) being electrodes under spot prices. 415x 80%=$332 million of LTA revenue / $9,900 per MT =33,500 MT of LTA priced electrodes. 41,000MT - 33,500 MT= 7,500 MT on spot prices 415x 16%= $66.4M/7,500MT = $8,853/MT You can figure this out with the same method every quarter to keep up with spot prices. I'm expecting spot prices to continue to drop over Q1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValuePadawan Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 They still make bank at $8,900 and you have a couple years before new LTAs are signed. The $8,900 is as manufacturing is in a recession, globally. Steel markets down and going through stockpiles at the moment. They suspect 2H recovery, but this also depends on China-US and Europe economic expansions. The contracts were modified to be extended, some reflected likely bankruptcy of certain customers, none were restructured to reflect current prices. It's purely a demand issue. I think the market and investors are focusing heavily on short term dynamics and extending them out 2-4 years. Which is fine. RE: Brookfield concerns. I used to be a Brookfield hater, but, look at TERP. I'm not so sure they can get away with the same thing at a Delaware Corporation public shareholders than at a unit holder limited partnership anyway. If they do, you're not going to lose much money at these prices. Brookfield sold shares at $13...how do you figure they could even offer to buy out the company with those LTAs in place and predicted recovery in 2H? I still think folks are overthinking this investment, but then again, Guy Spier ain't buying that we know of so the hesitancy is not uncommon. I'm interested to see what happens if China's blast furnaces which produce 80% of their steel are shuttered or slowed for a month because of supply chain disruptions from Coronavirus. I think I read that China produces 60% of the worlds steel, so they have a lot of weight to throw around and it'll be interesting to see how industry dynamics play out. Does anyone have any speculation what will happen? Will iron ore shipment or other raw material slowdowns stop some Chinese steel supply? Or will they continue to pump out steel and dump it to whomever will buy it around the world dropping the price through the floor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValuePadawan Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 Today at the BMO metals and mining conference. Q: "When will you start renegotiating the new contracts if they're three years out?" David Rintoul CEO: "So we still have three years to go in these contracts and look these contracts are very much like hedging, so um I would expect there will be another year and a half to two years before we would engage in another round of discussions around new contracts. We have a few discussions with large customers at the moment that want to extend them, those aren't complete yet. It's basically at their call we're willing to do those kinds of things, it'll be there call as to whether they choose to do that or they wait till the end of the five year period." Sounds like he expects most new contracts to be signed mid 2021- beginning 2022. Thats when earnings visibility would clear up if true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roark33 Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 Aren't EAF shares up like 30-40% since this whole Pabrai returns thing went off on this thread? Any update on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elliott Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 Aren't EAF shares up like 30-40% since this whole Pabrai returns thing went off on this thread? Any update on this? EAF shares were trading at USD 14 around that time, today at less than USD 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edward Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 Sounds like he expects most new contracts to be signed mid 2021- beginning 2022. Thats when earnings visibility would clear up if true. Went through the company recently. My impression is that the pricing of the existing contracts is somewhat of an anomaly, and one can't reasonably expect the pricing to persist. The majority shareholders' behavior is also indicative of this expectation. Since we are not talking about rare materials/know how here (it's mostly a matter of capex, like building a car factory), I don't see how such a company can make much over its cost of capital over time. Hence I don't really buy the Pabrai pitch that this time its different. Remember ZINC. https://medium.com/i-am-a-terrible-investor/how-horsehead-holdings-made-me-look-more-like-a-horses-ass-b5be37aa237a Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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