JE - Just Energy

[tyska]

Has anyone ever looked into this company. Numbers are hard to follow with the hedging being marked to market each quarter. Got a lot of bad press with their marketing approach a few years ago, but clients numbers in their energy and home services keep going up, and they keep entering new markets.

 

Both Jimmy Paterson and Ron Joyce have major positions in this company and both have been adding quite aggressively lately. Although that is probably speculative on my part, as what seems aggressive to me, may be lunch money to them.  ;D

[bz1516]

Did own it a number of years ago.  They are a very aggressive company, not necessarily in a good way.  they have tried a lot of things and learned by trial and error.  Their two methods of presenting earnings, with and without marketing expenses, is a little strange.  Never seen that anywhere else.  presume they are still doing it.  Seems like a way to get around the distaste auditors have for deferred acquisition costs.

 

The company no doubt has been hurt by a generally declining price of ng.  Could be the interest in it is a bullish play on ng prices both for electricity and ng contracts?

[tyska]

I've made some purchases of it. Yes there accounting is confusing, but then I have a hard time following FFH's numbers also. I think I understand how they explain them. The biggest thing that I see is that they are adding customers not only on their energy contracts, but also their home services division. Granted I don't really understand the concept of renting a water heater or air conditioner. But then leasing a vehicle seems foreign to me. Yet I think a pretty high % of new sales are leases.

 

The Jimmy Paterson buying into it so heavily also intrigues me, pretty shrewd fellow from anything I've came across. Don't know much about Ron Joyce beyond the Timmies connection.

 

Next qtr. should be interesting to see if the creeping ng prices moves more people to look at locking into contracts.

[mcliu]

There was a short thesis on this company a while ago. I can't seem to find it, but it was a pretty compelling short, highlighting gimmicky accounting, over-valuation, sales tactics and debt maturity..

[tyska]

There was a short thesis on this company a while ago. I can't seem to find it, but it was a pretty compelling short, highlighting gimmicky accounting, over-valuation, sales tactics and debt maturity..

 

I think there is something like 13-14 million shares short, which one would have to be pretty dedicated on, as I believe you have to pay the div. on shares you short. But then I remember a pretty compelling short thesis against another company a few years ago. Highlighting gimmicky accounting,debt maturity, etc.  ;) But yes I came across a lot of those comments when I started looking into it. I think they have changed there sales tactics somewhat. It seemed like a lot of the flack they took over sales, were from people who signed onto long term contracts just before the collapse in ng prices. This is the U.S. and they were claiming all sorts of things to get out of the $10-$12 ng price. My understanding is the contracts are a lot shorter duration now.