Still Watching Contact Energy

Contact Energy Ltd [CEN.NZ] is a stock I used to own just before 9-11, in fact I moronically dumped it on that day due to my inexperience in the stockmarket at the time.

I bought in at NZ$3.10 at the IPO and picked more up at $2.66. I had 5000 at one stage for the princely sum of around $12000.00 bucks (you can smell the regret in this reminisce cant you?)

Meanwhile back in the present I think you can still get a relative bargain by buying this company. The share price has dropped around 7% since I last wrote about the company on June 8.

Contact had a 30% drop in half year profit to 31 December 2008, added NZ$550 million in debt through a public bond issue and expects its full year profit for the year ended 30 June 2009 to be down around 30% as well.

This doesn't make good reading but Contact has performed better than most during this recession. Contact's lower profit was to do with higher water levels in dams bringing down their wholesale energy prices. It wasn't recession related at all apart from the shutdown of some of Comalco, a large power user and profit is unlikely to get much worse than this.

That is one reason why I continue to watch this stock closely, its recession proof nature.

One other good reason to buy, if you were looking at this stock over the last year, is that its stock price is near its 52 week low of $5.47, closing at $5.63 last Friday and you cant get a better reason than that.

The company is a good long term bet and even a good short to medium term money maker for those of you with a short attention span. I say this because the share price seems to get good support at current price levels and the company always has the sword of takeover from its Aussie majority owner parent Origin Energy Ltd [ORG.AU] hanging over it.

Keep it on your watchlist too if you have been thinking of adding it to your portfolio.

I am getting my buy finger ready.

Contact @ Share Investor Blog

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Morgan Dunne-Powell ready for Kristin's 60 Minutes media blitz

I had a couple of threatening emails (I will get my lawyer on to you sort of thing) from Kristin Dunne-Powell's husband, Morgan Powell the other day about a couple of opinion pieces 1 2 that I wrote a few months back and I wasn't going to write about them or post them until I caught an advert on TV3 today on an upcoming 60 Minutes interview to be aired Monday 13 July at 7.30pm, where she apparently "tells the real story" or whatever that means, about what went on with her and Tony Veitch.

Morgan himself alluded in his first email to wanting to spare Veitch any further mental anguish

"The charges were not dropped my wife agreed to a plea bargain to end what had become senseless and to spare Mr Veitch any further mental deterioration".  

He alluded to protecting Veitch again in his second email to me.

"My wife has always been very concerned and mindful of Mr Veitch's mental health, and I have always been very mindful of hers."

"As for Veitch's attempts (at suicide) that is not a new pattern for him, and the reason my wife stayed with him all along.  He needs help, and we hope he gets it".  

So I get it, Morgan didn't want to drag everyone, especially Veitch, through the mud again and I accepted that, so I wasn't going to write anything further.

The 60 Minutes interview tomorrow changes everything.

If he and his wife cared about anyone, including his wife, they wouldn't now be dragging it all through the media once again.

They have done it before and just about drove a man to suicide and now it appears they are going to have another go at him.

I didn't reply to Morgan's second email but if I did I would have said just put it behind you mate and get on with life and let Veitch try and get on with his.

Apparently they just won't let it go.

c Political Animal 2009

Sky City's Current Cinema "Boom" a Horror Story in Disguise

An interview in Granny NZ Herald yesterday with Jane Hastings, general manager of Sky City Entertainment's [SKC.NZ] cinema division prompted me to have another go at this part of the Sky City asset portfolio.

Long term readers of this blog (two years is a long time in the blog world) and the struggling Share Trader chat site will know that I wouldn't touch a movie chain business with a barge pole the length of a CinemaScope screen.

The Herald and its interviewee seem particularly bullish on the movie business at present. Strong attendances, a growing market share for Sky City Cinemas and good product coming up, like the latest Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) movie all look positive.

Add to this the very large capital expenditures that this division has made expanding the business over the last 5 years have been ameliorated of late because of oversupply and you might think you have a business that is a blockbuster ready to print money.

Balance the good news with this though.

Although cinemas are a good cash business, especially during these cash strapped hard economic times, extra revenue doesn't necessarily make for extra profit. Costs have risen along with higher attendance and there will always be more expense to improve technology and modernise facilities.

Recessions like the ones we are currently experiencing are boom times for the entertainment business and cinemas are no exception but investors in Sky City should be aware that the spike in fortunes for their cinema business are fleeting and in the normal cycles of business, the downs are far more frequent than the ups and more often than not the down times are when many cinema operators put up the going out of business sign.

Sustained acceptable returns for the cinema business are simply not the way this sector functions and history is littered with the carcasses of individuals and corporations who have sunk money into cinema that have gone bankrupt or no longer exist.

Best Sky City management use shareholders capital to repay debt as they did earlier last week.

Sky City Cinemas is no different from the rest and I must reiterate dear reader, for the sake of the shareholder, this part of the group's business must be given a Dirty Harry bullet before it drags the rest of the company down with it.

Disclosure I own SKC shares

Visit Sky City Cinemas

Sky City Entertainment Group @ Share Investor

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POLITICAL POLL: Roy Morgan Poll, 10 July 2009

In a remarkable feat the National Party have managed to increase their big lead over the Labour Party to 54% vs Labour dropping to 31.5%.

I say remarkable as it flies in the face of John Key's continuation of Labour social policies of state intervention and meddling in citizen's lives that has marked Labours last 9 years as a complete failure.

From Roy Morgan 

In early July support for John Key’s Coalition Government is 58.5% (up 1%) comprising National Party 54% (up 2%), Maori Party 3% (up 0.5%), ACT NZ 1% (down 1.5%), and United Future 0.5% (unchanged) according to the Roy Morgan New Zealand Poll conducted June 22 — July 5, 2009.

Support for Opposition parties is 41.5% (down 1%); Labour Party 31.5% (down 1.5%), Greens 8% (up 0.5%), NZ First 1% (unchanged), Progressive Party 0.5% (unchanged) and Others 0.5% (unchanged.

The Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating is at 140 (down 10.5 points) with 63% (down 6%) of New Zealanders saying New Zealand is ‘heading in the right direction’ compared to 23% (up 4.5%) that say New Zealand is ‘heading in the wrong direction.’

During the same period, the Roy Morgan New Zealand Consumer Confidence Rating is up 2.7 points to 106.1.

 

Gary Morgan says:

“In mid June the ruling National Party-led Coalition (58.5%, up 1%) has increased its strong lead over the Opposition Parties (41.5%, down 1%) the latest Roy Morgan New Zealand Poll shows.

“Despite increased concern about the direction the country is heading and Opposition Leader Phil Goff’s continued questioning of what the National Party Government has done to alleviate the economic problems facing the country — these attacks do not yet appear to be making an impact on support for the Government.

“NZ First Leader Winston Peters has returned to the political stage in recent weeks attacking the Government for considering the repeal of the Foreshore & Seabed Act — which concerns title to New Zealand’s foreshore and beaches. This Morgan Poll shows that Peters is yet to translate his renewed prominence with an increase in support for NZ First (1%, unchanged).”

See Roy Morgan for more detail.

Key is running the economy better than it has been in a generation but the social interference and PC nonsense is going to kick them in the goolies sometime in the future.

I would say this was a lucky poll more than anything else and support will taper as Key's Socialist agenda continues to roll out.

c Political Animal 2009