Good morning all .... it’s lovely over here.
Possibly not so lovely in ASX land .
Not at all lovely for many in the mining services sector :
For the record Maca is out of trading halt with a profit downgrade :
https://hotcopper.com.au/documentdownload?id=uOMxKKzFkiWRTLKhOROKAxjvTDYD4we+zhGZrft9ke92GA==
“
We have experienced margin pressure in our core mining division. The tightening labour market has impacted the availability and deployment of equipment which in turn has adversely affected site performance across our projects. We have invested in newer and larger equipment and additional inventories however, due to equipment lead times the benefit of these investments is not expected to be realised until the second half. In addition there have been costs incurred in preparation for extensions and new projects for which we will not realise revenue until the second half.”
I have cited this statement from Chairman, Andrew Edwards, because it pretty well sums up the challenges out there in the mining world at the moment:
Of Australia’s largest mining services companies, Downer has flagged it wants out, Barminco seems to have acted as an enormous anchor on Ausdrill since that company bought it out ( it was known to come with problems when bought ) and Theiss (Cimic) seems to be trundling along fine -winning contracts but at what cost to its margins ? (We already know the CPB arm of Cimic was prepared to cut to the bone to win NorthLink 2).
The late Len Buckeridge’s BGC contracting empire is still for sale including its mining division.
https://www.bgc.cc/services/mining/
And more ?
Maca says out of half year revenue of $300M it now only expects to earn between $7M and $9M.
Although comparisons are odious I think it will be an interesting to see how the market treats the news.
ie it’s largely controlled by funds, was already low valued, pays a useful dividend and says its prospects are good.
As a weathervane exercise it may give some insights into just how far the institutions are prepared to let a good company fall on bad news ?
How low can they push the price down here when there is no bad news?
(20min delay)
