Any thoughts on the company?


Red line 200 MA

24 Mar 2015 "Deutsche Bank cuts Centrica to 'sell' from 'hold', target cut from 280p to 225p"

LATEST BROKER VIEWS

Date Broker New target Recomm.
9 May Goldman Sachs 194.00 Sell
9 May Beaufort... N/A Buy
8 May Kepler... 190.00 Reduce
5 May Deutsche Bank 180.00 Sell
4 May Citigroup 178.00 Sell
26 Apr Goldman Sachs 194.00 Sell
21 Apr Macquarie 220.00 Neutral
30 Mar Exane BNP... 210.00 Neutral
20 Mar Exane BNP... 250.00 Neutral
17 Mar Jefferies... 190.00 Underperform

Cap does not mean an end to dividends, promises Centrica
Emily Gosden, Energy Editor
May 9 2017, 12:01am,
The Times

Centrica has sought to reassure shareholders that its dividend can withstand a price cap, even as it launched a last-ditch appeal against the policy.

The owner of British Gas also reported a further drop in customer numbers and warned that milder weather meant that households had been using less energy than expected.

Analysts have warned that a price cap along the lines proposed by the Conservatives could cost Britain’s biggest energy supplier hundreds of millions of pounds a year and threaten its payout to investors.

Centrica, which has lobbied strongly against the proposal, said: “Our focus on competitive pricing, cost efficiency, improved service levels, rewarding loyalty and delivering propositions that customers want should leave us competitively well positioned in order to deal with whatever form of market change is ultimately enacted.”

Speaking on the sidelines of Centrica’s annual meeting, Iain Conn, chief executive, said: “The balance sheet is much more resilient, the company can withstand lots of different things.”
Earlier he told shareholders that “all things being equal” the company expected to be able to resume raising its dividend if net debt fell to target levels as planned later this year.

Asked whether the dividend was safe even in the event of a price cap, Mr Conn said: “We are very happy with our dividend policy. Our sources of cashflow exceed our uses of cashflow. We therefore have a cash buffer to play with.


“There are many other things we can do with our own capital deployment and our own efficiency. We recognise that our shareholders care about the dividend a lot.”

Mr Conn, already in the process of cutting 6,000 jobs at Centrica, did not rule out making further job reductions to trim costs if it needed.

Speaking before details of the proposed cap emerged, Mr Conn also continued to campaign strongly against the proposal. He said that the company had held “constructive” dialogue with government, in which it had “proposed alternative ways to improve the market further and address their concerns without resorting to price regulation”.

He told shareholders: “We believe that price regulation will result in reduced competition and choice, stifle innovation and potentially impact customer service.”

Centrica also tried to shrug off the loss of 261,000 customer accounts since the start of the year, saying that it reflected one-off collective switch tariffs coming to an end. British Gas is no longer offering heavily discounted deals to win new customers. Mr Conn said that it would “rather lose customers than start acquiring customers at negative economics”.

He said that the company was making good progress and was on track to deliver its 2017 targets, which include cutting staff numbers by 1,500 this year.

However, it warned that “warmer than normal weather in the year to date has resulted in lower than planned consumption in the UK and North America” and that “UK wholesale oil, gas and baseload power prices have all fallen” since its 2016 results were announced in February. British Gas is the only one of the six big suppliers not to have raised its standard variable tariff prices this year. The company has promised to freeze them until August.

Centrica’s shares have fallen by about 15 per cent since the start of the year amid fears over the impact of regulation.

John Musk, analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said: “Centrica is among the worst performers in the sector [for the] year to date, with political headwinds hampering share price performance. Despite Centrica stating it is in constructive dialogue with the government around intervention, we continue to see this area as a major overhang.”

Out the spreads @ 204.35. Ex-Divi tomorrow see what happens.

JP Morgan Cazenove Underweight 191.15 265.00 180.00 Downgrades

More to add to the JPM downgrade above:
"Despite the strength of CNA’s UK supply operations, two issues that have recently arisen deeply concern us. Firstly, we see significant downside emerging through price regulation of CNA’s core ‘Standard Variable Tariff’ (SVT) customer base. Our initial view of the damage to EPS was negative, but manageable at -10% to -20% (see here). Yet our analysis of Ofgem’s regulated prepayment meter (PPM) tariffs – the main focus of this report – points to a deeper EPS erosion at up to -42%. Secondly, we see evidence of a price war emerging, with incumbent generation owner ENGIE entering the residential supply market with heavily discounted residential tariffs. Having lost customers in Q1 (at an annualised rate of 7.5%), CNA has already been forced to respond with heavily discounted offers via its Sainsbury’s brand. We are downgrading CNA from OW to UW with a Dec-17 PT of 180p (265p).
· SVT caps cut more deeply than first thought – While the reintroduction of price regulation after a 15-year period of liberalisation was a surprise to us, UK prepayment meter (PPM) regulation introduced earlier this year provides a body of regulatory data on which to accurately model its impact. We have undertaken a full review of Ofgem’s PPM tariff materials, which has alarming implications for CNA’s supply margins. For instance, if regulated price caps were in place in 2016 we estimate that dual fuel bills would have been a full £100/cust lower on average for the Big 6.
· Price war on the horizon? – Warning bells will have started to ring for the Big 6 on the news that Engie has cut its UK dual fuel offering to less than £900 last month. CNA (-£160/cust), e.on (-£70/cust) and npower (-£73/cust) have responded with tariff reductions. All eyes are now on SSE, Scottish and EDF, who elected to lift fixed tariffs by £140, £90 and £50, respectively.
· Downgrading estimates – Based on our PPM tariff analysis, SVT price regulation could reduce CNA’s margins by up to ~£90/cust after normalising for wholesale fuel costs, significantly more than our prior projections. Our revised earnings forecasts include a £50/cust reduction in SVT margins (~£300m at EBIT) which is the main factor behind our EPS downgrades of 26% and 31% in FY18 and FY19, respectively.

Just reopened the S/B that I closed yesterday @190.1p - gaining 4p on the ex-dividend.

Did the results come out today, I can't find them

Money am hard this in the daily summary

"British Gas owner Centrica (CNA) reported full year pre-tax profit nearly doubled from £593.3m in 2015/16 to £1.78bn. A reminder of the challenges it faced dragged the shares failed to unnerve investors at the stock was relatively unmoved at 193.6p."

Is this a mistake!?

See post 578.

I don't know what moneyam are up to then
You can't rely on anything you read

StockMarketWire.com
The CQ Energy Canada Partnership - the Canadian E&P joint venture in which Centrica owns a 60% interest - is to be sold to a consortium comprising MIE Holdings Corporation, The Can-China Global Resource Fund and Mercuria for C$722m in cash.

Centrica said its net share of sale proceeds was expected to be approximately £240 million after adjustments.

Centrica said that in line with its strategy announced in July 2015, the divestment meant its E&P activity would now be focused solely on European assets, with the group having completed the sale of its gas assets in Trinidad and Tobago in May 2017.

Deutsche Bank Sell 203.05 160.00 160.00 Reiterates

StockMarketWire.com
Centrica and Stadtwerke Munchen GmbH have reached an agreement to combine Centrica's European oil and gas exploration and production business with Bayerngas Norge AS to form a newly incorporated joint venture and create a leading independent European E&P company.

Centrica will own 69% and Bayerngas Norge's existing shareholders, led by SWM and Bayerngas GmbH, will own 31%.

The effective date of the transaction is 1 January 2017 and it is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2017, subject to competition and regulatory approvals and other conditions.

British Gas customers face price rises as early as next month, the boss of the company that owns the energy business has hinted. Iain Conn, the group chief executive of Centrica, said that his businesses were "not immune" to the 15 per cent increase in wholesale costs for energy suppliers over the past year and suggested that consumers may have to share some of the pain.

buy by march next year over 300p

Is that a cast iron guarantee Tanker?

Centrica plc increases the price of electricity on the British Gas standard tariff but moves to protect its most vulnerable customers.

http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=5608779

Excellent, now let's see the the SP go up substantially...fat chance -):

StockMarketWire.com
Centrica's first half earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation rose by 2% to £1,293m following a solid performance in the six months to the end of June.

Customer-facing businesses' adjusted operating profit was flat in H1 2017 compared to H1 2016, with higher profit in Centrica Business offset by reduced profit in Centrica Consumer.

Overall adjusted operating profit was down 4% to £816m reflecting lower profit from its asset businesses.

Adjusted earnings down 11% to £449m including a higher net interest cost.

The group declared an interim dividend of 3.6p, 30% of the 2016 full year dividend in line with established practice.

And it said it was on track to achieve the 2017 targets set out at the 2016 preliminary results in February.4

yes a cert , the company is being run much better we will see a rise in final div
but at 6% VERY HAPPY TO HAD AND DOING SO

Thanks Tanker :-)