The Times Fastnet Expect the shares to bounce the Bulls insisted
Cantor Fitzgerald hacked back the target price for the shares from 28p to 19p, the broker still rates them as a Buy.
The Times
First the pain Fastnet Oil & Gas shareholders were eviscerated after an exploration well off Morocco made no commercial find.
The Foum Assaka well plugged and abandoned, Fastnet shares collapsed 43.5% to 6p.They were never cheaper.Back in 2012 there was a buzz among retail and institutional investors alike when the new explorer made its debut on AIM.
Backed heavily and led by former Cove Energy's top brass, it raised £10 million by selling new shares at 11p a pop at the likes of standard life, CQS, the hedge fund and other investors through share capital and Davy, it's joint brokers. After a first day of trading on AIM they closed at 13p, having changed hands for as much as 17p.
Private punters piled in, hoping that the company could replicate the success of cove, which owned 8.5% of a thumping gas find off the coast of Mozambique and had been swallowed that summer for $1.2 billion by Thailand's PTT after a ding-dong battle the Royal Dutch Shell whose B shares lost 10 1/2 p to £25.22.Five months later, Fastnet shares touched 34p valuing the explorer at £54 million.
Since then retreat has been steady. In an unloved sector Fastnet still has to make a commercial find.
The cove old guard are no longer involved day to day, though remain all three minor shareholders. While Cantor Fitzgerald hacked back the target price for the shares from 28p to 19p, the broker still rates them as a Buy.
The ever-readable Malcom Graham-wood, the founder of hydrocarbon capital, noted that Fastnet had further wells to drill not only offshore morocco, but onshore too, as well as its acreage in the Celtic Sea which stretches form south west England to Southern Ireland. Expect the shares to bounce the Bulls insisted. |
