Former Neil Woodford favourite, fully listed Esken (ESKN), has offered up a trading statement this morning ahead of its interim results to today – which won’t appear until November. The statement offers some glimmer of hope, which saw the shares rise initially by as much as 7% before turning tail as the market read into the detail.
My continued advice to keep well away from fully-listed Esken (ESKN) – the former Stobart Group (STOB) seems to have been well placed. Quite apart from the serial Red-Flags-At-Night announcements, there is the small matter of the share price continuing to collapse. A year ago the shares were 32.9p and I said sell; last August they had fallen to 15p and I said keep well away. Now they are just 8.77p and there are a few Red Flags in the FY22 results (to February) to suggest that there is still further to fall.
As I had hoped, fully listed Esken (ESKN) has updated the market this morning on Friday’s Red Flags at Night announcement that Ryanair is departing from London Southend Airport. Good news…..well, up to a point.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. 5.36pm on a Friday evening in August – just as the City dives into its second G&T after a long week, or is already far away on holiday – clearly is a good time to bury bad news! Fully listed Esken (ESKN) – the former Stobart Group (STOB) – has announced, at no-one is watching O'Clock, that Ryanair (RYA) has decided to chop its operations at Southend airport. It is yet another hammer blow for Esken’s/Stobart’s punch-drunk shareholders. The timing – apart from being announced late on a Friday evening when everybody had gone home – is even more terrible as Esken is in the middle of an open offer alongside the recent placing at 14p. With the shares having already dropped to 16p to sell at Friday’s close, will this news kybosh the whole operation?
Fully listed Esken Limited (ESKN), formerly Neil Woodford favourite Stobart Group Ltd (STOB), has announced that – as I suggested back on 31st May – the sale of Stobart Air and Carlisle Lake District Airport to Ettyl Limited has collapsed. Worse still, support for Stobart Air has been terminated, Stobart Air has terminated its franchise agreement with Aer Lingus, will cease trading and liquidators are to be appointed. The pain for Esken does not end there, but later on it confirmed talks to potentially sell 30% of London Southend airport. But that's not the whole story......
On Friday morning at 7am fully-listed former Neil Woodford favourite Esken (ESKN) – formerly known as Stobart Group Ltd (STOB) – announced that its proposed sale of Stobart Air to Ettyl Limited was being delayed by change of control consents taking longer than planned. Given that the sale was due to complete by early May 2021 announcing this on the last trading day of May seems a bit ripe. But worse was to follow.