Goes without saying, but for every buyer there's a seller which is why i generally don't think it's worth paying much attention to what institutional shareholders are doing.
I think the value of Lanyon being the dominant shareholder on the register is the focus on returning cash to shareholders. Even when GCS profits were very strong during the 2012-2013 peak of the mining boom days, they were only paying out 20% of earnings as dividends because they were over-leveraged and recklessly expanding their PPE base. Lanyon came onto the register in late 2016, and the 1HFY17 results presentation was the first time GCS committed to paying out 40% of NPAT as dividends - i don't think that's a complete coincidence.
I think there's the potential for that 40% payout ratio to be further improved in FY19 as the operating & finance (hire-purchase) lease liabilities continue to roll off from the legacy of the boom years. Per the FY16 annual report, in FY17 they had to pay $6.05m operating lease commitments and $15.08 finance commitments; i expect that to reduce a little in FY18, and then fall significantly into FY19 as the hire-purchase debt is typically 5-year debt and they stopped buying PPE with hire-purchase debt in late FY13, meaning the repayment schedule should fall significantly by FY19.
GCS Price at posting:
57.8¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
