HMG’s pandering to the votes of home owners means all the rest of us have to pay. But it gets worse. It is now seriously suggested that home owners be further subsidised so to support the banks who of course have depositors to pay off. This nonsense must stop.
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I have covered Rockhopper (RKH) before so I do not now propose to go through the great recital of why I am dissatisfied with the Italian government’s prolonging its arbitration with RKH. But the market clearly excessively discounts the likelihood of success for RKH and seems to be doing the same at Zenith (ZEN).
The details on ZEN came through late last week. It has an ICSID claim against the Tunisian government for sequestering ZEN’s interests in Tunisia. Apparently, Tunisia has never won an arbitration in the last 30 years. For it has always lost or settled an arbitration. This one starts in three months’ time. There is the possibility that Tunisia will settle before then. But, otherwise, holders of ZEN will have to wait for at least two years.
ZEN have engaged a major Parisian law firm (Gide Loyrette Nouel) to conduct the attack and agreed to pay 40% on a contingency basis for its services.
ZEN has other sources of income and therefore will not seek to raise more from shareholders. ZEN is now 0.35p to .40p.
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I wonder what will happen to investments in Russia, which I have previously written off, now that Putin is on his way out. Ditto Ferrexpo, now 88p to buy, given that we might be looking at the possibility of a total Ukrainian triumph.