Winners and Losers: Elders and Beach Energy plunge
Two of Adelaide’s largest companies landed in the Losers list this week after breaking some bad news to shareholders.
Agribusiness Elders fell nearly 16 per cent last week on a disappointing first half trading update, while Beach Energy’s announcement about quality issues at its West Australian gas project saw the company’s shares lose value.
Miner Resolution Minerals was the biggest Loser last week, falling 20 per cent, followed by healthcare company Oakridge which saw its market cap fall below $1 million.
Elders – one of Adelaide’s top 20 companies – came in at third after announcing that first half trading was “significantly below expectations”.
It said client sentiment was subdued in the half following an El Niño declaration by the Bureau of Meteorology. It was also affected by lower crop production prices which impacted sales revenue, low cattle and sheep prices, subdued trading in March and margin pressure on agricultural chemical products.
Trading recovered in January and February 2024, said Elders, “largely as a result of improved client sentiment following the Bureau of Meteorology’s February 2024 announcement of a weakening El Niño and significant improvement in sheep and cattle prices”.
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The company now expects underlying earnings to be between $120-140m for the full year.
One of Adelaide’s Top 10 companies Beach Energy posted an untimely update about quality issues at its West Australian gas project last week, sending its shares down by nearly 14 per cent.
The capex requirement for Beach’s share of the project has now risen by $200 million to a range of $600-650m, and first gas from Waitsia Stage 2 will be delayed by six months until early 2025.
A raft of positive news came out of the Winners list this week, including from clean energy company 1414 Degrees which secured the top spot and year-to-date share price highs.
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The firm saw shares spike on news that its joint venture SiliconAurora – owned equally with Vast Renewables Limited – has entered into a term sheet with Vast Solar 1 and OZ Minerals.
That agreement sets out an in-principle process to give the JV access to the ElectraNet-owned 275kV Hill-to-Hill Transmission Line.
Orpheus Uranium announced it had executed an agreement to finalise the 100 per cent acquisition of a mining project in South Australia, which gave it a healthy share price boost.
Koonenberry Gold continued riding the ever-increasing sentiment toward copper, and announced the commencement of drilling at its Atlantis copper and gold prospect in NSW.
“We are pleased announce that our long-anticipated drilling program has commenced at Atlantis. Koonenberry Gold is the first company to ever drill this exciting target,” Koonenberry Gold managing director Dan Power said.
“It’s hard to think of too many places where 15.3 per cent copper + gold mineralisation at surface hasn’t had a few drill holes stuck underneath it.
“When you consider this along with all the supporting geological, geochemical and geophysical data sets, we are extremely excited to see what we might find and look forward to providing updates in the coming month or so.”
The full list of Winners and Losers for the week ending 12 April 2024:
Data compiled by Baker Young Limited.
