I’ve now sold out of this IRL and here. I am disappointed the company hasn’t pursued the sort of investments it has in the past, but suspect that is in anticipation of a take private in the not-too-distant future. Nathan Bell of II has expressed a similar view. The ongoing buyback increasing Tony Pitt’s already significant holdings (plus other insiders) and absence of instos mean that would be unavoidable.

My lesson here is not to bet on a founder without an obvious pathway, and to take greater care with massive inside holdings and no counter-balancing instos.

TGP has notified the market of further buying of HPI. In total, another 1.08% has been acquired for $7.1m from 16 December to 28 February at prices averaging $3.58.

TGP has continued to increase its position in HPI with further trads on 6, 7 and 8 December 2022 notified to the marked on 9 December. The further buying was an additional 2.15% of the company for $3.67 per share, or $15.3m all up.

TGP has revealed that it has acquired 11.66% of Hotel Property Investments (ASX:HPI) in three block trades from 29 November to 5 December. The pre-purchase price was roughly $3.30, TGP's average price was $3.53 and HPI is now trading at roughly $3.70.

HPI has typically been seen as ALE's poor cousin. It owns 60-odd pubs, largely in Queensland, but the idea is the same as ALE - long-term leases with set increases and periodic mark-to-market increases, together with growth in the underlying property value.

TGP is presently a cashbox and it's exciting to see some of that cash being put to work - here, about $80m. TGP has a good history with this sort of thing and isn't likely to have any interest in being a long-term, non-controlling shareholder so I rate its chances of getting something done. However, TGP has shown itself to be perfectly capable of cutting and running if the numbers don't stack up so that's a possibility if competition shows up.

AFR article (link; paywall).

edit: correcting number of pubs owned and adding link

On 30 June 2022, TGP announced that the IAP transaction will complete on 15 July 2022. This will leave the company with 75c per share in cash and no debt. Some of this will be used to buy the three Australian commercial properties touched on in an earlier straw. So, all according to plan - good (although anticipated) news.

20 June update - TGP was to have acquired a NZ property funds management business from its subsidiary REIT, TOT. The idea was to make TOT a pure REIT and for TGP to focus on funds management income.

A few weeks ago, the company announced it would seek other buyers as part of its fiduciary obligations (it manages TOT and is majority owner) and has now announced a buyer for slightly more than the NZ 21.875 it was going to pay.

Separately, the latest quarterly update included that TGP’s deal with the IAP sale no longer includes the NZ property that was formerly in the deal. I think this is a sign that TGP sees turbulence on the horizon and wants to stick to its Australian knitting while keeping some dry powder for distressed deals locally.

Yet another purchase by Tony Pitt, buying 300k shares at prices ranging from 90.5c to 102c. This brings him up to 33.11% ownership.

My suspicion is that this sustained campaign of buying indicates great confidence in value to be unlocked by acquisition of the Irongate properties. Time will tell.

Pitt continues to buy big locks of shares on market. The most recent notice discloses 431/697 shares purchased at between 95c and 98c.

The Irongate board has unanimously recommended the Charter Hall takeover bid which will see TGP take in 59c per TGP share in cash.

At worst, this delivers a ~10c per TGP share (10.5% of market cap) investment profit.

At best, the MOU for acquisition of real estate assets works out and the 59c per TGP share represented by the Irongate takeover becomes much more than that.

Tony Pitt had bought another $350k or so of shares on market.

Tony Pitt has bought another 800k shares on market at $0.90 this week.

Pitt has said it’s his intention to increase his ~32% interest in the company and seems to be making good on it. This is a pretty good signal to my way of thinking.