RE:RE:Wayne Albo Resignation As Tom Petty sang, "the waiting is the hardest part". At this point Management has been wise to hoard the cash. The company was able to forge its own path thanks to its balance sheet strength. The divorce with Spiecapag hurt and the shares never recovered.
At this point we have no insight into the capital needs post 2022/2023. Another LNG pipeline might change that but at this point it's likely that Macro is over capitalized.
I have been pro share buybacks since my acquisition in 2016 but it never materialized in the way I had hoped.
A dividend would be nice but given the cyclicality in the industry it would likely be a special dividend. After the payout of a special dividend the market would likely just go back to ascribing a low multiple to the business and shareholders would be back to where we are now. Those looking for regular dividend streams wouldn't be bothered.
If you look at more diversified groups like Quanta Services, Aecon, etc they can deploy capital across their portfolios. Unless Macro is willing to change its business model to include other adjacent construction businesses that is not an option for them. I had been intrigued with the Dibco acquisition but that never really went anywhere and we haven't heard anything about it since. Also, the amount was very small.
As public market participants don't seem too keen on Macro and the opportunities to allocate capital to acquisitions don't appear to be favourable, it would appear that the obvious choice would be to run a private market process in order to extract fair market value for all shareholders. How much longer does Frank and the team want to be a small public company? What is the succession plan 5 years from now?
Perhaps I am wrong but I generally get the sense that everyone has been patient and that the reward for this patience is soon upon us. The form and effectiveness of the capital allocation preferences of Frank are approaching revelation in a timeframe that I hope to be less than a year.
Until that time I have low expectations for share price appreciation. The nice thing about having low expectations is that you are rarely disappointed in life!
Sincerely,
LR