Imperial Petroleum Inc (IMPP) Options

Looking good from the lower left to the upper right.  All eyes are on that upper trend line $4.45/$4.50 resistance

What I find interesting is the amount of sellers in the $3.80 -$4.30 range. If the future looks so bright why all the selling? Perhaps it’s just nervous retail looking for the next hot sector. Less than 8% institutional holding.

The real play here should be the company buying back its own stock. The real fear is that if it happens, the company will do another offering at higher prices because it just can’t help itself.

Shares Outstanding 29.81M
Shares Float 17.39M
Short Float 16.57%
Short Interest 2.88M

https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=IMPP&p=d

Making nice reversal up to 4.25 area.

Decent volume today at least.

Looking forward to the chart continuing to make a series of higher lows as institutions begin to take notice

Clearly this isn't retail

Analyst Tate Sullivan of Maxim Group maintained a Buy rating on Imperial Petroleum, Inc. (IMPP – Research Report), retaining the price target of $8.00.
Tate Sullivan has given his Buy rating due to a combination of factors involving Imperial Petroleum, Inc.’s strategic acquisition and favorable market dynamics. The analyst has raised estimates following the company’s announcement of acquiring seven dry bulk ships, which aligns closely with its cash and equivalents balance, signifying a strong liquidity position. Furthermore, Imperial Petroleum’s advantageous payment terms for the ships and the anticipated interest income prior to payment underscore the company’s financial prudence. Sullivan also acknowledges the company’s robust cash flow projections and absence of debt, reducing the likelihood of requiring additional capital.

Additionally, Tate Sullivan’s optimism is reflected in the increased revenue and earnings per share (EPS) forecasts for 2025, suggesting substantial year-over-year growth. This is despite a conservative adjustment in time charter equivalent (TCE) rates for some vessels. The analyst also factors in the broader market outlook, including global economic growth projections and sector-specific trends that could boost tanker rates, as well as limited supply growth due to the extended lead time for new ship deliveries. These combined elements contribute to Sullivan’s conviction in maintaining a Buy rating and an $8.00 price target, representing significant upside from the current trading level based on the forecasted book value per share.

If today’s charts are accurate , there was a third test (and bounce) off the $3.80 mark. Of course the question is “why so much selling of a company that is supposedly generating so much cash”?

$IMPP Seeking Alpha Piece

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4722937-imperial-petroleum-from-a-dilution-machine-to-a-potential-nav-convergence-opportunity

With HV it feels very much like doing transactions with a used car dealer. He buys $10 million ships from himself and sells them at a premium to IMPP shareholders for $13 million.

This creates the discount to NAV.

Took 155k shares to bring it to the $3.80 level but only 15k shares to bring it back to $3.93 where it has been churning for the last 15 minutes.

Need to watch for a second test of $3.80. Shareholders think the stock is cheap but the intercompany games that HV plays is the real driver of why analysts are hesitant about recommending this company.

I think Harry’s goal all along is to use the cash to build his fleet, which means buying more tankers from his own family, allowing him to repeat/rinse skimming broker fees off the top and delaying payment for one year.

It’s worked for him (and his family) in the past, not so much for shareholders. Buyback of stock is not in the cards just yet.

At some point when the fleet gets above 25-30 ships, this may be a good investment. Also at some point older ships will be sold to CISS at a premium causing more dilution for that ticket until HV creates yet another public company that CISS can sell ships to.

All assuming that ship spot market prices per day remain stable.

Heavy selling going on this morning in the first 15 minutes….about 1/2 of it avg daily trading volume so far.

3.83 prints as I’m typing. Still expect it to fall below $3.50.

Will see what the rest of the day looks like.

It's pretty incredible we are still trading in the low single digits

Excellent back n forth discussion today@ the other place

Exactly....too bad there's no real discussion about this and zero institutional interest

Retracements down to the sub $4 level really test the patience of most - especially on low volume.  

Guess Harry Vafias doesn't consider $IMPP's share price low enough to perform share buy-backs.

One would think that a man with his such elevated level of narcissism would want to boast about the performance of the underlying stock of Imperial Petroleum, surpassing the $5 level in heading into double digits 

Quite perplexing to say the least

Looks like a second test of the 4.00 level is incoming.

Looking forward to institutions catching on

I also expect the X crowd to defend it at 4.

I totally expect to see washout volume in this ticker over the coming weeks. Message board sentiment is too bullish thinking they have an undervalued gem and imo, many will start bailing and the price declines. That is where the buy point happens….perhaps below $3.50 .

We know for sure that they will buy ships with that $190 mil in cash so I wouldn’t get too excited about that.

Historically, for maritime stocks, NAV is always at a massive discount to market value. Firms have written papers about this.

Public was burned many times over by DryShips and unfortunately their reputation has defined Greek shippers ever since.

Can this change? Retail will pump anything. Institutions are greedy too but cautious. Less than 7% ownership. Volume before price.

I have to say, the chart is certainly shaping up for a breakout through the $4.50 resistance area 

Imperial Petroleum, with nearly $190,000,000 in cash and a NAV north of $15 a share, it's just stupidly undervalued here. Clearly institutions must have this on their radar screen.

Volume increase will tell the tale..

Decent convo on twits

Thought I'd share

It’s an easy question to answer. Harry doesn’t want anybody asking him about the details of the intercompany transactions. All the ships are originally purchased by Harry thru his affiliated companies and the them sold to either IMPP, CISS , or GASS. For each transaction Harry and family are getting a transaction fee, some of which is disclosed and some that we just are not sure of.

Why the need for Harry to skim some fees off each sale? Dont know but most of the Greek shippers do it. The less questions that can be asked mean the less questions that HAVE to be answered. He doesn’t want an analyst demanding him to pay a higher dividend or buy back shares. Harry knows how to play the game. The stock is used as currency to raise capital. He is more likely to pay a higher dividend on the preferred shares since that is the class he owns.

Remember he is not selling ships to unaffiliated parties, he is selling them to himself (as controlling shareholder of the buyer).

CISS is the big loser in all this, until he creates another company that C3 will sell ships to.

My guess is that most of the short position is owed by hedge funds who have lent Harry money in the past thru debt financing to purchase ships. If you want burn those guys and squeeze them he easily can but then needs to find a new group of funds when money becomes tight again due to changing market conditions.

Harry needs all the cash in reserve that he has accumulated in order to purchase more ships. Once the fleet gets to be double the current size and all else remains the same then perhaps the share price begins to trend towards the double digits.

Think one should accumulate shares on dips and hold for several years. A crash in spot market prices for
a period beyond a few months is one the only things that can upset the revenue side for IMPP (except for a ship seizure or ship sinking).

I have never, nor will I ever receive a response from Imperial Petroleum. They don't even have a dedicated investor relations representative.

$190,000,000 in cash on hand, no debt - and they can't pay somebody $20 an hour to field shareholder concerns.

What about analyst coverage?

Why wouldn't Harry Vafias want a larger institutional ownership of the stock?

Thanks for asking!

True that!

$4.59 is still that number to beat in order to catalyze $IMPP short sellers into beginning to cover. No word back from management on my request about analyst coverage

We remain significantly undervalued as our market capitalization is even lower than our cash

OPERATIONAL AND FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS FROM Q2 & 6 MONTHS 2024

Looks like $CISS (C3is) paid Imperial Petroleum the $39,000,000 owed from the sale/purchase of the aframax tanker Afrapearl II. This brings $IMPP's total cash on hand to nearly $190,000,000

8-9 months of only two people posting here....

Let's see if that changes once we get on the radar of traders that trade breakouts

Looks like we may breach true resistance this week.

It should be interesting to see how the stock reacts if we get through $5.00 as short sellers will more likely than not begin covering there. We could have a fairly decent run on volume.

Again, this would be a completely different ball game if we actually had analyst coverage/upgrades

$4.46 x $4.50 in ah

I'm going to try to reach out to the company to find out the reason why there aren't any analysts that cover this security

The chart is just now beginning to take shape for a breakout through the $4.60 area next week. It really is a shame that we don't have any analyst coverage. Imagine if we did? Upgrades galore...

nice bump up today!

Would be smart of the company to announce a $10-20 million buyback right now.

Of course that would likely be followed by a capital raise down the road for $40-50 million (knowing how Harry has operated in the past).

This right here....

We would need a breach of the $4.59 price point to even begin to feel the presence of short covering

Imperial Petroleum: Good Quarter, Pristine Balance Sheet, Discounted Valuation - Buy

Aug. 27, 2024 9:05 PM ET

Summary

On Tuesday, Imperial Petroleum reported decent Q2/2024 results with stable fleet utilization and consistent cash generation.

The company ended the quarter with $129.8 million in cash and liquid investments. Imperial Petroleum continues to have no debt.

Assuming full exercise of the company's remaining Class E Warrants, diluted net asset value per share calculates to $12.45.

At current share prices, Imperial Petroleum is trading at a 35% discount to its stated cash balances, with market participants not assigning any value to the company's fleet.

Here is the conundrum. At some point the market will once again treat the maritime stocks with reverence. However, the worst enemy to these stocks in usually management themselves as they cannot pass up a chance to raise money thru equity offerings. Cause free money is just that. It’s unlikely insiders own much common shares because it’s just currency to them.

Shareholders usually wind up be the chumps who help fund future ship purchases.

You can’t even pay attention to NAV with the shippers. They all trade at a huge discount because of reputation due to outsized dilution and lack of transparency. A lack of a dividend also hurts.

Remember the days where a stock would actually catch an upgrade on earnings such as this? Does $IMPP even have analyst coverage?

Back in the day, an earnings release like this would have catapulted any stock up a MINIMUM of 30%.

We have around $5.50 worth of cash on the balance sheet yet this shit bag stock can't even trade at that level.

And don't even get me started on what the new NAV is in relationship to our cash on hand and zero debt.

This one defies all logic

Aaaaand....nothing

Solid earnings. $190 million in cash.

Now will the market trust Harry? Or have they been burned too often?

16m share float and depending on your source, short interest as a general consensus is around 17%

Most here need the $6-$7 range to be at breakeven

Short interest doesnt really mean much when you have a CEO that doesn't respect the interests and concerns of shareholders.

I sure wish they would bring back the days of "Q & A" at the end of earnings conference calls - but honestly Harry despises addressing shareholders

Setting up for a run…have almost 10% short interest….which has been justified in the past due to history of double talk.

Not having a shareholder Q&A segment at the end of our earnings conference call, is and will continue to be the reason for distrust in management and the continued lackluster performance on the shares.

$CISS did that this week and I suspect the same with $IMPP

Guess we will see

Earnings before the market opens on 8/27..

Stellar earnings today on $CISS and of course it lost ALL it's gains on the week -6.2% as traders have zero faith in Harry

Sad....

Let's see what happens here if/when we announce our earnings