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Consumer confidence now lock down nearly over(we hope) sales will go up and so will investor confidence
not out the woods yet so take care everybody
that will be good for people who are holding since long.... on what basis you think that's going to happen though
the sp will reach 23-25p in weeks to come
Disgruntled employee ????????????
Yes good progress in a week, the problem is sales, they’ve dropped off a cliff
Spoke to one of their delivery guys and he said he cannot fit all the unsolds in
his van.
Thank god for service charge,(rip off)or their goose will be roasted well before
Christmas!
I'd consider 11.5p to 17p in a week to be not too shabby!
This seems to be stuck at 17p or there about, any upside on this how does it look like, anyone with info. ?
Maybe John can cut the 7 day a week contractors rates again,
and leave the non required people sitting drinking coffee.
More of the same John, your pensions safe, what about the
great idea of a call centre in India, pure genius!
But again not required, there’s plenty of staff drinking coffee
that I’m sure can pick up the phone.
Perhaps you could then turn to reducing the thousands of tonnes of
magazines smiths news send out pointlessly every week!
Each depot could then reduce the number of contractors and packers,it
employs and speed up the whole process, maybe uddin you
can think of some other cost cutting and environmental measures and pass them
over to John?
Just knock on the door opposite??
I heard yesterday Uddin that TK were offering 90% off certain items,if that’s the sort
of discount you’re looking for?
WOW up 25% this should be flying now with new CEO in place.
The declining business can be offset by cost-saving.
Smiths News has been making a profit of 40 - 45 Million each year.
Check the accounts for last 10 years.
This was the description made by no-one other than Menzies
group,who exited the news distribution part of their business in
July 2018, they previously were the other participant in national news distribution,
the Menzies family still own over 5% of the now aviation services business,
Menzies were involved in newspaper distribution(like smiths news)for over a hundred years, so
knew all the pit falls and exited.
They had previously tried to offload news distribution to DX, a logistics business,
I seem to remember the pensions liability was the sticking point.
Connect group /smiths news have nothing left to offload, except the Swindon
headquarters which would save millions if rationalised,this business is ultra low margin and should be regionally managed via their existing depots.
Maybe they’ll waste millions more,and pay a consultant to implement my suggestions,
I doubt it ,the employees at head office will never make themselves redundant.
CNCT has a turnover of 1 Billion pounds, so they can access up to £200m from the government, so this will cover any funding issues.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/larger-businesses-to-benefit-from-loans-of-up-to-200-million
Hi Sixtynine,
Please see the headlines below from HY Results.
1) About the huge magazine waste- The company recycles all the waste magazines and make millions from it.
2) The company has to make a profit, so it will charge a high Delivery Service Charge. What is the problem?
Headlines - H1 results·
• Ongoing operations continue to be profitable and highly cash generative
• Smiths News delivering sustainable efficiencies of £3.1m, more than offsetting decline in core sale
• Year on year performance impacted by one-off and non-core items- setting up Shared Service Centre in India.
• Central function efficiencies delivering savings of £1.0m in the period (Finance, Customer Service & HR) moved to India., so not impacted by higher Minimum Living Wages.
• Resizing the support functions to deliver central savings following the sale of Tuffnells ( More Cost Saving to come)
Yes this business is undervalued.....but will it be undervalued when the next circulation figures are announced,smiths news vehicles go out full of product that never sell and cynically have for years, the unsold copies of magazines commonly run at 75%,their customers are forced to pay for this unwanted product, thus the financial
merry go round continues , the service charge is deliberately inflated as a percentage of invoice,their customers are then forced to pay for the unwanted product ,and then claim the money back.
If this sounds odd, and contrary to any kind of sustainable business model it is,thousands of tonnes of unwanted unordered magazines are produced and delivered for no reason, it’s time everyone started asking questions in government about this
huge waste and restrictive practice.
£28m Market cap is just crazy ...!
Now that CNCT have sold Tuffnell, they do not have any distraction.
Smiths News is generating good profit each year of about (£40M).
We should see a good return soon.
This business has produced plenty of cash over the years and has been mismanaged,
It exists on inflated carriage charges levied on its customers,and keeps half of the (service charge) this should be passed on to its self employed contractors but unfortunately this doesn’t happen!
The balloon is deflating
So connect can continue its crash landing
The Connect Group, previously known as Smiths News, has announced the acquisition of Sheffield-headquartered Tuffnells Parcels Express in a deal which could be worth almost £130 million. Connect says it will pay an initial consideration of £113.4 million for Tuffnells.
They [cnct]] then went on to mismanage the whole shebang so that in the end they sold it out for 15m and were lucky to get that.
This is why the share price is where it is today.
Not much positive about the company I'm afraid.
If they can access government loan then that would be a great news. Company shpuod be exploring all available options .
Hi Joily,
The sale of Tuffnel (£15M) is half of the market cap.
I would agree it is a great punt...!
I have also checked CNCT have been trading through the lockdown period supplying Supermarket & open stores.
Directors buying 80,000 and 100,000 shares at 19p the day following the release. Getting some at 12.6p today seems worth a punt!
hi Greenfish,
CNCT have a turnover of 1 Billion pounds, so they can access up to £200m from the government.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/larger-businesses-to-benefit-from-loans-of-up-to-200-million
The Group therefore does not currently have committed facilities for the next 12 months and would not have sufficient resources to repay the facilities on their maturity date.
The Group has a profitable and highly cash generative trading history through its principal trading business, Smiths News. Whilst COVID-19 has inevitably impacted the business of Smiths News, it remains cash generative and the Directors, having considered realistically possible outcomes, anticipate that the Group will be able to secure the refinancing and at an adequate level to support the debt requirements of the Group.
Whilst the Group anticipates completing the refinancing over the coming months following the disposal of Tuffnells (which represented a financial drag on the Group), there is, however, a risk that the Group may not be able to refinance. This indicates that a material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the Group's ability to continue as a going concern and therefore it may be unable to realise its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of business.
After consideration of the above the Directors have prepared the condensed interim financial statements on a going concern basis. The condensed interim financial statements do not include the adjustments that would result if the Group were unable to continue as a going concern.
They also say at the bottom of the interim results that they can't pay there debts unless they re finance
Last year CNCT made a profit. They are selling the loss-making part of the business now.
Smiths News Operating profit **£43.6m**
Tuffness made a loss **(£14.10m)
Net Operating profit of £29.5m.
This company has been paying a dividend for many years.
2015 - 9.2p
2016 -9.5p
2017 -9.8p
2018-3.1p
2019-1p