We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
I too will stay in the queue and be patient.
These storms will see some equipment being hired out!!!
Gla
Fair enough, a lot of nervousness out there, can't blame anyone for bailing now. The final point about lack of leadership I would dispute. I think Steve Ashmore has done an outstanding job, he inherited a business crippled by debt and with paper thin margins meaning they could barely service interest. It has taken some time but he has
- sold businesses for a very good price (total consideration of £125m),
- reduced debt to well below their target,
- refinanced remaining debt at an incredibly attractive rate,
- rationalised the network and substantially reduced costs,
- transformed the business into a lean, platform driven business with very respectable margins and strong cash flow
I'm going to be patient and hang in there for the payoff for all their hard work
I bailed out today, Ono news or any RNS or communication from the HSS CEO or BoD on future strategy and options / plans! Those 4 x 50,000 today are sales, I’m now finally out altogether on a decent profit having bought in at 14/15p, but held on BoD and CEO aims to get to 25-30p. HSS did touch that around 24p for a few weeks, then reduced debt and finance, but since then down, down and can’t break 18p. Sorry lack of motivation and leadership so I’m out!! GLA.
bit of luck we may see the end of Tosca selling off by release of final results in April.
Onwards & upwards, then with more positive news being released, as the world opens up!
Gla
I've run the numbers on HSS and it is trading at a significant valuation discount to its peers. Perhaps rightly so given the history of chronic underperformance. This could make it a value trap. Cheap stocks can easily become cheaper. But I don't think the market has caught on to the impact of the transformation on the cash flow outlook. I don't like to use the 'T' word but in this case I think its valid
The entire sector is in the doldrums and domestically driven UK stocks have all performed poorly...FTSE 250 YTD return is even worse than even the FANG index this year after barely breaking even last year. Look at the share prices of any UK based construction company, Speedy is trading at a post pandemic low, Ibstock, SIG have produced nothing and Wickes is at a post IPO low. They are all pretty good businesses on undemanding valuations but the forward looking view of the UK economy seems pretty pessimistic. Supply chain problems, Brexit and inflation are going to impact construction particularly hard. I think we'll see a few of the smaller companies folding over the next 1-2 years.
There needs to be something special about a company to do well in this environment. I'm looking for very solid results to get close to 20p by April, let alone 25p. Something like EBITDA closer to £75m, strong cash conversion and a bullish outlook supported by a strong performance in Q1 would help!!
No, now Tosca have sold out, plus other MM’s. I see PI’s and the CEO and BOD buying more, pushing price up and with the reduced costs of finance and people doing more DIY and builders under huge demand after pandemic, don’t see any reason why this won’t tick up a 1p a week or so. Onwards and upwards, to a well run and reduced debt company!!
Pete...
You don't think, 25p by April is a bit of an ask.
I hope you are right though.
Gla
The weather and money in economy currently. As we get to March/April. More builders, people doing DIY and the end of the endemic will help boost profits. Then as HSS and it’s IT system will come to the fore, as well as its reduced banking charges and interest! Then we will be back to 25p by April.
All of which begs the question, whats holding the price back?
If it was Tosca that should take them below 3% and hopefully the last time we hear from them. SP is inching inching higher on low volume.
Anyone else done these maths...
EBITDA of £75m
Capex of £35m
FCF of £40m
MCap of £122m
Net debt/EBITDA < 1.0x, will be closer to zero by the end of next year
A dividend of only £6m is a yield of 5%. Could easily be 10-15%
Good spot
unknown of 9.5 million today.
I wonder who will have picked them up, or will they remain in the open market?
Another RNS on the way???
Hold tight.
Gla
A nice close today.
A nice UT tidying up the end of day in Blue.
Gla
So true red dot and also after the Director buy and other MM selling, we should now be in the phase of growing and sp increasing atleast to 24-25p by June? Plus as the spring and summer weather arrive the DIY and building, restoration and dev work will double.
The owners of HSS, they still need to hit their targets and also get this sp, and assets to a level to make it a good acquisition. Or acquire and pair with another tool supplier?
£13M of interest saved going forward from the refinance
Yup, good to see some life here, Tosca must be close to sub 3%. A share price recovery is supported by the substantial discount to the industry, almost a 40% discount to Speedy on an EV/EBITDA basis, and impressive free cash flow. The first stop should be 20p, I think to move beyond that we will need to some good news
we are now seeing the climb back north.
Gla
Looks like AP transferred the 1.498m shares for the announcement at 11am and did indeed op up with a further 888k shares (worth £149k) for the 3pm announcement.... Vote of confidence anyway....
True to his word, the chairman bought back those shares he sold last year (and made a small profit for himself)
Must be just AP moving about :-)
£149k director buy? wow
Will take an age to churn through Tosca stake at this rate!
a lot of 6's traded there, first thing!!
Plenty of volatility on small volume still. Lots of shares still for sale at these levels. Don’t think we’re done with the selling yet.