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What has happened to Supercharger ? the doyen of all things impossible, the great ramper who knew absolutely nothing
and yet exoled us all
to get involved in a desperatly stuggling business that still owes £1.18 billion in debt and is desperatly hoping for a miracle
to save their skins. Behave all you shareholders who are still involved ( like me) and show your contempt for a board that has screwed your money , without a thought for the consequenses - i bet they still draw their inflated salaries though - You are paying for garbage !!!!!
Is that in reaction to a bit of UK growth so holding interest rates or the restaurant group getting bought out??
Of about 8% from the days low
Investors are worried with this fact: Asset disposal £55m but debt only reduced by £31m , does this mean the company will have to dispose more properties to get the debt down? The management could have explained this much clearer, for example what happened to the £24m (i.e. £55m-£31m)? I think the most plausible answer is the money is added to the cash, and it is a sensible move at this environment, why rush to pay down the debt if it is not mature yet?
I have been buying Mars in the past 3 months and will continue to buy more.
I am of an age where almost everyone I see or meet is younger than me but by way of recompense I have seen it all before. The good news from Marston's today seems to have been greeted outside this chat board with a monumental yawn, but I am certain the negatives about Marston's will be blown away soon.
Having lived through a period of high inflation for some 25 years, it was obvious that inflation was the debtor's friend and the saver's enemy. There is much concern about Marston's debts, which I can see from the annual report YE 2022 reports borrowings at 1.56 billion against revenue of 799 million. The ratio of debt to revenue is 1.95 debt to 1 revenue. Using todays figures, that ratio is already down to 1.72. On a modest case base, assume a 7% growth per annum in revenues and an annual 31 million payback of debts (echoing the figures today) the ratio is down to one by the end of 2028. Assuming a slightly more optimistic scenario, assuming a growth in revenues of 10% a year and repayments of debts of 50 million a year and ratio of 1 is reached about a year earlier.
The growth in revenue may be much higher in times of high inflation, and the company may decide to increase repayments, but while my parameters may not be the best choice the principle is sound. I bought this lot just before covid struck so while I will have to be in it for the long term, it is also wise for anyone else to be patient!
I did say to the shorts who shoot before they read that I would come back in 3 months time and access where we are in relation to my own shares and theirs. They do not listen.
Where the official release for the Pubs state 50 basis points increase in profit margins on costs savings alone plus where they are targeting in all a 200 basis point profit margin overall it takes the morning star circulars a while for the fund investors to take this all in. However if they are after growth then over a matter of time this will find a fan base although not on here with the short term daily negativity I have got bored with. GLA to those serious about investing and out of short trousers!
To be fair they have mainly been & still are trading between 27.95 & 28.20.
Over 1.6mill have traded today so it looks pretty transparent to me.
Share price stuck around 29p?
Several Marston's Directors bought shares recently around 30p.
Is the Market missing something here?
There's no rights issue, you are confusing shares.
Look @ it’s Market cap 182 million , Share trades as I type 144 & that’s a good day . Ask yourself a question , would you buy into the share on a rights issue . I can assure all the few institutional investors must be screaming for blood . Such a shame .
At present these are trading at just under 27.5p, is that a record low ?
If not it must be very close to it by looking at the chart. Whatever, at this level they really are option money.
Clearly the institutions are not being tempted in which leaves it to the PI's to trade it, but given the silence of the super-puffers today I wonder if they are losing their enthusiasm ?
Most of us on this board make sensible comments even if we disagree, but the noisiest are those who do nothing but try to puff it up & today they appear to have lost their voices.
Funny that...
Any money that does come in goes straight to that and it only does tiny drops
See you at 15-20p ahead
Take a bath on this share & shift it all into Rolls Royce Holdings like I did @ .93 Like I stated , such a shame , I feel for all invested . No malice intended .
Carlsberg does not run pubs, it has no reason to acquire Marston's - running pubs is expensive and logistically challenging.
Marston's debt is a problem, but if it can show it can sustainably grow profits (so not just be reducing headcounts, which only works for a limited time) at a level above inflation, then the market is more likely to respond positively. Right now, we only have sales (i.e. NOT profits) figures, and such sales figures are not clearly above inflation, they just seem to be broadly in line with it. So the business is stable.
But as originally raised by Barchid, we don't know if the estate valuation has taken a hit or not, and Marston's estate is likely what keeps it afloat for the PoV of creditors.
So we want to know profits and estate valuation. The rest is largely noise.
The pub industry that is failing does not have the great locations,is not asset backed,is not recording double digit sales increases,and does not have a clear plan of execution that MARS has.....A bargain....at this lowly valuation....
Forget growth , It’s about survival . Worked for this company many years ago & such a shame to see its slow demise . Carlsberg full control would seem it’s only way out .
The pub industry is hardly a growing industry with hundreds of pubs closing.
That doesn't make sense tbh. Have you seen MAB debt?? IT's all about growth I suspect and debt reduction at the same time.
Just far too much debt
This share will always struggle
Barchid - interesting points re: pub estate sale Vs debt reduction. And as to whether the pub estate was sold at a discount.
Certainly the market isn’t crazy about the update either (after the brief games and euphoria of the early morning.).
I suspect that if underperforming pubs had been sold above book value that would have been trumpeted.
My expectation would be that underperforming asset would realise less value than a similar asset that was performing well. Thus I would expect disposals to be at a discount to NAV but that would be accretive to cash and reduce net debt.
Removal of underperforming assets will raise the mean performance of the remaining portfolio.
Lejib
I agree re MAB, interestingly one thing the update did not say was whether the sales of the pubs were at, above or below book value, which is obviously very relevant for the net asset value of the company.
Call me a cynic perhaps, but I do become nervous when something I consider important is omitted in favour of telling us how they have fixed food & energy costs.
Also net debt decreased by less than the sale of the pubs, not necessarily ominous as their accounts are complicated (to say the least), but worth looking at when the accounts are released.
Obviously logic does not apply but MAB is horribly overvalued relative to its current performance figures while MARS is somewhat undervalued.
All these figures looked in line with expectations, broadly positive. And yet MAB dropped after posting comparable figures a couple of weeks ago approx. So who TF knows…
(I’m still out, to be 100% clear.)
It is released, sales of £55m pubs have been made with a further £50m targetted.
Net borrowings down £31m on the year, £19m on the half year, standing at £1,185 m currently.
As ever with MARS we wait to see how Mr Market takes these figures but on first read it looks relatively upbeat.