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I am definitely glass half full here with Marstons. All companies with property have taken a big hit the last week, all the REITs, being marked down vastly against their NAV values. If you take the last full year results, the last trading update and the fact that the country might escape a recession, things should start to look better once the better weather arrives. There are fewer and fewer
pubs every year due to all the known reasons unlike offices and warehouses and the good ones are doing well I think.
I will stick around here and hope for the summer to turn things in Mars favour.
You say only 9p but thats approximately 30%. To be honest I can see it revisiting covid lows very soon. High debts, wafer thin margins, food inflation and now selling off the assets. Nota business doing well. I took a 10% loss and sold up
The points made are extremely valid, plus as I have stated many times, Bondholders are likely to have become very nervous, loan repayments have been missed, even though previously agreed waivers have been breached. Waiver extensions end on 31st March, it is reasonable to assume another agreement is or almost inplace, if not more assets will be liquidated. The present tranche of Pubs for sale may not satisfy Lenders. If Sales do not complete, there could be a "fire Sale". It all depends on how "generous" or otherwise, Bondholders have become. With current Financial turmoil, do'nt hold your breathe. If the SP gets into the 20's, that will be an enormous Red Flag and ONLY for Gamblers
AIMO DYOR
Sharprite
You state facts, so much more valuable than opinions, such as the poster who only last Friday compared them favourably to bank stocks.
At this price the shares, imho, are effectively option money, such is the lack of confidence that MARS currently inspires, & Mr Market tends to be right generally.
Nevertheless there is a chance that, Micawber like, something might turn up, but although options can be very profitable if something "does turn up" at present are certainly not the sort of stock to buy for widows & orphans.
Held these shares for over 5 years, What a load of garbage !!! The B.O.D. rejected a take over offer of £ 1.02 and since have presided over a demise year on year to the nadir of £0.337, with further to go ? The pubs are empty 5 nights a week, The staff are surley and immature and the group have over thirteen pubs for sale in the West Midlands alone !! Struggle to get Pedigree on tap at my local where Wainrights seem to hold sway - total rubbish- The only saving grace is the fact that the food, although basic, is acceptable. For my sins I now frquent a rival chain, which by the way offers such delicacies as a large dish of Mussels for £9.00 and extra large fish and chips for £ 11.00 ! If you can get people into your pubs then you can sell them beer !! By the way , a local brewery called Bathams that does no food at all, is totally rammed, brilliant beer at very acceptable prices !!!!! Message to Board, shape up or get out, long time share holder,
I'm not tempted to buy anything atm including mars, despite the low prices - main reason being the Ukraine situation. It has the capacity to get very much worse - god forbid if NATO ends up in direct military confrontation with Russia. The situation seems to be worsening and if there is any serious escalation, the markets are likely to crash (perhaps the markets being the least of our worries). Until global events calm down and the risk of potential war between Russia and NATO passes, I can't see any kind of recovery in the markets happening at all. With all this global turmoil, stocks will almost certainly continue to either crawl along the bottom or edge lower still. There is just no incentive right now to buy shares - no optimism, no positive outlook - in my opinion.
Now only 9p off the bottom of COVID period when all society was shut down, what a terrible mess this BOD has driven us to. Sack the lot.. Back to a billion !!... You're are having a laugh Andreas
Sold out of this. Won’t be long before it reaches 27p again and I’ll buy back in.
""Looks today like a safer bet here than the banks""
SC you cannot seriously believe that!! Cart and Horse comes to mind. Businesses need Banks who Lend funds against collateral. Banks who face liquidity issues call in Loans when company's are not performing and worse not meeting repayment conditions.
Can you qualify the Wetherspoons comment? It seems the market puts a greater value on Wetherspoons than Marstons, maybe the £2.10 a pint promotion is influencing Spoons SP??
So I will wait for the next release and top up here with some more, ha.ha!!
Everyone can make their own choices.
Looks today like a safer bet here than the banks, but then that might help Wetherspoons some more - as I seem to remember they buy up the old ones, ha.ha.
No one would want to buy this, when they can scrape it up cheap of the liquidators...
Quickdip
After seeing the numbers on Spoons today I can understand why you jumped.
Who is going to buy all these pubs ?
Barchid
You’re probably right. I got out of this one today. Better opportunity in NEX.
Quickdip
I am a great believer in that if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is...
As Fairdealer points out very lucidly that there are debt covenants being negotiated now & who wants to take a bet on how that is going after the pressure all banks are currently under post SVB, CS etc ?
Barchid
But with book value at almost 3x the SP, there’s plenty of room for error.
Quickdip
"dont see how one could lose here" is true assuming that buyers pay book cost or higher, but if you look back to an attempted pre covid sale, when things were a lot brighter than today, their Pitcher & Piano portfolio could not be sold even at book value.
Look it up in their accounts, you'll see it.
How keen are buyers now for licensed premises is what you need to ask yourself, surely ?
I’m investing with a long term view, in the underlying assets. Unless they’re going to be sold off for 35% of their value, I don’t see how one could lose here. A good one for the patient investor.
Market do not appear to agree.
The NAV stated , one would think shrewd investors would be clammering for stock priced at almost a 300% discount. Something is wrong. The result of Lenders waiver agreements extended to 31st March may soon reveal what is really going on. If however any investor is certain to double even treble their money, pile in, but always remember never invest more than you are prepared to lose.
AIMO Dyor
This is a good long term hold with a book value of £1.02 per share with no goodwill on the balance sheet and producing decent profits. Seems a shrewd business decision to get rid of any non performing sites and pay the debt down.
Peaky the company has been systematically disposing of assets for sometime. The JV with Carlsberg was an asset disposal. The current sales Agents, Christies, have stated certain interested partys including the Admiral group, who have continued to pick up Marston's cast-offs. As you correctly say assets sold cease to produce income and profits. It is clear Fubders have become very nervious,so asset reduction will only reduce debt which as many of us have stated for a while, is the time-bomb that will sink MARS. There is one man to blame imo, he has moved on and rewarded with an accolade. Quite amazing,
Think they have quite a few assets to sell, but how quick to sell them??
Less assets, less future revenue?
Can see this broken up and sold very cheap. Gla
The Market does not appear impressed with the Duty reduction in August, possibly it is realised the recent retail increases are more than the reduction.
Starting to sell assets, that's not a business doing well....
From August, alcohol taxes in pubs to be 11p in the pound lower than the rate in supermarkets.
Great for draft sales and demand for those making the drafts to sell in the pubs!