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No sympathy here when 98% voted to dispose of one of it's legs....this was all predictable mgt consultants answer,
an unnecessary cost for by the company (and shareholders). The current management should be voted out by shareholders but with the above vote levels won't be...so as they say in the Dragons den - for that reason I'm out.
If somebody wants to bid for the company - they will wait for it to drop further yet in my view.
Pity really as I have held these for about 20 years, but still hold NWF & Wynnstay as better managed equivalents.
I can't emphasise enough (in a fairly long shareholding life) the importance of good management in all companies whatever the field they are in.
God I hope not but Page is so lacklustre. Sooner or later there will be bid speculation around this because any one else could make a better fist of it than the supine managemetn team that have sat contentedly and watched this sink
How low will it go???????????
I say about70p
Now below a pound. All the result of a disastrous presentation by Page , who seems tone-deaf to the concerns of shareholders! it is as if we dont exist! If it were a satirical sketch it would be hilarious...slide 5 of presentation entitled: Strategic Review to Enhance Shareholder Value.....Share price down 25%+ since this shambles.....Page you should go!
Shareholders have been punished for disastrous management of these assets over an extended period of time. It is clear the board is only interested in proloinging their tenures, and have no clue how to deliver value to shareholders. The market has spoken and I for one totally agree with the reaction. Please please Private Equity , make your move now so we can salvage some value from this group
On August 31 the day of the disposal announcement the share price closed at 133p. It is now 100p. Could the Board please explain why we have lost 25% of teh value of this company in 20 days, since a supposedly transformative announc ement. They should hang their heads in shame! What a total disaster in terms of reputation, managing market expectations , and the future of this company. The Senior NED should be shot and the rest of teh board should be asking serious questions over their sdisastrous stewardship of our company. I lwould love to hear what the defenestrated former CEO thinks of this management and board.
The decision to dispose of Billington feeds has gone ahead by 98% in favour. I see a similarity with Premier Foods where the "family silver" was sold off piece by piece to keep going, driving the share price down to pennies about 10 years ago.
Hope I am wrong but for the first time in 20+ years I have cancelled my divi reinvestment in Carrs.
They are a shower and the price will continue to drift downwards until leadership is demonstrated.
However, badly run as it is, the company is relatively cash rich since the disposal, and still generating adequate fcf. So, as others have mentioned, some pointy heads somewhere will be running their calculators over the business and wondering whether to put in a quick bid.
Which means I might buy a few more if/when it dips back down into double figures, especially assuming dividends for the full year of, say, 5.2p.
But it's so sad to see the decline - I bump into Rilla Carr, Ian's widow, in Brampton quite regularly and can't help wondering what he would think abou the mess the current incompetent board has created.
personally, I think it is beyond them, as amply demonstrated by the presentation, and the subsequent sp reaction. There was
1. No vision, no enthusiasm from Mr Page. More crucially there was absolutely sense of energy or urngency, rather the feeling that yet again teh BoD is justifying their sinecures and trying to manage decline
2. Nothing her to reward long-suffering shreholders: no special dividend, no share buy back, no acqusition....absolutely SFA to convince s/holders this management team is looking after our interests
3. So light was the presentation on growth prospects or new opportunities, or why the engineering business sits with specialty ag that Mr Market is clearly worried that the BoD and managemetn is not competent to invest the proceeds wisely
4. Shriniking to get bigger only works with acquisitions. If not s/holders' money is dead here for years to come
looks like a £ next week such a shame .
been in and out here several times always made a profit but not sure were this is going now.
bod in a right mess now no leadership no drive no clue.
I jumped in here today, I have been watching this for a while. It looks good value at 110p and if it drops to a 100p, I will double up. It has always been an erratic share but a nearly 25% drop since the middle of August seems overdone.
At this rate, a private buyer is going to step in and take out the whole company,
Yes.....and it doesn't exactly fill one with enthusiasm....where is the vision? where is Page's enthusiasm? where's the explanation of why he took the ceo role? Instead we got a pedestrian gallop through the deal.
- there should have been much more detail about the opportunities he sees
- a proper explanation about why a specialist agricultural products business sits with a nuclear engineering business and why they chose to keep them both
- why will making decisions be any easier with 2 totally different businesses & models? Who will get first dibs on capital?
- woefully light on vision
- nuggets like setting up an engineering academy in Carlisle with some of the proceeds...what the hell have they been doing to date to nurture talent?
Isn't there a presentation on the website?
One would have thought so, but the haplessness & incompetence of the board and management team is there for all to see etched in a falling share price. Appalling stewardship of shareholders' funds, in stark contrast to Wynnstay, which seems to be firing on all cylinders......
Normally one would expect a +ve reaction when a company offloads a large chunk of its business for cash, and claims to be left with two businesses with better prospects and higher margins. But not at Carrs. Yesterday we plunged another 7%....just what on earth are the management team and board up to? What about a share buy back programme? What about some BoD members buying shares once out of close period,....where is the management alignment with shareholders?
I would love to agree titanium, but I'm afraid 'strategic' (+outside consultants) from past company experiences means management have lost the plot = answer is to make it simpler for them by lopping a division off.
If that doesn't work lop a 2nd leg off and or break up the whole business up for sale - usually at a discounted share price as everybody now knows what your doing and its sliding downhill anyway.
I am holding for present, but feel I should probably be hovering over that sell all button!
Hope I'm wrong.... !
It is very difficult for me to comprehend that the disposal of supplies is the full story, therefore I am voting for the the transaction to proceed, and waiting for hopefully another announcement , and again if so, sooner rather than later. The purpose of a strategic view of a profitable company is surely to enhance its future profitability for the benefits of its shareholders, so I am watching this space.
because the board of the company appears to be utterly hopeless. As I have said before, a 21 year armed with a business degree from a university none of us would heard of could have come up with this answer and it would likely have taken him a few weeks of due diligence not almost 9 months. One has to question also whether they got top dollar given there was it appears one obvious buyer for the assets.....and now what? Are we to have a proper debrief on the strategic review? Where is the forensic analysis for shareholders around the opportunities? How have they come up with the capital allocation , what triggered those figs.etc.etc.etc....Shameful frankly !
me too
...might add I will also vote against all current directors at agm (easy to vote with ii) - I don't want to just sell out at present.
Won't make much difference, but it would if a few more voted likewise....
...for what it's worth I have voted against the disposal - it looks like the typical response from having to pay lots to outside consultants who have to suggest something (rather obvious outcome).
How can they ever know more about your business than the directors - a pretty spineless combination cop out
- and for that reason I would agree with fevertreeman that a full bid may be better if you can't run a business.
It's a shame as they seemed to be in reasonably good shape a while ago, and I have also held from near the 'fever' levels, so have had good growth and resilience as a mini conglomerate type approach which stood them well as a small company with some diverse resilience. Can't see the rationale for ditching the various parts piecemeal.
As I predicted the market barely reacted to the news of the divestment. Rather than reward long-suffering shareholders with a special dividend or announce a share buy back, they've gone for the pension funding option, which does sod all for me....We are now looking at a much smaller business in reves terms albeit with better profitability BUT Mr Market will now have to wait ages for proof that Mr Devro can deliver - hence the dreadful s/p response to the £44m exit. And that is why in my view, shareholders would be better off with a full cash bid from a private buyer.
Many of my shares have, fortunately, done far better than Carr's. You say Holmes took over in 1994 at £1.53 and left at £13.47 20 years later.
That's a beggarly 11% annual compound growth, even including reinvesting divis - a tracker would have done better over that period. Luckily I bought most of mine at between £1.20 and 80p in the year before and during foot and mouth so did pretty well, especially having sold mostly in 2017-8 rather than waiting for this trough.
I've met Chris many times (our children were at school together) and he's pretty unimpressive as a person as well as as a chairman - "nice but dim" was the consensus on Etterby Scaur. I remember one of his senior managers making a joke about having to ensure the CEO had his large gin and tonic the moment the AGM concluded (usually at about 11.50am...).
Is the only result of the review to be the disposal of Billington feeds?