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Trading update as good as can be expected in these challenging times. It will be well into next year before we get back to business as usual. No nasty surprises, steady as she goes with plenty of cash and no debt.
Oddly enough, the line of business that I manage is at the last end of the chain with promotional goods. We send out to the consumers/businesses the gonks, mugs, pencils etc that FOUR supply. I am not in the least surprised that the resutls were poor because most businesses were scratching around with promotions that did not involve capital outlay.
We have started to see the flickers of new business potentially returning, but the appetite for large scale stuff is simply not there at the moment and not likely to be restarted for another couple of months at the earliest. This sounds negative - it is not designed so to be, simply factual based on the enquiries we are receiving. Bear in mind, that we are the last point in the process and we are beginning to get the first few nibbles of business to fulfil beginning in May time.
When the initial lockdown was lifted last year, we had a flurry of enquiries, very much pie in the sky stuff, 90% of which could not work and of the remaining 10% or so translated into orders that started in July to take us through to September. Our feeling (and have been in this caper for 20 years) is that these "enquiries" were from those desperate in marketting teams to hang onto their job that they had to contrive anything to provide the illusion that their role was worth keeping. I would not be in the least surprised if these were the unlucky recipients of P45's hoping to stave off redundancy.
Work is starting to trickle in, but in dribs and drabs. My hunch is that the promotions industry will kick off again in the late summer once Europe has got their 3rd wave under control and their populace vaccinated.
Nice to see some posts from people with knowledge of the industry. It's a quite board but that's not such a bad thing. From my perspective (chemical industry) I see very little signs that the conference season will pick up this year; more likely to be 2022. I'll hold my small number of shares and look to add later in the year.
Today's Berenberg downgrade has really taken the wind out of the sails of FOUR. Still a long term buy; but not yet.
I reduced my holding on Friday with the sale of 435 shares to remove my original capital. I still have a decent number in my portfolio but I will invest the proceeds elsewhere.
Have bunged it into RIO this morning, in case anyone is desperate to know.
Good trading update today; I bought 450 shares this morning and will add to this. This is the upturn I was expecting although I admit it's sooner than I thought. Not out of the woods yet but the direction of travel from here is upwards. £35 by year end would be nice.
Although I am no longer a shareholder, it is a company in which I take interest, but only from an insiders perspective. Don't get me wrong, I think that the promotional market has a future..... however, it has evolved from personalised, post-it notes, gonks and pencils to rather more sophisticated bundles. So, hampers full of the companies own goodies are in vogue (this started last year) and this year it is beer mugs.
On the subject of beer.... the idiots running Irn Bru have made a total nonsense of their promotion for a gold plated can in their bulk packs. The terms stated that it was solid gold (it is gold plate on brass) and worth £15,000 (best valuation thus far has been £500). Anyway, the ASA are involved, Irn Bru will lose and it will cost them £15,000 in folding money - there will be a caveat that the recipient will need to produce the can - and all because tried to be clever and not check out the insurers of such promotion and write the appropriate terms and conditions. The ASA are not interested in the intention the the promotion had or weasel words from senior managers looking to minimise their exposure. Sure - it is going to hurt their profits, but the publicity (although terrible) might have longer benefit.
Looks as if the lessons of the "hoover" promotion are to be repeated.
I think you're referring to BrewDog. Do Barrs (owners of Irn Bru) also own BrewDog? Both are Scottish companies. Happy to see any of these 'craft beer' companies fall on their ar$e. Disgusting hoppy flavoured water dressed up for virtue signalling hipsters as 'woke' at several times the price of a real pint of beer. I guess if you have the brass neck to pull that off then your arrogance truly knows no bounds. Could not have happened to a more deserving bunch of self-absorbed *****s.
You are quite correct. I apologise that my ascription to Brew Dog as connected to Irn Bru was wrong.
Another trading update today and again, very encouraging. 2021 order numbers were 90% of 2019. Impressive given we had the omicron variant in 2021. It seems the company are back to pre-pandemic volumes.
I'm not sure if anyone reads this forum but this could be a good investment for 2022.
Recent holder of these excellent shares and very keen to hear anything anyone adds to information.
Hold your nerve while another dictator gets squashed, people. All will be well.
GLTA