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Erratum is less than balanced in his contrarian points of view, as I have found before.
It wasn't long ago that he challenged me for claiming that I had a significant shareholding in Ince when I only had around 2%. Who knows where he is coming from!
The fact is that after all that has gone on in the past few months it is deeply regrettable that Ince have put themselves in the position of receiving criticism for an event in a restaurant in Cardiff. Whatever the rights and wrongs on the night, what a shame that this was the outcome, given what has gone before. This is a bad situation, which is not insignificant.
erratum/johnbiles;
ouch what selective balderdash bile; without dissecting your selective comments, there are only 2 things to consider here.
1) it was an Ince do, a do and circumstances that rather than refuting outright, Ince internally raised an investigation into
2) irrespective of social nuances/interpretations/standpoints, for a professional company not to act professionally at all times when associated to the name of such a company, suggests to prospective clients/investors, it is far from.
Nothing in your post alters that.
The usual lazy, twitter deep analysis and utter banality, that one expects from certain posters on this board. Lets take the some of the issues one by one
1) We only know that SOME Ince employees were in attendance. There is no evidence that anyone from Ince was involved in the alleged behaviour, in fact the letter to John Biles makes it quite clear that he was not the culprit, thus removing one from the equation.
2) Whatever occurred there was no police involvement and no suggestion that anything that required police involvement had occurred.
3) As you say you are GUESSING who picked up the bill. But don't let that stop you making unsubstantiated superposition.
4) I would bet most of you have been at a table where one (and it was identified as only one guest) has be less polite/respectful than you or others at the table would be, I know I have. I certainly would not be happy to be judged by the behaviour of the worst people I have ever socialised with.
5) The restaurant in question has only 12 covers and was opened on the back of a crowd funding campaign in January this year. This campaign raised GBP 35,000 and the restaurant only opens 4 days a week. This was never going to be an economic preposition unless it operated at full capacity all of the time. Which based on its booking records it was not. It would seem that the publicity has been very good for their bookings over the next 3 months. Make of that what you will.
The fake moral outrage here is laughable.
Just seen your post; truly shocking behaviour; i'm struggling to have belief in a professional company that acts so unprofessionally. And the bill just shows how the partners are profiting and not all shareholders
I'm guessing the £1,000 bill was picked up by Ince Group. I guess that's fair, given how much cash they have rolling from Arden. Good to see them spending the money wisely!
The following extract was taken from Twitter (4 May 2022), posted by the owner of the Cardiff resturant - Cora. According to the Telegraph, the post was addressed to John Biles.
====================================================
Dear Mr *****,
'I wanted to firstly thank you for choosing my restaurant for your meal tonight, and I understand you had the biggest bill we've ever had on one table'.
'Unfortunately througout the evening I was made aware that your party's behavior was inappropriate towards lily, who runs front of house.
'She has told me that- as a 22yr old girl- she was talked down to, disrespected, and touched unwantedly by members of your group'.
====================================================
What the heck is going on here? Are they trying to collapse the market cap so that the partners can take it private? It's become a total corpse of a company. Surely we're no longer in a quiet period? Are we expecting an update some time?
If you presented a gain on investment to a client and they turned round to you and said, "you've only made me 30%", you might question their faculties. A 30% gain on any investment, in an 'event' such as this one is significant. However a 30% loss, which you seem to implicitly discount requires "only" a gain of 42.5% to recover.....
Which given the value destruction at play, seems rather unlikely.
theosus...... ONLY a 30% drop....suggesting small/insignificant.
A 30% drop should be substantial in anyone's mind....
tshaw2; spot on
What abacus are you using for this maths? Both Ince and Arden holders are underwater on this deal. Read my previous posts. The maths is simple. Arden holders are holing a circa 30+% loss and Ince holders have bought a company which has just lost £2.5m of recurring revenue, given no NOMAD license (the deal is itself mad). Staff turnover was at 35% in January of 2022 in Arden. LinkedIn shows that in the last 4 months a further 3 staff have left. I have compared the staff from the IWB website of Arden's team with LinkedIn and other IWB captures and since January 2020, they have lost over 50% of their staff. So Ince have bought (by dilution) a company which:
1. Has lost over 50% of their staff. (knowledge and relationships).
2. Has lost over 33% of revenue and all sticky recurring revenue given NOMAD loss.
3. Retains a corporate finance function. Which INCE already have a much larger version of.
4. Will be unable to attract quality staff due to reputation
5. Wil be unable to attract micro cap clients (their remit) due to NOMAD loss
6. Massive incremental reputation damage (already loss making with high turnover of staff and negative retained earnings)
7. Terrible operating leverage given market making function which is very expensive to run, software, compliance and audit which Ince does not have so will not be able to replicate / manage costs.
Theo - the final deal is the same as originally announced (ie 7 for 12). What has changed since the October announcement are the share prices. In October, pre-bid, the ARDN s/p was c20p and the INCE s/p c51p, meaning that the notional price per share being paid for ARDN would be c31p....... which in my view would have been a decent result for ARDN holders...
Came and gone, now let's have the tide coming in....:)
Way too cheap.
Yes, mine was posted to my account last night.
Has anyone got their Div? I was expecting one to come through yesterday?
RetiredBanker, I think you are spot on in your assessment of where managements incentives lie. There is still a bit of rough air to clear and I suspect we will have a to clear out a few trapped holders (both Arden and Ince) over the next few months but I think your forecast of reported revenue of 110million and NP of 8million for FY 2022 should not be a huge stretch and with positive free cash flow restored, nor should be the 10% pa growth you forecast thereafter. At 0.35 times price to book, a forecast div of almost 7% and growing , a current and forward P/E of 2-3X. if you are right, when the market finally has a moment of clarity the upside will be explosive.
I'm a long suffering ARDN holder and have seen the sp drop 2/3rd since I first purchased. However I averaged down aggressively in 2020 and so am actually sitting on a profit even at these deflated prices. I just wish they had managed to get this takeover completed before the financial year end, although perhaps Biles has deliberately delayed so he can show further growth in 2022. Combined he should be able to report Revenue of 110m and Net profit of 8mm.
He knows that a lot of professional services firms are bought out on around 1x revenue.
So with his 16% stake in the company I'm sure he'd like to sell out for £100m +
If he grows revenue 10% p.a for next 5yrs and gets to sell for £150m then he personally benefits by almost £10m and he can retire wealthy before he turns 60. In that context his £500k bonus isn't that exciting ... I think his interests are reasonably aligned with ours. I'm sticking with this stock for atleast a return to the price when the takeover was announced
ccooper; you must be the only person on this board that believes the board knows what they are doing. If they have a plan, they are not showing it, to shareholders - maybe that plan isn't for shareholders - only partners.
The vast majority on this board see incompetence/nepotism/self interest and are only here, not because they believe in it's future, but holding on to salvage something from the wreck this business represents. And i say that as someone who has held, never sold a share, in 2 years.
This is the most elongated takeover ever. Why?
Why does a company that provides professional services as a business not display such professionalism/diligence to their own compliance - because they are average at best, in reality incompetent. And when you show such incompetence in your own affairs, it is hardly a positive marketing tool for prospective customers.
When your communications are either non existent or only to report a failing, that communicates incompetence.
There are many here like me, that believed this was undervalued, believed in the value of the business proposition. The mgmt handling, the naivety of the mgmt of this 'takeover' merely red flags the inability of the mgmt, the lack of a plan.
I just hope there are more people like you who believe the board know what they are doing, so i can take something better out of this - until then i will hold, written off as a loss. Frankly this is so poorly managed, so indifferent to shareholders, i hesitate every week, whether to just take the loss, move on, rather than suffer nothingness for the next 5 years...
A lot of board decisions as everyone has outlined have really gone against all logic in my opinion, and the SP is reflecting that with very little confidence. I really know the board know what they are doing and have a plan rather than “helping a mate” with a struggling company (Arden). I’m still holding for the long term but it’s been a complete shambles over the past 12 months, really disappointing.
@erratum You are clearly very knowledgable in relation to and put the case for Ince well. If you are interested in working with me to help solve the underlying issues of Ince, lack of profitability in the core business, then I'd be delighted to hear from you. Kind regards cmec11@gmail.com
Tshaw, I will need to look in to the historic performance of acquisitions against target, I cannot give you a sensible view without a pen and paper to hand.
Only thing I would say is I don’t think this will apply to the Arden deal as it is very specific to the WIP and receivables of partners and I do not see how that would be applicable to a brokerage. But that is a question for management when they exit purdah.
CaneToad, No, but chat boards are !
I am very happy to see people be critical of the company. I think all I am doing is correcting misunderstandings or incorrect information. Other than concluding the stock is cheap I don’t think I have really given much of a view one way or other.
@Ronaldo, I know this bonus has been a bit of a bugbear for you. I am not sure I have much to add. I am not sure if any investor has questioned it, I have listened to all of the online earnings calls and cannot recall hearing a question on this issue.
For what it’s worth, I would rather the money in my pocket but if I am honest it does not bother me hugely. His base salary is pretty low and if you take the two together I think he would be earning significantly less than the managing partner of other large multi jurisdictional law firms. However that is a guess on my part rather than a known fact.
Can I suggest that you attend this years AGM and ask your question/ relay your concern directly.
@erratum: "this is an anonymous chat board dealing with a penny stock and in this part of town at least every other poster is footpad, degenerate or spiv."
I doubt that INCE is a company for degenerates or spivs as you say. It's far too illiquid for that.
I've investedin/traded INCE for several years. I'd like to see the company do well.
I think it's reasonable for people to be critical of the strategy when most of us have lost substantial amounts of money in this company. I only have a modest holding now, but am sitting on a multi-five-figure loss.