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45Bob,
Every sympathy with your predicament, in saying that everybody should have time off or a closure time for a well earned break but, and it is a big but , We are in the trade of selling food and beer and ( As far as the shares are concerned ) are in the financial mess ! I find that independant resteraunts offer a much more flexable service especially on Sunday evenings and are polite and helpful, Why ?? because their lively hood depends on it !!What can you expect when Mars employ kids straight from school, at minimum wage with precious little training in customer service, and call evertone you guys!! Sad endictment of a company I love - beers still good though.
A bit disappointed to be turned away for dinner at 8.04 on Sunday because the kitchen had just closed. A party of 6 in front was also turned away, so at least £100 lost on the hottest weekend of the year. With restaurants struggling and MARS price under pressure, surely the senior management need to look at things like this. As a small shareholder I don’t think this is good enough, we ended up getting a takeaway. I’m sure Wetherspoons would have taken our money
1. Marstons in there H123 claim overall 93% of debt is hedged for interest but in FY22 1,121 of debt is fixed at 5.2% and 531m is at floating rate.
2. 300m Bank facility 217m drawn leaving 83m estate 120m hedged, what about the remaining 180m?
3. 40 m private placement cannot locate rates.
4.Securitised debt in 2005, 800m of secured loan notes against 1,592 pubs with an additional 330m against 437 pubs equals 1,113m against 2,029 pubs but as of now Marstons operate 1,440 pubs, how many do they own? Carrying value of secured pubs 1,166m as of FY22, number of pubs secured unknown, is it the case that the company borrowed 621m and secured this against a number of it's pubs which have a current value of 1,166m and of the 621m, 120m is undrawn,
cost of secured debt 5.1 or 6%.
5. Finance cost of 91.9 m for 2022 and 93.4 m for 2021, are we expecting 2023/24 to be the same as these figures here.
6. Lease liabilities 382, other lease liabilities 338, lease liability debt cost 30m minus 11m lease income, is this accurate ? Do we expect lease liability debt cost to revise or remain?
7. Risk suffocating debt cost, economic directions, high interest rates, less disposable income, less revenue and profit here impacting debt servicing ability.
8. Strategy
Significant sale of assets of interest in CMBC gets the debt low, less debt service cost.
I believe that we could be at the start of a Bear Market where most share prices take a hit, only time will tell.
Sometimes the decline does go on forever, especially with so much debt, but about 18p I’ll say is the bottom. Covid low was 19p but fullers and Wetherspoons went substantially below covid lows.
At some point this has got to either
(A) start moving up, or (B) flatline
This relentless decline can't go on forever!
There's negative sentiment at the moment and the current share price is based on (historic) information that is readily available. I think that the trading update next month is the key info that will determine the direction over the medium term. Personally, I think that there will be a good revenue number and hope that the other numbers are encouraging too. That's based on the results from other relevant companies and how I see Marstons performing within the sector (including the small sample of local pubs). I'm holding until at least that date to see if the sentiment changes after the update - hopefully people will share my view and push the price up a bit before then! If the update is negative, I'll be taking a loss and getting out. I see it as the potential turning point for the share price.
Giant... I came here almost 6 years ago. The dividend was quite an attraction.Reduced my holding when the Div was cut.
It is everyone's perogative to take on board or ignore factual information posted. Some posts, including mine, may come across as negative...so be it. Everyone is capable of undertaking proper research ( which any Investor should undertake as a matter of course).
If anyone wishes to dispute posted facts, please say so,. Avoid painting a gloss on how undervalued the company, when the market, what ever anyone says, does know best. Anyone who disagrees, now is the time to fill your boots.
I wish you well
Hope a takeover bid for 50 lands in the next week
I presume none of these negative posters are actual shareholders? I'm not sure what kind of holder talks down his investment? I think we've all worked out who's who on here!
Giantsqid,
I totally appreciate where you come from, but who values the total assets, why it is the B.O.D. WITH THE ABLE ASSISTANCE
OF A REPUTABLE FIRM OF ACCOUNTANTS NO DOUBT !! Who values the total liabilities - the same accountants who wish to retain the account! Who pays the accountants, why the B.O.D. the accounts are now old hat as it will be not only the business that pay the increased interest charges but their customers as well, which will also affect the value of any underlying assets !
Shaperite, very regretably I concur with your final sentence.
The seeds for the company's present position were sown sometime ago.
The offer from Platinum, which was finally at 107p was not communicated until over 1 month after was placed on the table. SH's were not given an opportunity to give an opinion, RF was too busy helping Brain's out of almost certain Liquidation. The Brains estate was so hastily agreed that proper surveys of the Welsh Pubs was not undertaken, consequently before completion, a number of Brain's Pubs were found to be sub-standard and were ommitted from the deal.
The following assets sales creep should make it obvious how parlous finances have become.
The main influence on the share price here (and pretty much everywhere else at the moment) will be high interest rates and inflation. In the current climate, the assumption is people will be cutting back particularly on non essentials. In reality, the sun is out and people aren't going to stop going out, socialising and enjoying themselves. My local, a Marston pub, is always full. There was loads of people sat outside in the beer garden yesterday evening again. The pubs are seeing a roaring trade in this glorious weather. As soon as inflation finally begins to cool, rates will start to come down and stocks will begin to recover.
"Marsdens assets are probably pledged already against its £1.2 B debts !"
The company has stated 98p nav per share
Nav = total assets - total liabilities
Nav per share = nav ÷ number of shares in issue
It's difficult to dumb this down any further, but total assets is clearly a far bigger figure than total debt, hence the 98p nav per share the company themselves have stated.
Shaprite
Succintly put, it never ceases to amaze me that so many punters don't see the negative but only the positive. If the licensed assets are really worth their stated book value then why has no clever hedgie acted on it for a bit of easy asset stripping ?
We will probably know soon as it is surely time that superdischarger, our resident perma bull gave us all another pep talk as to why any of us with a differing view to his just has to be wrong.
Or of course now we are in the 28's he will possibly tell us how he sold all his at a profit & is now waiting to buy back at 25p.
Many pubs are overflowing - well they are not !! Sometimes at the weekend or Fridays they are fullish , but the trading week is Monday to Sunday, the overheads are not discriminatory, rent, rates, wages, electricity, water etc, which destroy any advantage of the occasional football or cricket match ! A healthy sector does not put 40 0dd outlets on the market - showing a desperation for the liquid stuff , ( and I dont mean beer ) assets do not equate to cash, you can often be asset rich and cash poor, and anyway Marsdens assets are probably pledged already against its £1.2 B debts ! A takeover offer of over £0.60 per share - dont make me laugh, if that is the case what was wrong with the £1.02 offer only just over a year ago? Bad, bad policies by the board - the leasing of Brains for 20 years ???? Gentlemen at the time of commenting , interest rates have just arrived at 5% and the share price is £0.2875 , I FOR ONE FEAR THE WORST ( with a heavy heart )
Quite a few Pubs/Restaurants properties available atm, those with money have a choice ..
Whitbread to sell over half of its pub-restaurant portfolio
Mon, 19 Jun 2023 | BUSINESS SALE
Whitbread to sell over half of its pub-restaurant portfolio
Hospitality brand Whitbread is reportedly selling 250 of its pub-restaurants in the UK.
According to media reports, the company, which owns the Premier Inn and Beefeater restaurant brands is said to be selling sites that are either marginal or loss-making, and most of them are located near to a Premier Inn and together are estimated to have a value of £600m.
While The Times reported that Mitchells & Butlers (M&B), who owns of Harvester, Toby Carvery All Bar One and Brown's is the frontrunner in acquiring these sites, the bar group has responded to this speculation, telling The Caterer: "As a major player in hospitality we're regularly the subject of industry speculation. But that's all this is … speculation."
Mitchells & Butlers, runs over 1,700 pubs and restaurants across the UK and in 2006, it paid £497m for 239 Whitbread pub-restaurants. Then in 2008 44 of Whitbread’s pub-restaurants were exchanged for 21 of Mitchells & Butlers Express by Holiday Inn branded hotels in a straight asset swap.
Whitbread, which has 440 pub-restaurants in the UK and is said to be looking to sell to established pub operators such as Greene King, Heineken, Marston’s and Punch.
Marston’s also recently put 61 of its freehold pubs in England and Wales up for sale after a review of its estate. The portfolio of pubs up for sale includes a mix of leased, tenanted, retail and managed pubs and business property adviser and pub specialist Christie & Co were appointed to execute this sale.
Whitbread has said that the reason for the sale is to focus on its Premier Inn hotel estate and its annual report showed that despite a rise in hotel guests the group's restaurants were trading 4 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.
www.business-sale.com/news/business-sale/whitbread-to-sell-over-half-of-its-pubrestaurant-portfolio
Giant- I'm with you.
When people cut back on foreign holidays and stay in the UK it's putting more cash flow here. The hot summer usually boosts sales too, even if it's via a Supermarket for home BBQs and bottles of Banks's Bitter (£1.09 500ml Tesco).
Property valuation, according to the company, is £2.1bn
And then there's this :
How much is Carlsberg Marston's worth?
carlsberg marston's brewing company limited Estimated Valuation. Pomanda estimates the enterprise value of CARLSBERG MARSTON'S BREWING COMPANY LIMITED at £495.9m based on a Turnover of £325.9m and 1.52x industry multiple (adjusted for size and gross margin).
Marstons have 1,500 pubs in their estate.
So even at a cost of £300k each that equals £450m in property.
So a property company could buy Marstons for £500m, pay off the debts, convert the pubs into flats with government funds, and any larger properties they could knock down for blocks of flats.
The government will love this as it means less places people can go outside of their homes and helps with the elites plans to make everyone live in rented accommodation with VR headsets.
I suspect the best takeover opportunity would be by a property company, they could buy marstons for circa £400m, and then convert all the pubs into housing and make ££££££££
considering the recent mass migrants into the UK dont drink alcohol, but the UK government are paying their private landlord mates tons of money to house them, it opens a massive opportunity here.
Karl
And there is the rub, MARS have been under 50p for about 10 months now, one would have thought private equity or hedge funds would have run the numbers which on the surface find that the stock price has been at least 50% discount to nav according to the accounts yet no one seems to have been interested in buying the company to asset strip which makes me wonder why not.
Clearly they can not bring themselves to believe the official nav.
If a takeover offer was tabled then the BoD would now have to be open to it based on the current price.
There are 7 Marston's pubs not far from me and they're always packed out. And they're really nice places inside and out. I can't speak for your area but clearly Marston's pubs are desirable elsewhere.
Alternatively it's cheap for a reason. My local research has shown evidence of MARS pubs largely empty on a bright sunny Saturday and half the beer pumps not working. The few customers there would hardly pay for the Sky subscription let alone staff and building costs.