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Well that's what many of us hoped with William Hill, hanging about waiting for another bid, our money tied up, when we should have got out and got our money into another recovery prospect.
William Hill was different in that Caesars had an ace up their sleeve, which meant that no one else could bid. This is different and other PE could look for a piece of the action. They have been alerted now that it is for sale.
I still think the best thing to do is reject the bid, management are doing a good job and the long term recovery, once pubs reopen, should take it well past £1.50 per share, with good dividends on the journey.
Bought in for long term investment, dipped in at various prices along the way up to 50p, looking rather healthy indeed with the jv in place. Really hope they stick to their guns after seeing/hearing their 5 year plan, bolstered up no end so can’t wait for the pubs to open and see the SP climb.
William hill was different in that they had a solid reputation and a decent foothold in a market that was set to grow exponentially over the next few years as individual states legalised off track gambling. William hill share holders felt robbed of the growth opportunity its that was available to them and rightfully so in my opinion .
The opportunity facing Marston’s in the next five years isn’t perhaps as compelling as that which was facing William hill and whilst I have confidence that they can get the share price up to the £1.50-£2.00 level and Be paying a decent dividend in the next 12-18 months it won’t be without its challenges.
I held with an average of just shy of 50p until today when I added bringing my average up to 68p. I figure we could get an offer around £1.20ish and could potentially push higher than that if more than one bidder gets involved. If there’s an offer at that price I would probably be comfortable. If it’s less than £1.00 I’d be equally comfortable holding and waiting for the sp to get where I expect it to.
I think the problem will be that there are undoubtedly a lot of share holders who have got in at lower prices or long term holders who have averaged down so anything over £1 could well be acceptable to a sufficient majority.
Pmoran agree with your final paragraph, however do read the loan agreements . The company have agreed not to pay a div attributable to the current financial year ( ends 30th September) In other words the earliest a div could be payed is Jan 2023.
Parsley2, that's not strictly true, is it? there is no ZERO sales scenario. We're selling to all the supermarket chains for one, Cash and carry outlets, and therefore corner shops et al, so debt to a degree is being serviced.
It's a bit more than just Certain outlets though Parsley? Morrison's for 1 have a good compliment of our products, as do Asda, Tesco. that's a lot of ale being sold, which as you suggest is going some way to paying some of our debt.
Parsley, I’ve seen you around on these boards a few times.
You come across as a condescending, pompous and self righteous little twerp.
Get over yourself please.
‘It’s not me you need to justify your investment to’
‘I’ll partially allow that’
Bore off.
Peaks.....spot on. There are a few long standing investors here who have the financial future of the company at heart, Trent is one, not a Johnny Come Lately.
Good morning all,
I've valued the pubs based on the fair value of the properties because that part of the business is loss making and have valued the brewery part based on the recent merger. All figures have been taken from the Annual Report for year ended 3 Oct '20 and I've excluded normalised working capital balances which would not be deducted from the EV.
(£m's)
Buildings FV = 1626
Assets held for Sale = 350
Brewery Business (40% share) = 312
EV = 2288
Bank Borrowings = -270
Securitised debt = -716
Sale and leaseback obligations = -362
Total = -1348
Price = 940
Let's say the offer ends up at 750m because the P/E firm would need their upside, this would translate to a share price of £1.14.
I hope this helps and it's going to be an interesting month especially if another bidder enters the fray.
Thanks
Yes, you're right Parsley2.
I'm under no obligation to justify anything to you.
Have a nice weekend.
Buying a business now when it has ‘no sales’ is ideal if you expect it to have sales in several months time. If you wait you’ll end up paying considerably more. Ideal time for these sorts of bids imho.
London you may wish to re-examine the numbers.
Loan notes amount to £816m
Buildings valuation as at 3/10/20 included Breweries and distribution properties transferred to CMBC in November.
Marstons have a 40% interest in CMBC
Property valuations done by Management and not Professionally signed ( values could be higher or lower)
NAV is circa 72p.
Your figures look great but will they stand up?
Correct.
But, with the Vaccination process in full swing, and fingers crossed less restrictive living in sight, will the Pension funds even consider such an opportunistic bid?
They're already in, why not reap the benefit of recovery themselves?
@Fairdealer
Where do you get the idea that public companies can rely upon Management’s valuation of their freehold property assets. To my knowledge, they are required to be revalued regularly, externally in accordance with IFRS Standards, with strict guidelines required by RICS qualified Registered Valuers.
Hi Fair,
Agreed, I don't know the fair value of the brewery properties, however I also excluded cash which should also be deducted from debt.
Under IAS 40, you are not required to independently value the properties each year, however I appreciate your point of Director valuation bias but the auditors signed off the accounts which is particularly tough in this uncertain environment.
Further evidence of upside can also be gained by the near 5% share purchases by two big players as evidenced by the recent RNS'.
I can only state how I see it and I could be completely wrong.
Thanks
Beer Stalker, read the notes attached to annual report. It is correct an Official ( RICS ) valuation is required Bi-ennially, an Official valuation was due in 2020 however rules were relaxed because of COVID
Fairdealer - thanks for clarifying. So book valuations are historic.
fairdealer
If a bid does emerge and goes through I will miss your knowledge of the industry when this board closes when the quote has gone. I suspect though, that Platinum have weighed up the chances of success by "going early" and have very possibly made a few of the bigger holders "insiders" already to assess their likely support or not, that is the most common way leaks like this appears to have been emerge.
My guess is the II's will do a dash for the cash largely due to the debt/valution issues you point out, would be very surprised if this were to be contested, for those same reasons.
Trent
Your response was spot on, the many times you have been on this board you have always been both courteous & accurate, as an aside I wonder what that old cove at the Pubs Advisory Service will be thinking with his underfilled barrels ?!
Barchid, thanks, the deal is not yet done.
It is puzzling to see a VC group making a bid, they usually look for value in assets and break-up ( asset strippers), US Funds are known for it. The puzzle being Carlsberg's agreement requires Marstons retain 50% of their Pubs, is Platinum aware ( they must be) or do they have other ambitions for Marstons Pubs which will fit the JV agreement, unless they (Platinum) know of some weakness within the agreement.
Platinum could be a "Stalking-Horse".
Whether my mascinations have any validity remains to be seen.
We are going to be here for a while yet. The first bid is rarely the last.
Parsley2. Something might well be brewing but the NFU position is not a new position taken out as a result of the possible take over they are merely reporting what shares they already have.
As I understand it anyone with more than 1% of the shares in a business need to declare their holdings when a company is subject to a possible takeover stating what their position is at the time of the initial offer so we should expect to see a number of these declarations over the next few days.
@ Barchid.
Yes, I've always tried to be reasonable. I don't see any point in being rude or @rsey. you achieve nothing, other than getting up people's noses with that. All of my previous thoughts on here were just my opinions, based on what information I had available to me at that time.
As for the chap from PAS, well, he did seem to fade into the background fairly quickly didn't he.
I'm still of the opinion with him that he was fishing for something. what that, and his motives were still remain to be discovered. That said, I neither know or care of he achieved his goal(s).
All the best to you.
Thanks for the insight.
In that case, LSV might not be a new position given the holding is less than 3%.
We only know that 5% of the total share capital were bought and sold on Friday.
London any holder of more than 1% can and do make a declaration when a bid is in process.
AS already stated there will be other Shareholders, above 1%. Expect further declarations, over coming days. It is quite normal and nothing to do with a New holding.