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Theory time. What if the share price movement here was merely due to directors in background placing buy orders? That or one of the sellers clearing. I agree a 125k share purchase is not a huge amount. If it is an indication of how H2 2017 is going that is a good sign. I don't expect many PI to buy in here till they see some serious director buys. We don't have the hype we had 3-4 years back. See what happens.
Last of the big spenders
Porta Communications Plc, the AIM quoted international marketing and communications business, has been notified that Mr Rhydian Bankes, the Chief Financial Officer of the Company, has today purchased 125,000 ordinary shares of 1p each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 3.785p per Ordinary Share. Following this purchase, Mr Bankes is beneficially interested in 125,000 Ordinary Shares in Porta, representing 0.03 per cent. of the Company's issued share capital.
Katie Laird has joined Newgate Comms as partner. Seems to have been there for 2 months. From Bell pottinger? So maybe she took some clients with her from the troubled PR agency? 'Katie has more than 15 years experience developing international communications strategies on behalf of governments, heads of state, private sector and non-profit clients in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. ' Guess the press will pick up on this soon enough. Looks like someone else might have left in the partner side.
Various quotes from Sec results. 'GBP3m Strategic investment for 19,3%. of Porta Communications Plc. becoming second largest shareholder. Strategic commercial agreement with Porta to expand the Group's global reach. Ability to approach large multinationals will increase as well as leveraging the full potential of Porta agreement Strong and growing pipeline of business in all the Countries in which SEC is represented. Net profit at € 431,000 (H1 2016: € 359,000)' So there could be some good synergies here judging from their report. They also have money in the bank? They could eaily increase their stake here. Likely offering to buy out other shareholders if they want to take over Porta? See what happens.
In Asia I suspect full year revenue to be ahead of 17m with at least 3m profit. of which about 1.8M goes back to Porta. So they have 1.8m profit. (60% to Porta) Redleaf to produce circa 0.550-0.650m profit. (80% to Porta come H2.) Publicasitywas apparently making close to 0.55m profit when taken over. I see no reason why it should not be making more than that now. Profitability up 180%? So it begs the question why they made a 1.9m loss in H1. 1.163m from Ammorisation and depreciation. 300k from new 3m loan facility. Could also be some savings on loan costs too because of this for next year. 160k H1 saving next year. 8m at 12%=0.96m 8m at 8%=0.64. So savings of 320k a year. 160k for H1. Likely more as they repaid 2.5m debt in H2. There is 'other interest cost of 100k on H1 results. We should also see more money from Asia and Redleaf next year due to ownership. Redleaf 40-50k in H1 Asia 60k in H1 next years. You add up all of these and you almost break even. The big costs in the background. HQ rent. 0.8m in H1. Cost of debt 0.6m in H1. Also the cost of the BOD. Accountants, CEO and other senior board members are costing Porta at least 1m+. If Porta were to Merge with Sec or another company you could easily strip out 1m+ or so in management costs. Same if they were to make a major takeover. if they can turn round Newgate UK then you could see a big upswing in profits from UK. Gross profit dropped 60k in UK with revenue down 1.4m. This suggests much better margins on contracts. Last year they only lost 1.79m in UK. This year 2.6m. So 800k extra loss from somewhere. So a swing could add this back? I wonder how much losses Summit also impact on the results. I expect a stronger H2 here given comments in the results. Redleaf has been announcing some big deals. Also Newgate looking after that 0.5m takeover recently. It's also true if they could start new businesses like Newgate Australia or takeover more firms like Redlead they would quickly set up companies that would pay towards the cost of debts and the UK HQ. If they can make China work that could become a huge business. At some point they may swap more debt for shares? Gradual ownership of Mewgate Asia will help long term. Incidentally SEC pa. results were out a few days ago too and their profits were down to 0.45m or so. On a positive many sites have seen this as a bridging result with some positives in the background. The Market has marked the share up. Even those trades on Friday could of been buys as the price kept creeping up? I think the share is about as low as it should go. Any positive news from UK ops should push up share gradually. So the market has not punished Porta here. If they were really in trouble the SP would be falling. Albeit 1-2 funds/stakehoders in background still exchanging shares here. Guess I am a bit more positive today. This is not a quick fix problem for porta so patience required. Long term directors could start buying in?
Summit no longer exists. Summit was 100% making a loss. Last years results suggested some new clients but they then said: 'Notwithstanding the above, Summit suffered a slowdown in performance towards the end of 2016, which will likely carry through into 2017.' Further down the report from full year results.. 'After a strong performance in much of 2016, Summit Marketing Services Limited�s (�Summit�) performance began to slow towards the end of 2016, and has struggled in 2017 year to date mainly as a result of the reduced spending of one of their main clients. As a result of this, their budgets and forward looking growth trajectory have been revised downwards resulting in an impairment to carrying value of Goodwill in the Consolidated Statement of Financial Position. Summit�s Goodwill of �346,859 has been fully impaired leaving a recoverable amount of �96,396. No other intangibles were recognised on the initial acquisition of Summit' So they had already written off most of Summit's goodwill value in 2016 results. It's not a huge writedown like TTMV was. Maybe this is why they didn't mention it. The revenue growth and profits from Asia far outstrips the loss of Summit. I doubt it had a huge turnover. Unlike Redleaf, Publicasity and the Asian business it had never really gained any traction.
I thought that this was just bumping along the bottom. If you take out D&A and the amount that interest will be reduced in H2/17 then it should at least be at breakeven. Marketing made a small loss and 2112 a profit which suggest Summitt made a loss. Marketing really has not fulfilled the original expectations. Seems to me that all remaining divisions are profitable, other than Newgate UK. It would help if they gave a breakdoiwn of profitability. I would expect for a �40m turnover to be making something like �2-3m profit pa. The fact they are not is a sharp contrast to their tremendously greedy 'incentive plan'.
The bad news. 'On 31 August 2017, Summit Marketing Services Limited, wholly-owned by the Porta Group, ceased trading. By this date, notice was given to terminate all contracts with employees, clients and suppliers..' (Section 17 on results.) Links to Summit webpage are dead. Some good news. On a positive note revenue in Asia is nearly 8.5m in H1 A rise of 3-4m. With profits at 1.5m. That is 900k higher than H1 last year. Albeit 40% back to controlling interests. 80% of profits from Redleaf now go to Porta. With profits booming that is good news. No idea how much money Publicasity makes. Downside is UK ops lost 2.6m. 0.9m higher than last year! Revenue was down to 10m from 12m in UK albeit gross profit only slightly down. 1m from debt costs. Including Clydedale loan set up fee 300k. Plus HQ costs. Plus 1.1 Ammorisation and depreciation costs. The debt costs should fall now. saving 300k a year. So 2018 could save 600k after Clydedale deal costs absorbed. The elephant in the room is PPS. Likely struggling. CAG group is barely mentioned in the report until end notes. Still operating. Overall what is the company worth? Asian business is booming and could make 3m profit on 17m turnover if numbers match H1. These numbers could be higher! I think Publicasity and Redleaf are making good money. Redleaf could make 0.6-0.7M+ profit this year? Pubcliasity I have no idea. That leaves Newgate Uk which seems to of been renamed now. How much losses did Summit make in H1 before it closed? Hmmmm. The share price actually went up so the market must see some value here. A 6-8p takeover here could be good. A merger stripping out management and other costs could also be good. My guess is Sec will eventually try to buy out Porta. Why take a 19% stake? They clearly see value here. Likely due to Asian ops and other strong brands making money here. Question is what write down costs for Summit in H2. Also why debt shut up 3m in H1. Porta need a strong H2 to show it can make actual money.
Seems a pleasing report with confident noises about the future. I should think the only way is up!
Interims tomorrow presumably. At the finals they said trading was substantially ahead of 2016. Not sure if 'trading' means financials but we will see. Hopefully the results will be simpler to decypher.
Saw this last week and thought it was an existing client. Nearly 500m bid. http://www.gorkana.com/2017/09/newgate-communications-advises-canyon-bridge-on-imagination-bid/ Share has perked up today. Still buyers and sellers exchanging sold off stock in background. The 3415 share buy on Nexechange was the indicator for these trades? I expect this to go on for a long while. Could be 6m+ shares to be sold here. No RNS to announce date of the results. It worries me they are still talking adjusted ebidta. More write offs to follow? See what happens. Thursday maybe?
http://www.redleafpr.com/media-centre/redleaf-news/2017/september/international-committee-of-the-red-cross-hires-redleaf-communications-for-financial-pr-support/ The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has hired PR agency Redleaf Communications to promote a new way of funding aid in conflict-hit countries.
Newgate Communications has appointed Neil Kleiner as partner and head of its UK digital and social media offering. http://www.gorkana.com/2017/09/newgate-communications-appoints-kleiner-as-partner-and-strategic-director/ He has been added to the staff page but one of the other staff members in a non senior role appears to have left. Notice the trend of new staff at Publicasity and Redleaf. Other areas like PPS cut back a bit. I still think more staff are to be announced soon.
Redleaf have promoted Vanessa Chance to Director in the company’s professional and financial services team. http://www.redleafpr.com/media-centre/redleaf-news/2017/september/redleaf-promotes-vanessa-chance-to-director/ Redleaf seems to be doing well. New hires with a lot of new contracts announced in last month or so. Fingers crossed Newgate is also bringing in clients too. Unclear what clients may have been lost though. Investors page has been updated with Raymond Mckeeve now removed. No longer on shareholder list as director. No changes to holdings elsewhere. Still no notification for H1 results. Can't be more than a week away? Not expecting miracles. 213k buy on Nex Exchange today at 3.653p. Could be a private investor? It's above the 3.25-3.5p range suggested by the market.
Few departures. Jason Nisse. Looks like he left some time in June or before and has now set up his own PR company. He was the co founder of Newgate Comms. Andy martin left some time before June-July? He was a managing partner at PPS. These 2 are the senior hires that were misisng from the staff page. Not sure if 5-6 of the non senior posts that have left relate to Jason setting up a new firm. Unclear if Andy will do the same. Also looks like a director Rebecca Sanders-Hewett from Redleaf has moved on too. Albeit they have made many hires at Redleaf. This was announced 1-2 months back. RNS today to show Raymond Mckeeve has resigned too. I think this was pre announced. Not sure why they announced this at the end of the day. It's all smoke and mirrors really as they seem to be hiring others behind the scene that have probably not been announced. They did announce in August they planned several new senior hires. They did hire an assoc partner and accountant recently. Still a lot of buy trades coming in here. 362k of buys and price creeping back up here. Maybe buys before the results? See what happens but someone still buying.
I am merely reporting the news here. I have stopped hard selling this share a long while back. Yes it has been a few years of stakeholder/smaller funds selling to the major shareholders here. Albeit I was referring to last 2-3 months. The main shareholder above 3% here have been very loyal really. 2 large late trades today for 331k and 250k. Price creeping up to 3.25p. Another 61k buy on Nexexchange. I expect either one large sell trade to appear or this to continue till the seller is done. If it's EK she and her partner could have 6m or so shares. She has 5.228m shares acording to one site I visit. So partner maybe 1m? (This excludes recently issued shares.) There is a lot of work here for this company to turn a profit. Gradually the ownership of companies like Redleaf /Australia should help with profits. My main concern here is PPS and lack of any profits. We need a clean set of results to see what is actually going on. We have not had that in years. I expect a loss to be announced for September. Pends on write downs and debt costs they add in.
whilst i admire your consistent championing of ptcm you are wrong , it hasn`t been going on for months its been years of so called exchanges of trades. the bod are simply getting well paid and no shareholder value exists
Not been invested since the 27p days. I knew he bought in at a high figure. I don't think the share price will sink much lower as strong interest above 3p to soak up sold stock. Albeit arranged.
Oops........I bought in at 27.6p. :-(
(0% loss Forklift? Presume you mean 90% and you left the caps lock on. 60p Gotrader? Presume you mean 6p? When were Porta ever 60p?
1. Redleaf Communications supports Patron Capital on £1.8 billion acquisition of Punch Taverns Patron Capital has completed its £1.8 billion acquisition of Punch Taverns with communications support from its retained PR agency Redleaf Communications. Punch is a leading owner of tenanted pubs in the UK, with approximately 3,200 pubs located across the UK. The deal, at 180 pence in cash per share, valued the equity of Punch at approximately £402 million and implied an enterprise value of around £1.8 billion. The Punch A Securitisation (approximately £770 million of gross debt secured against around 1,900 pubs) was sold to Heineken in a back-to-back transaction. The Redleaf team was led by Chief Executive Emma Kane and Managing Director Henry Columbine, supported by Rishi Banerjee, Sofie Ford and Laurence Hill. Also: Redleaf bolsters FinTech roster with Currencies Direct win Redleaf Communications has been appointed by leading FX provider Currencies Direct to run its PR in the UK, the latest in a string of FinTech client wins. Currencies Direct offers expert service to clients making and receiving overseas payments, underpinned by cutting-edge technology. Established in 1996, Currencies Direct now has more than 350,000 registered customers and employs over 450 employees in 23 offices across the globe. It offers a range of currency tools and provides money transfers in 120 different currencies, as well as bespoke forward and hedging options. The leadership team at Currencies Direct has ambitious strategic plans and is looking to grow its market share in the UK SME space. Redleaf was appointed following a successful three-way pitch process.
To be fair your high was around 60p? Even if things had gone well you would of struggled to rerach that level. The share price in my opinion has come down to allow major stakeholders to exchange shares. This has been ongoing for several months now.
(0% loss, I've sold out of this nightmare.
Looks like the Singapore arm of Newgate are overseeing a £686m deal. Frasers Centrepoint Limited strengthens UK and Europe platform with acquisition of a high quality portfolio of business parks. Can't be bad news for Newgate as this client has over S$25bn assets. (1.7 to the pound). The link is for a PDF. http://infopub.sgx.comFileOpenFCL%20-%20Acquisition%20of%20Business%20Parks%20in%20the%20UK_press%20release.ashx?App=Announcement&FileID=470193