London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
Great news from the holdings RNS, if you look at the companys fundemental's you will see that this is dirt cheap. Bring on the bounce
Plus we had bid Directors buys yesterday... may be more will come today...
Good news
Holdings RNS and there will be few more... could we get over 90...
80 is hard nut to crack... let the dust settle and once BROKEN we will see above 100... Patience is the KEY...
My worry about the dividend being scrapped is that it'll be more bad news in 3 months time. Uncertainty makes it ripe for the shorters. Without the yield, investment companies won't bite. Would the break up value of the assets (ex people) equate to this share price? Debatable. For me, there are too many red flags even now, so I'll be limping off the field...
We'll have to wait and see!
It seems to me more chance of testing new low than reaching to £1.
Hopefully we'll be testing the low 80's again very soon, maybe even today...! Break through that and I don't see why we can't be testing £1 pretty swiftly.
I do not think there will be dividend... But for me buying at this price is better then Dividend... this should be above 100 soon... Need to get over 80 and stay above... 80 is hard nut to crack...
I was thinking they've tried to get all the bad news out in one hit, but I can't see anything reassuring about maintaining the dividend. Did I miss it somewhere? If not, I'm nervous there's still more to come. The directors are going to have to start working for their money now.
Are these the same thing or was there a separate £1m buy as well as the directors?
The three directors all bought £331k each (so £993k total) and at a slightly different price but wonder if the difference is brokers commission / spread or if it’s a separate transaction.
Anyone able to shed any light? Either was good news just not clear if it’s one piece of good news or two???
Good to see these guys spending material amounts of money . IMV it will rebound over £1 tomorrow.
Expected that... should get HOLDING RNS tomorrow or in next few days back above 100 this will be... OVER SOLD...
Jeremy Sinclair, David Kershaw and Bill Muirhead (executive directors of the Company) each purchased 415,323 ordinary shares of 1p each in the Company at a price of 79.7 pence per share.
Well there's a nice RNS to end the day on..
My opinion this will bounce hard... let the DUST SETTLE... should get HOLDING RNS and we should see DIRECTORS BUYS... plus there will be more news...
Huge buy! Whats that about?
Stockable, good post and good analysis. I think forward recognition of revenue is a problem in many service businesses and typically new cfos have a clean up to give themselves a clear run.Yes it is a people business but 'head office' sounds like an overhead to me. They are probably just going to sack internal audit, i mean what did they do?
Restructuring
The Company also announces that it is restructuring its UK office. Management estimates that the restructuring will result in an exceptional charge of £2.5m for the financial year ending 31 December 2019, but is expected to generate annual savings of approximately £6m in 2020 and onwards. Plus they got still 5m in bank so at these PRICES I bought earlier...
Of course, it's all with hindsight but maybe this time the auditors did their job. If we look at P24 (The Audit Committee Report) of the 2019 Annual Report it states in respect to the company's global accounting operations “The need for action was emphasised by internal control weaknesses and misstatements identified during the external audit of the 2018 accounts”. On P25, it added, “The Committee has requested that revenue accounting should be a particular area of focus for the on-going enhancements to the Group’s accounting systems.” Possibly something of an understatement on P116 (Independent Auditor's Report) “Overall the findings from across the whole audit are that the financial statements use some mildly optimistic estimates, slightly favour current year revenue recognition and are light on disclosure.”
A red flag that may have been missed, certainly by me, was the dramatic increase in the cost of its audit. This rose from £268,000 in 2017 to £478,000 in 2018. For sure, it pointed out that the audit required more hours due to the growing complexity of the business. But it's difficult to see how it became almost twice as complex in a year. Again, with hindsight, someone may have asked them to take a closer look at this mess.
Incidentally, what I found most attractive about the company's model was its decentralised structure. This appears to have been its biggest flaw. It was not supported by adequate internal financial controls. My main concern now is just how systemic the problem is. According to the company's interim report published in September 2019, the problems related to four of its UK units. That seems pretty systemic to me. So the key issue seems to be this. If we remove the smoke and mirrors just how profitable is the business? Without a lot more information that's difficult to figure out. And there's one further and important thought. This is a people business. Will getting rid of the problem involve getting rid of the (Key) people?
Once 80 is broken can see this around 90-95...
I see recovery from here ....OVER SOLD... Still 5m in bank and they have taken steps... good sign...
Oversold at these prices in my opinion.
Where is the Saatchi PR machine? Or is it really that serious that there is nothing good to say?