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Shire's's new ad for a Weekend Maintenance Engineer notes that:
"Shire Foods has successfully expanded its business; We are now running on a 24/7 rotating shift pattern"....
Https://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/weekend-maintenance-engineer/50331439
Another £24,300 bought back at 1215p:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/90735071
Almost £66,000 more shares just bought back at 1199p:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/90676901
For the record, another £17,000 of shares just bought back at 1130p:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/90602343
Good to see the consistent rises this week.
The spread is unusually inviting for VLE at a mere 20p with 1130p-1150p.
Shire's PBT last year was £2.78m, so if you tax at 19% CT for 2022 and then times 80% for VLE's ownership - then the net is exactly £1.8m.
Give that a conservative P/E of say 7 and it's worth £12.6m (and of course there's the freehold property and other PPE to consider as well). Given Shire's growth a higher P/E of 10 would bring in £18m.
When VLE acquired Shire it was making annual losses of £0.3m.
Add that on to the current £35.6m net assets (with a £20.8m cash pile) then the upside to the current £28m m/cap is substantial.
In cae anyone missed tonight's late RNS, nice to see VLE rightly considering 1085p good enough value to buy back another £21,700 of shares:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/90502193
^substantial discount^ - somehow I omitted the second word!
Nice bounce in the sp today - and more activity than normal for VLE. Having said that, the sp of 1149 is still a substantial to the NAV per share of almost 1400, so either there is further to go, or the market is placing a negative value on the ability of the Landers to generate more value in the future.
It will be interesting to see what they find to turn around next - Indulgence was a rare fail for them, but Shire still going great.
The year end update is out - Shire Foods have had a cracking year, with PBT up to £2.78m (from £2.14m).
Given the surrounding cost and labour environment you have to give immense credit to them. Shire is now a substantial business and appears to be well placed in its sector given its links with the fastest growing players.
VLE now have £20.8m cash against the £24.8m m/cap, and that will have risen by the amount of the Indulgence property sold since the year end (£1.5m or so from memory?) with one more property to go. The Indulgence losses are substantial but now historic, and going forward VLE will have a clean Shire-based business.
Plus it's good to hear:
"Since the year-end, labour market challenges and raw material price pressures have shown some signs of abating. Early indications are that the focus on margins in Shire has ensured that we have commenced 2023 with appropriate customer pricing."
And there are further encouraging noises about potential further acquisitions. Maybe with Indulgence now gone we'll get action on this front.
I think that's often the case with such illiquid shares - large prive movements on small volumes are something that have been an enduring feature of VLE since I first bought back in 2017.
You have to laugh - the m/cap fell by £3m or so yesterday on the back of just £7k of trades!
It's bounced back already today by almost 8% on around £32,000 of buys. The m/cap is now just over £24m, whereas I calculate VLE has around £19m cash, plus £2.3m or so of property under offer, plus the value of 80% of Shire Foods - which made £2.14m PBT last year.
Cheers QD22. They are indeed EXTREMELY patient, as investors in VLE have to be. But it's been so long now without an acquisition, and with Indulgence now cleared out perhaps we can hope for more exciting news flow soon. We can certainly expect the year end trading update in March, so not long to wait.
Thanks for all the reminders and updates Rivaldo.
Tbh I expected another acquisition a long time back. They are very very patient I think. On this subject in September: "Acquisitions and future strategy. There is a significant degree of instability across the UK economy and consequently we are seeing an increase in potential investment opportunities. Not surprisingly we have reviewed a number of businesses where the continuing uncertainty in relation to energy costs is a particular challenge. Our preference is for investments in companies where we can make a substantive change to effect a turnaround, but high energy costs are not something we can influence. We believe some good opportunities will emerge, but timing is critical and the current macroeconomic and geopolitical situation make that issue very challenging."
OK, maybe it will be even longer. However with the gas prices falling a lot recently, and coming through the winter, maybe there is light on the horizon. Ukraine could however go on for quite a time.
The second Indulgence property is now Under Offer, with a guide price of £1.55m. That would be £2.3m in total for the two properties (which are now both under offer) assuming the guide prices are met - not far off 100p per share:
Https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/128714444#/?channel=COM_BUY
I seem to remember the properties were unencumbered by mortgages, in which case that's a nice parting gift from Indulgence.
Good to see VLE buying back almost another £120,000 of shares yesterday, this time at 1195p:
For the record there are now only 2.364m shares in issue, so the m/cap is only £27.8m at 1175p:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/89842822
Good to see VLE consider 1130p still good enough value to be buying in, and just prior to the year end too:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/89741648
Listed at £750,000 and now under offer - the other is for sale at £1.55m.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/find.html?searchType=SALE&locationIdentifier=POSTCODE%5E1732470&insId=1&radius=0.0&displayPropertyType=commercial&businessForSale=&minBedrooms=&maxBedrooms=&minPrice=&maxPrice=&areaSizeUnit=sqft&minSize=&maxSize=&partBuyPartRent=&maxDaysSinceAdded=&includeSSTC=true&_includeSSTC=on&sortByPriceDescending=&primaryDisplayPropertyType=&secondaryDisplayPropertyType=&oldDisplayPropertyType=&oldPrimaryDisplayPropertyType=&newHome=&auction=false
The RNS just now shows Indulgence being closed - sad for the employees, but good news for VLE as:
- it finally draws a line under VLE's only poor acquisition
- it frees up £2m of freehold properties for sale to add to VLE's cash pile.
No idea how saleable Indulgence's properties are - anyone investigated this previously? I assume they're in Colchester.
For the record, another 5k shares just bought back at 1,050p - that's now 112,000 shares bought back in total:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/89283314
Another £52,500 of shares bought back - encouraging to see the usually prudent Landers buying at 1,050p:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/89252864
A further 5,000 shares just bought back at 1010p.
That's 95,000 shares bought back in the last week, i.e approaching £1m's worth and around 3.7% of the total in issue at the interims.
That's a lot more than I thought they'd be able to repurchase, and a good use of part of the £20.4m cash pile:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/89217919
Good to see VLE confident enough to buy back another almst £25,000's worth of shares at 990p:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/89207983
In case anyone missed Friday's late RNS, VLE have a new major shareholder - Crucible Clarity Fund Plc now have just over 3% with almost 75,000 shares:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Holdings-in-Company/89191468
They've gone over 3% as a result of the recent buybacks.
Here they are:
Https://www.iomfsa.im/registers/collective-investment-schemes/crucible-clarity-fund-plc/
Wow - 80,000 shares bought back at 881p in one fell swoop. Nice, and just shows the confidence VLE's management have that there's a substantial gap to the true NAV as outlined previously:
Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/volvere-VLE/share-news/Volvere-PLC-Transaction-in-Own-Shares/89186879
H1 results show £20.4m cash, plus £2m of newly revalued Indulgence properties.
Shire performed pretty well in the circumstances, with a steady £0.6m PBT in the much seasonally weaker H1. I note too that its energy costs are fixed for the long-term.
Indulgence has been a disaster - VLE's first. With manufacturing now closed altogether for the moment to run down stocks, and retail supplies now terminated, it seems possible that the whole shebang may be closed or sold. The only consolation is the potential sale in that eventuality of those nicely revalued properties.
The £23m m/cap is backed up by cash and properties, and Shire is still doing fine (and has apparently pushed through price rises to soak up extra costs).
Indulgence is essentially written off in the share price anyway, but hopefully will be shuttered as too much of a distraction. Meanwhile more acquisitions are likely at some point, but VLE will be cautious as ever....
The share price fell initially yesterday, but it was good to see decent buying coming in and the price recovering to be unchanged on the day as value investors took advantage of the still large discount to true value here.