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Would anybody be kind enough to provide a brief summary of Wey and the fundamentals here.
I am invested in DEV which has done really well for me and this seems a similar type of business model.
Any help would be appreciated as I am looking to get in here. I like their update and their decision to invest in what seems to be a growing business in this new look world.
Thank you
Sani
Agreed Vulcan. There is a lot going on here, notably with marketing but more generally in stengthening the leadership team. Plus, the new financial year starts in September, suggesting a strong start to next year too.
Positive update and maybe it'll break out past the 26.5p mark
Profits exceeding expectations - taken on a sales director using excess profits to find for growth in future years...........whilst there is not much detail it is all very positive
Yes it's tough being a Wey shareholder from an information perspective although the share price has done OK.
The BOD actually pay themselves fairly modest salaries. £403,000 all in last year. And they would argue the options only become valuable if the share price does well. Their options are about 6% of issued share capital. So for me they pass the ethical test.
Breq
You could be right, any of those things might come to pass, but how can you invest in a BOD who won't invest in themselves?
If you add up all of their options the total worth is multiples of what the company has ever made in profit.
The company is run by the BOD for the BOD and not for the shareholders.
What do we know:
The BOD have been pretty tight lipped about updating shareholders on trading even though we are in an incredibly important time for online learning.
The BOD have sold shares but these sales are pretty inconsequential to their total holdings when options are included.
By selling shares they appear to be sending out a 'we think this is a great price to cash in some of our chips'. It is almost as if they didn't want the share price to keep rising.
So what could actually be going on:
Either a sale of the company at say 35p a share. The share price was heading that way and could have endangered the deal by 35p not offering a big enough premium.
A big acquisition funded by an institution backed rights issue at say 25p. As the share price went through 30p, the discount was beginning to look too great.
We shall see. My complete guess is a sale of the company, as good for DM's heirs and the CEO was already a seller late last year. Wey is an obvious acquisition candidate for a deep pocketed acquirer to use as a base to build an a large online education provider. Amazon Class ?
All the above is amiable speculation and should not be taken seriously.
You say this and I'm inclined to agree but the one remaining hope is the a few well known funds continue to hold. Very very disappointed with the board however selling a large proportion of their shares like that
So, 6 weeks ago, after perusing the May results, I decided to continue to hold WEY because I believed that COVID 19 has presented the company with a once in a generation opportunity to make hay, despite severe concerns about the board's overall performance.
I have spent a fair bit of the last 6 six weeks attempting to work out how this company works and how the board of directors might attempt to build share holder value.
My findings are as follows.
I have learnt more from posters on the ADVFN BB (particularly Netcurtains) than I have from a combination of our Board's efforts, any RNS's and the website combined.
The Board have done nothing, zero, feck all, to keep the shareholders up to date with the board', or the company's performance.
Despite Covid 19 being with us for more than 3 months now, presenting an incredible home learning opportunity, the boards only update has been to state that "there has been an increase in enquiries", that's it, no figures, no "trading ahead of expectations" Nothing.
Although Covid has presented this opportunity, the internet has been with us for more than 20 years during which many industries have embraced a new way of doing business. Home and online education has been ripe to change from it's traditional ways for all of those 20 years.
So why has it taken WEY 14 years to produce a very modest half year profit? They have gone from being a national, international, global, back to national.....rudderless.
The board would appear to be, and they give no information to change my perception, a group of administrators and educators who don't have any business acumen between them.
As previously noted, without using WEY specific wording, online searches for online education/exams/learning do NOT produce any results leading to WEY.
Looks like they don't want the work, or don't know how to advertise, or basically are too wrapped up in their own self serving little world that they don't care one way or the other.
I wrote an email to the board with my concerns on May 11th, I am still awaiting a reply.
You have to ask why, or how, there has been a 30% run on the share price in the last couple of weeks as again, no information has been forthcoming, and then, out of the blue, 3 of the board sell the shares they have been given anyway to trash shareholder value. The reasons given are BS, they somehow spiked the SP, and sold into it.
So, despite having every tailwind available, any progress made here is despite of the board, not because of it.
I can only assume, because they give me no information to assume otherwise, they are a self serving group of greedy lovelies who don't really want to be working too hard.
Welcome to the AIM casino.
I'm out, and won't be back.
Been researching this stock and looks interesting. So much potential growth here.
Think I’m going to dip my toe in the water
As of yesterday wey are advertising for more leaders of learning (good news) and a Chief Technology Officer advertised to £100k (great news). Getting ready to grow
Ragnor
Being invested here for 18 months is not lucky, well done, enjoy the profits.
I'm going to continue to hold, hopefully at least until I'm not looking at red. Will certainly see you on other boards.
Good Luck
Miton Group has been constantly selling their shares into the market ever since the company floated in 2015. This constant selling by a large shareholder has a continual depressing effect on a small(ish) capital company like WEY. Miton's stake has now reduced from 20% to 5%. Fortunately, the company has some very loyal large institutional like Gresham House and Guinness who have held their large stakes since flotation.
A new buyer appears to have arrived on the scene and spent over £400k buying 1.25% of the company in 3 transactions on the 12th and 13th all of which were disclosed later on the following day by the market makers who continue to play their usual games dropping by dropping the SP by 5% despite this. This has the desired effect of tempting weak holders into selling their shares on account of the apparent poor response by the share price to good news.
I think with WEY's phenomenal prospects, especially compared with the vast majority of other companies nowadays, we will see a lot more new institutional buying which will propel the share price over the coming months and year. I also foresee WEY making good profits this year and paying a dividend out of its large cash pile.
Nonegs I decided to throw it in on this one yesterday. Got pretty lucky I admit as I've been in this for 18 months but keeping some dry powder as it looks like we may be approaching another down period in the market and momentum on this has stalled.
I think its a good company with solid growth prospects but there are some heavily discounted valuations out there presenting much better 6-12 months upside. Like you said the valuation is looking pretty punchy and the limited investor engagement unsettles me.
All the best with this one, no doubt see you on the other boards.
Netcurtains
Thank you.
Where would I find this?
Nonegsplease: WEY are having their investor conference today at about 1pm and I suspect all the questions you have will be answered.....
Fludo,
Fair shout and you raise very valid points. I've never shorted anything in my life, just raising my concerns.
My problem is that I've only just arrived here & bought at 25p+, taking the view that given the rise in SP since February's update, that we could reasonably expect further upside with a bullish trading statement accompanying the half year results.
That hasn't happened & given the 3 X revenue valuation (assuming, probably beaten, full year 2021 forecast) I can see the share price drifting sideways & lower for a considerable time.
If I'd bought in a few months ago when I first started looking at WEY that would be fine as I'd be looking at 50%+ paper profit and would be happy to "consolidate".
So, bought at the wrong time, hoping for great news & didn't get it. My fault.
I know WEY is a great company and will generate decent profits in the future.
I'm just not sure they are visible enough, I know at a professional level they'll gain market share by referral but for the average Joe in the street who wants to explore the possibility of blended or home educating his kids whilst working from home try searching for them without using the company specific words, they are not visible enough.
I'd also prefer a more dynamic CEO to go with my "here is the future of education" marketing plan, but heyho, I guess you can't have it all.
Anyway, have decided I'll hold for the foreseeable.
Good Luck Bud.
Nonegsplease: is it possible to short wey? Sounds like you could be if it was . Lol. Don’t worry about the forecast. They keep beating them materially. The delay is likely probable as new pupils will be centred around the start of the school year, ie September for inter high. They’ll know a number of enquiries converts to new pupils at x% typically so their line of sight for likely September numbers is reasonable. They’ve also grown 43%! There will be pupils here who’ll flow into future years at zero cost. They’re basically investing a lot more in marketing than they ever have. Gross margin is higher than it has ever been yet profits are only in line with prior forecasts because the investment in marketing & growth is working. They could switch it off and report increased profit but why if growth is the way it is
Jacqueline, CEO, on today's podcast at VOX, (free subscription to listen).
She's lovely, but comes across as an educator/administrator and not as a (sharp) business woman.
Interview by Justin Waite (who understandably is not everyone's cup of tea, but is also a shareholder in WEY) is not in my opinion anywhere near direct enough.
There's talk of some nice figures with a bit of profit (no numbers or % involved) and when Justin asks whether there has been more interest since lockdown Jacqueline admits that there has been a spike in enquiries "but of course it takes some time before those enquiries might be converted in to sales". No numbers or % given.
The rest of the podcast is Jacqueline giving her schoolmarmley standard presentation.
Opportunity missed Justin, absolutely zero new facts given or asked for.
I'm inclined to hold in the hope that new figures might arrive in a further update although I know the SP has got probably 12 months ahead of itself .
Would obviously appreciate any other views.
Bizarre really.
I can't think of an industry that has been handed a bigger opportunity with Covid closing schools worldwide.
10 weeks since the year end and not a whisper.
43% revenue increase is not to be sneezed at, but I see that with updated forecasted revenue for y/e 2021 of £9.9m that leaves us valued at 3 X revenue in 18 months time.
That is a stretch and I'd want to see Barrie shouting his head off about how busy we've been.
I've also noted that (with lots of new players trying their luck?) that a Google "GCSE" or A level online search reveals two pages of other offers before Interhigh make an appearance.
A similar Bing search doesn't show us in the top 100 answers.
Not what you'd expect from "The UK's leader in the sector"
I'm worried that we're allowing the opportunity of a generation pass us by here and need reassuring that this is not the case in the very near future.
Pleasing market reaction given no new info. Seems weird when a company doesn't mention "Covid" once in a financial report.
It looks like management will reinvest any additional revenue while preserving the full year consensus of $600k operating profit.
I also would have hoped for a statement saying that the current environment is presenting strong revenue opportunities. The overall tone of the release is fairly restrained. This is the most positive statement I could find:
"Recent global challenges have ensured that online education is a subject more in the public eye than ever before. Whilst there will be macro-economic factors in play for an extended period, more people are becoming aware that online education is a real possibility and that organisations cannot simply advise that materials are available online."
Pleased with the results but they are as expected given February's update.
I was hoping for, indeed expecting, a further update on current trading though as results are up to end Feb & pre Covid.
Nice we've got steady rise in SP though so happy overall.
Hopefully we`ll get a bit more coverage and new investors taking stakes.
Half year loss last year of £895k
As expected the figures look great:
T/O £3,870k v £2,697k
Profit £215k v £
Well done WEY. Onwards and upwards.