Land Secs. Share Price (LAND)

I've known this plc since the 1960's. Beautifully run & sensibly financed (30% LTV). Held the stock constantly since 2005 (In at £6.62). & doubled holding in 2018 (at £8.38). Biggest mistake was not selling half, or more, during Brown's time as PM, when it hit £24.

After this week's results several city brokers turned v. negative, especially with cancelled dividend. I realised that all positive emotions needed to be ignored & a long, cold look taken. Conclusion; while I've been v. realistic since 2017 over the existence of far too many shops, nationwide & worldwide, all getting creamed by online trade, this Covid epidemic might be a real turning point for both shops and offices. It was time for a "Let's throw the Kitchen-Sink and Armageddon at LAND" exercise.

So, assuming that Covid & Online will cripple shopping centres, even good ones and that Home-Working plus Recession for next few years will cause many tenants to vacate skyscrapers, I'll hammer the Book Values.

Offices at 31/03 are £6 billion. Retail £5.7b: Kitchen-Sink the offices by 1/3rd to £4b and halve the retail to £2.9b. Total debt today is £3.9b, reducing net Asset Value to £3, or £4 per share. Is that a floor to the SP?

What about cash-flow? Today it's £400 million pa. from Net rental Income of £583m, less £98m of interest on debt and £85m of management expenses. Let's hammer the rents by 40% down to £350m pa., leaving a cash-flow of £167m. Thus, even in what is, hopefully, a very worst-case analysis, the company maintains good positive cash-flow.

Are there any reasons for optimism? Yes. I think so. This plc has always been very well & conservatively run, from the founder, Lord Samuel to today. It has low, cheap, debt and its' cash flow will stabilise at a lower, but still over £100m pa. level. Plus, there are going to be some stonking opportunities to pick up, once-in-a-generation, prime assets from distressed owners and/or their lenders - See Intu & Hammerson definitely. British Land possibly - during the next two years. This may be a very real opportunity to go bottom fishing for assets that could be worth multiples more on a 5/10/15 year view.

My decision? Caution is the watchword. This was a major holding, and I don't want to be left holding the best Galleon Builder on the south coast, just as we move from the Age of Sail to Ironclad Steamships in the North East. I just don't know.

So yesterday I sold 60% of the holding and took advantage of the depressed market to buy 3i investment trust. It's well run but has spent much of it's recent life priced at a premium, sometimes up to 40%, over net assets, which I wasn't willing to pay. As 3i is now at a small discount to updated NAV, it seemed a relative bargain.

If there are any other old West End regulars of the Guinea, with opinions/forecasts on where Land stands today & is maybe going, I'd love to read them here.

Land sec shares have fallen quite a lot now and i would think the current share price level is a very good entry point for a mid to long term hold topped up yesterday and a little more today

90 people 20th of april , dam text !!

Sounds like genedrive to me , they have a test that can be transported globally for 96 hours unrefrigerated , roche are distributing for them , its 14 days into testing 95 people , 45 with placebo drug 45 without , initial testing was very accurate phase 2 14 day testing started on the 29 th April , with a possible 14 days post test monitoring , with Tally's with boris announcement , genedrive have just done a placing to raise 7mil and now apparently have an ' inventory' .
Dyor all the best folks

Is the date Boris Johnson mentioned in his address to the nation for when they are looking at the staged re-opening of shops.

That'll do nicely. Very nicely indeed.

Imo