Comptoir Grp Share Price (COM)

Should be a nice little trade for year end result this month.

Wouldn't bank on it coming to shareholders. The board room dynamics are concerning.

From the shareholder letter June 2022, available on Comptoir Group website:

"The Independent Directors are disappointed that as a director of the Company, Mr Kitous is choosing to put his own financial interests and personal profile ahead of Independent Shareholders of the Company. The Independent Directors believe that if Mr Kitous is successful in removing Mr Kleiner and Mr Hanna from the board, he may lose the support of the senior team and seek to use the net cash of the Company for his own personal gain and, over time, could seek to de-list the Company from AIM without prior consultation with Independent Shareholders or appropriate fair value consideration being paid to Independent Shareholders. As such the Independent Directors of the Company believe that Independent Shareholders are at risk of losing part or all of their investment within the Company if Mr Kitous succeeds in the removal of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer."

The reappointments of Hanna and Kleiner after such a falling out is therefore concerning, especially given the insight within this letter into Kitous' involvement and supposed intentions.

June 2022 - Kitous (47.6% shareholder) pushed CEO Hanna (18% shareholder) and Chair Kleiner (I think 0.5% shareholder) out... they stepped down in Aug 2022 with Hanna receiving a £720k "legal" pay off.

Aug 2022 - Jean-Michel Orieux as independent non-exec director and Beatric Lafon as independent non-exec chair. JMO to act as interim CEO until new CEO found.

Oct 22 - Nick Ayerst starts as CEO. Hanna back as CEO giving board 66% control of the company and Kleiner to return as chair.

Dec 24 - Nick Ayerst steps down. JMO and AA resign as they cannot effectively represent shareholder interests against the board.

Looks cheap this for all the cash?

This ongoing board/ownership battle continues, perhaps starting in 2022 for anyone interested to look more into it. It's really unclear what this means for shareholders, but Kitous, especially when combined with Hanna, dictate the company's future.

This is a shame as their holdings would provide them far more value in capital appreciation if they allowed the availability of their stock to entice interested buyers. In view of continued post-inflation growth which suggests that they have a valuable service/product. This fact is further attested by comparision with many failing restaurant businesses and being depsite increasing competition due to food apps.

Their shareholdings would appreicate many times over if this achieved a real market valuation (given growth, cash, and cash generation) with increased, even token, emphasis on shareholder return. Their shares could easily 10x.

Wagamama was bought for at £560m (they had 6x number of Comptoir Group restaurants, £560mn/6=£93m). You can futher discount this £93m sales valuation for things like different brand values, different growth prospects etc,) but even extremely heavy discounting makes this a potention multibagger... but only if the company's share are allowed to trade more freely on the market with strong confidence in shareholder support and representation.

If Kitous and Hanna, if rationally bothered about enriching themselves as much as possible, see the bigger picture then they would realise they stand to make far more - through capital appreciation of shareholdings rather than increasing wages from the growing company - from allowing shares to freefloat and enticing investment houses

MC lo looks quite low. Net cash is 5.9m.