Moneysupermarket.Com Share Price (MONY)

Berenberg today raises mony to buy rating ( from hold).

No impairment of goodwill in the entities though, so acquired entities are still trading well.

An increase in amortisation can help companies delay tax payments, keeping cash that they can invest or pay in dividends.

They are a bit miss-leading in the presentation slides when they talk about the amortisation charge, they have stated

"that aside, like-for-like operating costs up 6% excluding non-cash and one-off items (incl. £9.8m amortisation charge and effects of Podium consoidation).

This is not wholly a one off item, amortisation will be higher in future years because they have halves the useful life of some of the intangibles, the £9.8m will include this years increased charge plus prior years charges to catch up. just changing this for quidco is an extra £2m of amortisation charge per year for the next couple of years.

Whats everyones thoughts on the SuperSaveClub?

It seems an expensive way to acquire customers, with the refer a friend bonus and the amount they pay you for taking out an insurance policy they are actually running at a loss of £10-24* per customer acquired. That’s if the customer doesn’t use the “free days out” pass which bumps this up.

This must be more expensive than pay per click, but perhaps cheaper than the TV adverts. The on going rewards probably make the customers more loyal, but I wonder if the average customer interact with MSM regularly enough for them to remember the next time they do their annual car insurance renewal that they are part of the SuperSaveClub. Perhaps if they start adding more rewards for mortgage comparison, new credit cards, loans etc then this will turn into a really good (and profitable) loyalty scheme.

*For Refer a friend, MSM pay paying £20 each to you and your friend for the referral plus £15 to your friend to take out the insurance. So a total of £55

The income they get is easy to estimate, its what Quidco pay back for insurance comparison, currently £45 for car insurance, and £34 for home insurance. So per acquired customer the club costs them £10 - £26.

Barclays analysts cut price target on comparison website to 295p from 305p; maintain 'overweight' rating. Analysts at Barclays expect Q1 rev to be strongest qtr of year at +9% and then slow down, exiting year at low single-digit growth.

I will continue to hold, it s a quality company with a 4% yield. May get an offer one day.