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Weak balance sheet was another comment I made in the deleted post.

The balance sheet shows negative net current assets and negative tangible net assets, while the cashflow statement shows negative operating cashflow. I think it would be very difficult to describe the combination of negative operating cashflow and negative net current assets as in any way indicative of a strong balance sheet.

Negative net current assets means that it's near-term liabilities outweigh its near-term assets. Yes it has cash, but that is more than offset by its near-term liabilities. If it were to try to settle up all its near-term positions (including the accruals and deferred income) it would be in the red. This is very unusual, I think. Most businesses have positive net current assets with a positive near-term working capital balance perhaps being funded by longer-term liabilities. A positive net-current assets position means the business should be able to ride out a short-term hit by crystallising some of that position e.g. scaling back some business to extract working capital.

Negative net tangible assets means that if it were to try to settle up all its positions (including long-term ones), it would also be in the red except for the "intangibles". i.e. its only net value in a winding-up type of scenario comes from the value of the intangibles, mainly amounts relating to acquisitions (the excess of what they paid over what the tangible assets were valued at) - and in that scenario you would have to assume effectively fire-sale conditions, so probably not being able to realise the intangible value sitting on the balance sheet.

I think this was another comment I made in the deleted post. So some evidence for that is as follows:

3.8+ million shares sold by Lombard Odier between 24/10/17 and 30/9/18 (5.65m down to under 1.8m [3%] now)
3.7+ million shares sold by Miton between 25/10/17 and 30/9/18 (5.5m down to under 1.8m [3%] now)
0.6 million shares sold by Killik & Co between 18th May and 20th June (3.6m down to 3.0m)
0.4+ million shares sold by Hargreave Hale since 18/9/17 (2.2m down to below 3%)
0.4+ million shares sold by Schroders between 24/10/17 and 30/9/18 (2.2m down to below 3%)
0.3 million shares sold by Legal & General between 20th June and 18th October (4.9m down to 4.6m)

All holdings numbers from holdings notices, annual reports or other rns's. Please correct if you think any of the numbers are wrong.

Recently we had the news that Ameriprise had increased by 550,000 shares, so this might be an indicator that the institutional mood has changed, but a bit early to make that call definitively I would say.

I put a post up about this on Monday, just to offer a bit of a factual counter to the ramping that was going on around buy orders being filled, canny buyers, the price racing away if the buyer wasn't careful etc.

My post was subsequently deleted, apparently because someone complained that I was offering opinions that were presented as fact. Now given the knowledge there is on this board about the company, I would have thought the evidence for the factual statements was unnecessary, but clearly someone wants me to go to the trouble of posting the evidence as well.

The shareprice evidence is there for all to see of course. Yahoo! Finance, for example, shows the price closing at 20.0p on 2nd November, the trading day before the results were published on Monday 5th November. So canny buyers notwithstanding, we're still well below that price despite the results, the CQC ratings news and the Ameriprise holdings notice.

Too many numbers! Overall I get the impression that there's a bit of disappointment coming through the commentary on some of the adjusted numbers. But for once some of the things that are adjusted out give a real boost to the bottom line numbers. In particular those fair value movements in derivatives provide a real boost to the reported profit and EPS.

At the risk of triggering I don't know what, I have to say Tony Blair made a lot of sense to me on Andrew Marr. In particular, 2 ideas: 1. that Labour MPs would come round to supporting a second referendum because they would realise the negotiated deal wouldn't satisfy (most of) the Labour voters in their constituencies who voted for brexit; 2. that a 2-choice referendum between a hard (no deal) brexit and no brexit would be a better option than a 3-choice one which included the negotiated deal, because it would present the electorate with a clear choice between 2 relatively well-understood options (and I think acknowledge both parliamentary defeat and wider dissatisfaction on both sides with the negotiated deal). In terms of what that would mean for tef and other housebuilders, were it to happen, I would guess a big relief rally on the announcement (on the assumption that remain would win) followed at some point by a lot more volatility as investors again got nervous about a "leave" result.

Looking at the FY18 annual report I haven't updated my list for Standard Life dropping out of the declared holders list. So adjusting for that I get the sum to just a bit below 100% as follows:
29.9% Sports Direct
18.3% Toscafund
17.3% Schroders
10.0% FIL
8.2% Credit Suisse
4.9% Henderson
4.5% R&M
4.1% Aberforth

Which adds up to about 97%. So still seems likely in my opinion that the above list either fails to account for a reduction in someone's holding, or there's some double-counting (e.g. might Credit Suisse's cash-settled swap be a transaction with one of the other holders?).

If I add up the voting rights for the holdings notices I have in my spreadsheet, I now get to more than 100% with Credit Suisse having appeared from nowhere to hold 8.2%.

So I presume one of the bigger holders has been selling to them and we are yet to see the holdings notice.

Or sobering even. I'm just hoping Labour can sort themselves out soon and line up behind the second referendum option.

But apart from that things would be ok? Sober reading.

http://www.columbiathreadneedle.com/en/about-us/

We finally get news that might really signal a change in sentiment from the institutions and barely a comment on here. If I have the numbers right, Ameriprise has gone up by about 550k shares from the position shown in the annual report and now holds about 0.5m shares more than it did after the placing.

What sort of Healthcare sector background does he have?

He was quoted yesterday as revising his profit target on Dart Group (owner of Jet2) so it appears he is still active in the travel and leisure sector. The linkedin profile below appears to suggest he has had a long career covering the Travel & Leisure and Industrial Transportation sectors.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gert-zonneveld-9a0b785/?originalSubdomain=uk

Agree comeonvog. They come across as very competent operationally. But imo they need convincing big contract news and clear evidence of improved financials to re-rate the share price ( or perhaps a buyback). This operational news may put them on the way to that but of itself it's just not that significant to the shareprice imo.

In what sense is it worth a lot more? Where can I see that in the market cap? Or do you just mean they overpaid?

But the point is, we were all expecting them to be upgraded from an unacceptable weren't we so that should be in the share price. The additional upgrade st Royal Stoke is good, but how significant?

Still - you thought the Newlands buying in was significant news didn't you, Del? It's great that they've got a double upgrade at Royal Stoke but was anybody expecting them not to get an upgrade from unacceptable?

Steph I'm still out of tef and sticking with crst for now, but continue to read this board, not least for your political analysis. What do you think the chances of a deal are now? With the EU seeing JoJo resign and potentially become a catalyst for other remainers to declare in favour of a new referendum, isn't it now reasonably likely that the EU will refuse any further concessions? If May can't, as a result, get a deal she feels has any chance of getting through parliament that takes us to an in-out referendum doesn't it, where "out" is without a deal? If "out" wins again, the EU can always offer a deal at that point, but might feel that is a low probability outcome. May could instead go for delay + general election but what platform would she campaign on?

I've believed in the investment case since I bought in a year or so ago. But not blindly.

I'm in the buying opportunity camp and have just added.

No idea what's causing the drop, which is a concern. There are a couple of new accounting standards which they will be adopting this year and which they referred to in the full year results - one of them appears to have the effect of halving net assets if I'm reading it correctly. But this has been known for some time so I don't see how we can peg the current plunge to that.

Volume doesn't seem to have been particularly high recently and given the low effective free float maybe some of the drop is down to liquidity if someone needs to sell a relatively small amount - but you would think one of the existing holders would be interested in mopping up small amounts on any material drop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaRORam1aoA&t=001s

I think del forgot to post the link this time. Justin's learned a bit about the balance sheet since his earlier video.