Member Info for 1GW_

One of the selling points of this company as an investment, in my opinion, is the skin in the game that both the CEO and the Chairman have. Click on the "BYOT Directors Deals" tab on this site and note the "holding" and the prices they have been buying at.

Thanks Ejackson. Looking back at the 3Q comments in the interims published on 16th Dec, if that was the TU, then it was very encouraging, suggesting record performance over Black Friday and pre-Christmas without having had to engage in excessive discounting:

"Record sales from Studio in peak Black Friday and Christmas period"

"We saw more customers waiting for Black Friday and Christmas than in previous years but when they arrived post period-end, they did so in record numbers. Record levels of online sessions in a single day (781k on Black Friday), daily dispatches exceeding 100k parcels for the first time ever, and product sales in the last 11 weeks up 10% on prior year underlines Studio's digital growth trajectory."

'We are pleased to have reported a strong increase in Adjusted PBT* in the first half, followed in Q3 by a record sales performance from Studio during our peak seasonal trading period.
We know that Studio's customers look for value all year round, so we do not need to chase promotional trends to maintain our market position. "

I guess it's official now. Can't hurt any negotiations on partnering.

"byotrol is currently sold out in the USA due to overwhelming demand from the coronavirus outbreak."

https://www.byotrol24.com/

The wait goes on - although the shareprice doesn't seem to be suffering because of it.

The backstory on QPI-1002 for DGF, as far as I could tell from working through various SBI presentations, was that formally it failed to meet the primary end-point of the original Phase 3 trial. However, Quark argued that this was because they changed some of the parameters between Phase 2 and Phase 3, in particular reducing the minimum cold storage time before transplantation, and that if they looked just at those patients where cold storage time was longer than 24 hours, the drug showed "utility". So ever since it appears they've been negotiating with the FDA to get into the New Drug Application process, despite not having met the primary end-point of the original study. This is why there has been such a delay compared to the original timetable for Phase 3 completion. In the meantime QPI-1002 for AKI is coming towards the end of its Phase 3 study, and SBI have talked about also having some preliminary indications of how that has gone around the end of the year.

Good news overall I think, although statutory profit looks a bit sick. Great to see the news on Education and underlying profitability & Q3 outlook encouraging. PPI no worse than previously suggested, but not closed out yet I think.

My guess is news on the sale will trump any disappointment with the statutory numbers in terms of market reaction, but who knows?

Given the strong bounce I've sold back the ones I bought in October, taking a c. 10% profit on them, just in case of any nasty surprises on Monday.

should help with the cost of sales.

Nice.

Well it could always be that they're hoping to conclude a big negotiation in the next week or two (sale of Education, landmark deal with SPD?) and want to be able to announce it with the results. But I think I would assume it's more likely that the reason is that results aren't going to be great (higher PPI hit perhaps?) and they're hoping something turns up, such as a good Black Friday, to allow them to present a balancing positive element.

I've just seen the "notice of results" rns whereby interims have apparently been postponed from "late November" to 16th December, without any explanation. On the face of it that doesn't seem encouraging.

https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/findel_plc/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=1424&newsid=1345899

And added some more today.

Sold something else, so reinvested some of the proceeds here. On the upside, apart from the encouraging July TU, I think they stand to benefit from a Brexit outcome which maintains or improves the current level of sterling (not guaranteed of course, but things looking more hopeful on that front than they were, and the shareprice doesn't seem to have had a Brexit bounce yet). On the downside, I'm a bit concerned about the level of ppi provision since they said in the September statement that they expected "the majority of these [new claims] will be rejected", so some exposure if that expectation proves wrong. I may add more next week after seeing how tomorrow's fun and games in parliament goes.

Ejackson - I haven't increased since selling some in June. I would like to, as I would like to top up various other holdings, but difficult to work out what to sell to finance purchases just at present.

That's the first time I have noticed them referring to it as "PPI".

I think most investors are waiting to see what they say at the R&D event this afternoon...

(cont)
i.e. cut the dividend. And there is the uncertainty of how the new CEO may want to reposition things in his first set of results at the end of the FY.

Good to see some familiar posters (aka TEF refugees) over here. By way of background I've been in CRST for most of the last 6 years (out briefly in 2017) and have had some success playing the market timing game on CRST and also swapped between CRST and TEF. I normally post on ADVFN but there's not a lot of reasoned debate over there. I am reading but not yet posting on the LSE BWY board, where I see other TEF posters are squatting.

In terms of the dividend outlook, they reaffirmed the 33p guidance for FY19 with the 1H results (June), with the caveat that there was no material deterioration in then-current market conditions. But at this level they are above their desired 2x cover (they moved from 3x cover to 2x cover between FY13 and FY17), as they were for FY18, so perhaps a question on sustainability there. They also have a new CEO starting in a couple of weeks time who could choose to reset the dividend policy as part of any kitchen-sinking exercise he feels he would like to carry out.

But under Stephen Stone and Chris Tinker they have "paused growth" and are generating cash / de-risking from an increased level of JV and pre-sales ("intermediate" sales), so cashflow should hold up (have guided to moving to net cash at end-FY).
So it seems to me they are positioning to be able to maintain the dividend, albeit with reduced cover, for a period of time while waiting for an upturn in profit. But if that upturn doesn't come, then at some point they may feel it more prudent to move back to 2x cover (I

As I read the results, only 46% of shares were voted, and only 3.5% (2.7m shares) were voted against the deal (and 1.4% of those spoken for by a single poster on here iirc).

At the end of the day, despite fairly significant arbitrage involvement, no-one else stepped up to counter-bid and CBRE presumably didn't blink if any attempt was made to lever up the price (subject to Takeover Panel approval) in exchange for voting through the deal.

So difficult to argue, perhaps, that it wasn't a fair price?