Member Info for adamsmithfreethi

No - nothing in my account. Barclays stockbrokers are my provider. Who are yours?

Dividend - depending on when you held the shares a 4p dividend is due to be paid in cash on 15 August - watch this sapce

You appear to confuse a surfeit glossy pages with a dearth of hard information. Sorry not that stupid. As you are clearly being paid to do this why don't you send me some pre-admission documents and save me the bother? I'm still looking for those five reasons. After all you are presumably paid to add some value to the process rather than infest BBs with unsubstantiated opinion aren't you?

The vast majority of both companies products are sold in stores not websites. Give me 5 good reasons why I should favour a completely unknown company to a slightly more known one?

51.4p I wish all of us luck that this is at the bottom. Interestingly this trading statement contained real figures (increases) whereas CAMK which also realeased a TS recently didn't. Guess which share went up? Either I'm no t rational or Mr Market isn't, gulp!

This company and CAMK are like two ugly (the the stockmarket's eyes) sisters, competitors but also following the same strategy of listing on AIM. Also have the same auditors. I reckon if one does well/badly/audit issues etc this could be a good indicator as to what is happening with the other one. CAMK trading statement due soon - lets hope it is not delayed. Normally not a good sign!

You make your points well. I'll hold for the moment (i'm down but not yet out). A trading statement is due shortly. I'll take stock then.

It's good to get a debate going with people willing to see both sides of a bargain. Firstly, asclypius thank you for reminding me that my investment is crazy money - it is! But and but it's not the only crazy investment opportunity. I'm thinking of so call internet sales such as Just East where they floated on multiples of sales more than NBU is quoted as a multiple of earnings! Also I don't know if you have been following the QPP saga but at least I can understand NBU as a business whereas (and I'm an accountant) the QPP accountant are impenetrable and contradictory. Also they've been through auditors at a rate of knotts. At least NBU have kept theirs. Incidentally they share the same auditors as CAMK a similar beast. As far as brand building are concerned I'm not too bothered about exploring with different brands. As long as they think things through it may work. China is wild west at the moment not least in tier 3&4 cities where they are strong. Asclypius which red flags does this compay have compared with comparables if you don't mind me asking?

Thank you for your response - very detailed and yes I can see why you bailed out. However, in a curious way I am less concerned about macro-economic issues than family tie ups. What bothers me is any possibility of a family stitch up where value is transferred from the quoted company to some sort of unlisted entity. I'm not for one moment suggesting this could happen but the bag company owned by his mother with ownership of the brands/trade marks does concern me. Curiously, not having enough workers to make shoes is less concerning. In China & Vietnam there are 000s of OEMs who will make shoes and wage rises on the coast is a known issue. I think if NBU is to prosper it will be through the success of its brand just like western competitors. Clarke Whitehall appear to be big in China so their Singapore subsidiary auditing the China operations is a plus sign so I'm reasonably confident that the cash exists. As you say it could all be frittered away in a vanity project in Sichuan. I'll be watching the cash flow like a hawk!

I've just done a scan of the annual report 2013 and cannot find any reference to to a loan from the company to any relatives (although I understand one is categorised as a long term lease) or from the CEO to the company. Where have you referenced this?

The steer confirms what I maintained earlier that this company is one problem away from a cash crunch. Pretty much as Hardon indicates. If this happens ( I repeat IF) it'll be interesting to see whether there is a cash call or the murky politics of ex USSR will intervene. Either way spells loss of shareholder value but with the FD gone I'll be less likely to jump in to try to recoup losses.

You are spot on! I couldn't put it better myself. Either way this is a high risk return. I part company with others on the other side of the equation. Namely that even if gold goes up I think returns will be moderate for a long while whilst the debt pile is reduced. Furthermore, gold needs to stay up to sustain this effort. I will be a long hard slog - not sure the get rich quick crowd are ready for this. Anyway I will definitely shut up now.

clearly your look at the accounts was indeed cursory. Look under finance costs - you'll see the £5~ firgure. The fact that these appear under finance costs and not operating costs shows, in my opinion, a company in denial. Interest is a cost of doing day-to-day business not an investment. I'll not argue further time will tell. Just to say I'm no genius either since I lost 48% of my investment when I sold up. Good luck all - maybe we'll revisit after the interims.Reluctantly I'm back to the day job in the meantime.

btw this is a classic sign of stress. Rather than paying interest as it falls due it is added to capital. It has the added bonus for the company of not appearing in the P&L. If it had the company would have made a loss

Looking at note 7 the only non cash items are depreciation and amortisation that sum to 12.3m. Looking at the cash flow note (25) you can add in inventory write off (yes really!) of 0.4m, checking note 6 (other operating expenses) and I’m pretty sure you’ve capture all the non-cash items. So take total operating costs (71-5) deduct non cash cost of 13 so you have 53. Now you add back finance costs of 3.8 but note 10 tells you that an additional amount of 1.9 has been capitalised so true cash finance costs are 6m. Total cash costs are, therefore, 59m. Divide by output of 52k gives you a true cash cost of USD1150 per oz which is not too far from my original flash estimate below. Your figure of USD600 you quote will exclude everything I’ve excluded plus exceptional costs and finance costs. In my opinion it is a meaningless figure since exceptional costs have a habit of recurring and finance costs have to be paid or the company is bust.

Ha ha bad pun! If you look at the consoliday statment P&L you will see that in 2013 compared with 2012 they managed to produce 3m less output but incurred (cost of sales) 20m more costs. You will also see a x ref to note 7. Go to note seven and as you have already seen inventory expensed is 20m more. Hence my assertion that for 2013 production costs are really much higher than they assert. You have to take into account real cash costs e.g. interest which they conventiently leave out of their definition and also leave out of operating costs. Hope this helps...

Er - I've looked at the 36m figure quoted. It's NOT a write off. It's merely (real cash) expenses recognised once the metal gets sold. If it was a write off it would get written back in note 25. I hasn't. I'll stick with my calculations for the time being.

This figures are worse than I reckoned. For starters the profit quoted is pre-tax. Tax is real and deductive the post tax profit is 330k. The cash burn (free cash) was -12m and the total cash cost of production was, I calculate, over USD 1000 per oz (operating cash flow minus interest payment divided by total production minus average average price obtained). I sold out last week at a loss and, so far, am not regretting it.

Do I believe your scenario for the future could pan out? Yes I do! However, I think my alternative version could also happen. My point is that the 2 versions of the future don't hold an equal prospect of reward. Even the most optimistic view only holds the prospect of a slow grinding recovery as debt is paid off. However, I believe one more costly production problem will prove calamatous for the sp. Yes they could issue new shares but what sort of discount would they have to offer? This aysmetric relationship still leads me to believe the sp is too high. God - I've turned into Hardon!

No problems - it's good to have a well intentioned debate. That way everybody ends up better informed.