Member Info for andsoforth

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/933579/lloyds-is-best-bank-for-coronavirus-vaccine-bet-says-broker-933579.html

Unaudited profit in UK of £2.082m; cash exceeds £6.5m. Loss in embryo HK business of £153k, with cash of £483k. "The actual results exceeded management expectations." Accounts have been delayed to nearer the end of this month. PER is 6.8 with 70% of the market cap in cash. Seems rather undevalued?

Up 12% yesterday, with a buy of 1.2m; and up a further 4.5% today with volume much lower. Traditionally there have been share price movements (up and down) prior to important announcements. This is a leaky ship, so could something be on the way?

1.3 million traded today, mainly buys. Anybody any idea why, or do we just await the RNS?

Well so much for settling over 8.3! Cursed it! Guess I will have to wait another decade!!!! ; )

Hi Brill. The dividend is not guaranteed, and personally I will be surprised to see it. They made it clear it was subject to circumstances, and these now appear to be deteriorating. Buying here is buying for 2022.

Thanks MrM. 15 or so would suit me very well. I was reckoning on a possible 17p a share, though that was actually calculated about a decade ago!! We have slipped today, so I may have cursed us. The POG is of course key here, but so is the disposal of Kilimapesa. This venture has cost us very dear. It strikes me as a far from done deal, unfortunately.

Hopefully now sticking above 8.3! Do you have a predicted target Mr Mullen? (I am a very long termer, so am just in profit here!)

Yes 250 is coming, and probably lower. There was support at around 267, so if we finish the day below that, which seems likely, it could hit the 230s, and below. It is spring next year before a dividend is due, and there is much to happen before that, so no real hurry to buy here.

Long term holder here too! Ultimately this will be taken over. Sir Peter Wood is of an age when he would like the cash. There was a rejected offer at 120 a year or two back. Something near that would take it now. In the meantime there is a nice wee dividend to enjoy.

Hi Poker
I totally agree with all you say, but I still think a Biden win will see an adverse price reaction here, in the shorter term. Having said that, I can still see Trump pulling it out of the bag. RDSB may be bottoming, or it may still be in a down trend, but I don't think it can be totally immune from market pressures and broader political and economic events in the shorter term; especially in these nervous times.

Sub 900 and more will come if Biden wins. It is little mentioned, but to keep the Sanders supporters on board, he has promised carbon neutral by 2050 or before, total replacement of the school bus fleet with electric vehicles, and other anti-oil measures. He mentioned the need to 'move away from oil' in the debate last night. A big slide could still come.

VCP are getting an injection of up to £175m to spend on acquisitions, from the privately owned Koch group. This may be on the shopping list. A previous bid at c60p was rejected, but anywhere near that could be a winner now.

Hi Peter
They do seem to have a nasty habit of taking on really stupid contracts though! This is low margin work, so a high PER is not on the cards, but the assets seem to make this undervalued. Given the state of the EU withdrawal and the virus, it may still be best to sit on our hands.

Market cap 93.3m
Cash 197m
PPIs valued at 41m
Debt -57m
Therefore total assets exceed market cap by £181m?

PER is 9.5 and Price to Book is 0.77. Annual statement to end of June 2020 stated results 'in line' and all sites now back at work.

Meant to add PER is 6.2 and price to book is 0.75. Value?

Preliminary results to end of June, announced last month said:
Debt c£32m (up 7.6%)
EPS 8p (down 14%)
Given there were three months of reduced/minimal trade this seems acceptable.
A week later wives of directors buy shares worth c£150,000 at an average price of c57p. Available today at 55.7p.
Good recovery play?

One employee has voted with her feet:
"Phiona Tam joins [BMLL] from Liquidnet, where she was Product Manager for Electronic Trading, specialising in algo and block trading products. Prior to that she was a Business Analyst, Technologist and Developer at Credit Suisse."

Thanks Roley. Very much appreciated. I cannot argue against anything you have said, but remain disappointed that I cannot see any Liqidnet financial details. Here is the Liquidnet Europe statement for last year:

https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/Pg7LXwUEm-Mpz_5CdegUwH5QYDt9_p35q3Yvwkt6o5U/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3KTHHHQX4%2F20201001%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20201001T100404Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEEYaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJIMEYCIQDRhayhhKE6rrGZrDSSMj7oXGwZJcKAfaxlSEuSLM1kfQIhAL4rvlTfP7ohhCgxWv2N6WCmBss1Ps5Dgrjbi2x%2Bm5zMKrQDCG8QAxoMNDQ5MjI5MDMyODIyIgw389cYYIRmWnT%2FK38qkQPmbocyfbcgT%2FfsRPvkBb2kB6u%2F7fv5mBi1Kfl35zUjhXhzQY6TUs0IBRa7wHo8wVOT2mts6T3d9fMMgPb1dTpWFjd3Fr512i9eFHD9Tm0dpF%2BA9qzPaNzAsjay0QLuf4Xo1Xb91olKHzA9QWLO96k8Kk2Vla%2FuOw1v8UfBrWBM6vA21OQ064j0%2FC872fYatskax0w4ybSIqH6HgKMkNqml6Y23ZayNn%2BgT%2BoqjtArg3iVKH7TwgTvBB0E15t7omjl6bA6%2Fb5p0soDsPpAbdh0CiZvAUmagRahuPPlFXfxzcdU1NcAeVo%2F3uA7J4PSnriG4i4c2quBcubWcT5AZGJEnT1D14YDjMRZAVdOT15DkBmQyIK%2B2huvgd0HBzcYTXWntI4iTE5wli6w8P2cUdDu88r%2F63f86pRSS3QJuaCGWD0YvNuAeLgJzXsOtHWYl3Z48pupbGL9xJZhVm75Rnk4bIlRScHsWugsh2pHRXlttTwUxHphpABwNOwDI2nS%2B2ENxJSuRndC9tjn5Oj4r4mvWPTD85NX7BTrqAUiD9A%2Fw06lPOm16u4Eo100Kb4CL47CI%2FTa28NBeD%2FUvfEh%2FsIaAhRUCoiWIxSWUcTuPhiTpmS5X1sSSvXbHjTQpHgpj%2FZVKfT94xl8Lctphc%2BYLzSFoDCjRikvQahhrsvGUBj4DF0AolzOONsli99ALC1cgUImbwb7XrcxvVp01zjhAWHYT4HVZRH1q6BocW0lmfA0y2jfduaJMQEeG5o7zaJBHFjF7N7L0yzavyiFwFz%2FDZalbddhuLyE75wv4B2r%2FCvGvE57ozuvonb3eYLthGolK0Km4KgbrHiWaDcOm4xty6JU8WKvokg%3D%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=4ca5f99092ddd8b7f891098a60bc27e08adc2c4210b4c5fd0956bf8a5d1ef663

Operating profit fell by 60%. Reports previously suggested an asking price of $1bn, but TCAP are paying a good deal less. There does seem to be distress here, though not an imminent failure. Unfortunately I cannot find out how the other areas have performed, or any estimate how the virus has impacted. I think this is a pig in a poke, but hope TCAP are better informed than me! This seems a binary action: eithe TCAP will get dragged under, or it will, as you suggest, be a fantastic acquisition. The market, I think, is reacting to the uncertainty. My holding is small, so I will hold. I won't add until things are clearer here. Thanks again for your help.

Hi Roley
Liquidnet has been up for sale since the end of May and TCAP seem to be the only takers. All the supposed US bidders, and private equity, have declined to move. They seem to be doing a lot less business due the current crisis, and they have made a few marginal acquisitions over the last few years that have added nothing to the business. There is also an outstanding sexual harassment suit against the company, which is probably why the CEO moved sideways earlier this year.

TCAP quoted EBITDA in their RNS, which does not see conducive to confidence. The brokers are also unhappy:
"Cannacord Genuity downgraded their recommendation and target price for shares of broker dealer TP Icap after the firm disclosed that it was in "advanced discussions" to acquire non-listed Liquidnet Holdings.
According to the Canadian broker, the proposed purchase for $600-700m - including an upfront payment of $550m - valued the takeover target at 12 times' its trailing earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation to June 2020.
Furthermore, given the absence of forecasts for Liquidnet, Canaccord plugged in its own assumptions and reached the conclusion that TP Icap's claim that the transaction would be neutral for earnings per share in year two was off.
For that to be true, they estimated that Liquidnet would need to nearly double its EBITDA.
Instead, Canaccord judged that the purchase would be 12% earnings dilutive, leading it to lower its earnings per share estimates for TP Icap for 2021 and 2022 to 33.9p and 34.4p, respectively.
Hence, analysts Justin Bates and Portia Patel downgraded their recommendation for the company's shares from 'buy' to 'hold' and slashed their target price from 401.0p to 275.0p."

Personally I cannot find a simple set of accounts for Liquidnet, so again I smell something.
Why are you so confident here? (I hold and am continuing to do so).