The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Well this has been a glum 2 months in JIM !
I just stumbled, in youtube, upon a 1 month old "five minute pitch tv" good energy group investors update which is very interesting.
Half way through it zap map is mentioned as something they have high hopes for profit wise and which they have plans to go international with.
A very good 5 minutes for any interested investor, imho.
Andle/Oldboy
Thanks for your thoughts, to me the persistency of the purchases does seem to hint at a potential bit of M&A but the company is poorly covered, if cover is really an appropriate word, by the market players. I guess we just need to stay patient but the interesting part of them, imho, is their depth in the ev charging market.
If anything is likely to tempt a buyer, that is surely the part that would.
Henners
Agreed but certainly seems to have underperformed Merchants over any reasonable timescale, which is witnesssed by MRCH still able to issue new shares most days on a 1% premium.
TBH I own both but MUT in a smaller size, I bought MUT because it has a lower yield and thus a rather different portfolio to MRCH but I admit to not being over the moon with it these past few years whilst even this week I have added to my MRCH holding.
Am I missing something in MUT ?
A very pleasing trading update today.
Ryno
I fear it is a Diana Ross "I'm still waiting"....
FD
Indeed you are 100% correct, if debt was inflation adjusted the UK national debt would be rather insignificant.
But we all know it is not. Debt is debt & we are aware MARS has too much, hence its shares trade like option money at present.
As for longtime taking 6 posts between 20.17 & 21.04 on Thursday to argue about MARS debt & Findlays crassness in locking shareholders in to some debt on high interest suggested to me that perhaps he could have been enjoying some of Marstons finest, not that I would blame him for that as I am most partial to their beers myself, but posting whilst "having fun" is less than ideal.
On a more serious note what was your take on the trading update, my first read was that it was relatively encouraging but the fact that they have not indicated where the property sales were compared to the book value leaves me fearing we have taken losses, indeed there are so many ex pubs for sale in my area of London that they appear to be "offered and not bid", some have been empty for over a year now. Not Marstons area, I know, but not a good read on the market in general, for sure.
Wild
Agreed, this does seem to be in the dog house for no real reason, a great business in a growth area and like so many aim shares has become a victim of "more sellers than buyers" syndrome.
I added again today as a long term tuckaway
Longtime
"interest rate on debt at start of 2009 was 6.3%"
BofE base rate was 0.5% in March 2009 with a further fall to 0.25% in August 2016, (having falllen from 5.75% which they were in July 2007).
They moved up again to 0.75%.
Then with covid in 2020 even more QE occurred so yes as I said "interest rates were an awful lot lower than they are now", MARS problem was they locked in some debt at high levels, with hindsight beimg 20/20 at precisely the wrong time, & to compound that error failed to pay down other, floating, debt before covid when business was good & rates were low due to QE.
Thus MARS is now saddled with huge debt in a business sector which has proved less than stellar.
Longtime
Debt was higher pre pandemic & interest rates were an awful lot lower then than they are now, thus encouraging growth.
Pre pandemic pubs were open as usual, during & post pandemic they were closed/open in restricted hours.
Businesses were growing pre pandemic, now they are trying to grow back to what they were,
I can list a few other points but I hardly feel it is necessary...
Carpe
Thanks for that, but as you allude to, a less than ideal date selection...
Thx, where did you see that ?
Carpe
This time last year the AUM announcement was 14 October, so I guess we will know (perhaps people in the market already know), what they look like in a very few days ?
At present these are trading at just under 27.5p, is that a record low ?
If not it must be very close to it by looking at the chart. Whatever, at this level they really are option money.
Clearly the institutions are not being tempted in which leaves it to the PI's to trade it, but given the silence of the super-puffers today I wonder if they are losing their enthusiasm ?
Most of us on this board make sensible comments even if we disagree, but the noisiest are those who do nothing but try to puff it up & today they appear to have lost their voices.
Funny that...
Lejib
I agree re MAB, interestingly one thing the update did not say was whether the sales of the pubs were at, above or below book value, which is obviously very relevant for the net asset value of the company.
Call me a cynic perhaps, but I do become nervous when something I consider important is omitted in favour of telling us how they have fixed food & energy costs.
Also net debt decreased by less than the sale of the pubs, not necessarily ominous as their accounts are complicated (to say the least), but worth looking at when the accounts are released.
It is released, sales of £55m pubs have been made with a further £50m targetted.
Net borrowings down £31m on the year, £19m on the half year, standing at £1,185 m currently.
As ever with MARS we wait to see how Mr Market takes these figures but on first read it looks relatively upbeat.
FD
Thanks for raising the specsavers aspect, I was wondering why he was confusing Lime Street & Chatham with 25 Gresham Street, but there again nothing surprises with the posts he makes.
Being a generous person, I've wished he could be likened to a broken clock, which at least is right twice a day, way better than his record. Still at some point he will have his broken clock moment & when that happens he will possibly liken himself to Warren Buffet, or maybe even the man who taught Warren all he knows ?
Meanwhile he struggles to see that one can buy 57% more shares at 28p than at 44p.
Sad really.