Member Info for bendipa1

Didderly-didderly-doo.

Bought @ 340p. Quite happy to tuck away for a few years. Will buy more if sp dips below £3, but no idea if that's likely. Seems to be support at 325 of late.

"Brokers have targets above 300p."

I'm afraid if you're going to believe what brokers tell you (where an sp will be in a year or 2 year's time) you may as well believe in the tooth fairy. One of the worst things one can do is take these people seriously - a real mug's game.

As it happens buying LGEN at this level and averaging down from here is probably a fairly safe exercise in the medium to long term. At least the div is unlikely to come under pressure during this period. But nothing is certain. And with the retirement due of CEO Nigel Wilson after 10 years in the job, his replacement could easily come along and screw things up, as happens on many occasions with new CEOs, who seem to tick all the 'right' boxes.

Last March CEO Mark Bartlett said with the final results:

“Strix will prioritise debt reduction and free cash flow generation, with a clear plan to get net debt-to-EBITDA to below 2.0x during 2023, and to below 1.5x during 2024."

Prioritise debt reduction, eh? What BS is that. Net debt increased from £87.4m (2022 finals) to 93.1m, net debt to EBITDA now up to 2.66.

So yet again, a classic example that you can never trust a word that top management say. The situation with top directors putting out misleading statements, which they do unashamedly, is becoming a lot more frequent than it was say 10 -15 years ago. As for STRIX I think it goes without saying that management have screwed up big time, from a once bright outlook pre Billi..to a near financial catastrophe. I would not believe in any quick recovery from here, as the debt alone with interest rate charges is going to imede that for the medium term at the very least.

It's very odd that this share is doing so poorly when they haven't put a foot wrong. Admittedly the div is measly at just over 3%, and they could afford to boost it by at least a third. Today they announced that FY results are expected to be ahead of expectations and the shares just sink further - over 3% today. What's even weirder is that there are examples I've noticed of several larger companies making losses and in deep debt. Yet the sp seems constantly firm even when those ones announce widening losses.

I've noticed most AIM stocks are right out of favour and have been ever since Covid, and that includes the few I know about that have been doing well. So it could just be that AIM stocks are now seen generally as something to avoid at all costs by most investors. I can still sell BEGB at a decent profit having bought in 2020 and 202. But that profit is dwindling fast.

Are you seriously trying to suggest that the BoD weren't aware that their market was flagging back in April as interest rate rises were already well underway? We're taliking about 3 short months ago, not 3 years ago. Their statement back in April was unduly optimistic and misleading at the very least, if not complet B/S.

We've even had one poster here, whom I won't name who was taken in by it. And I'm willing to bet there were a few more than just him.

So having told inestors as recently as last April:

"The underlying residential-for-rent market was performing well, with strong tenant demand and rental growth in the core purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) and build-to-rent (BTR) sectors. The company said it was seeing a recovery in the appetite for forward-funds, adding that it expected to close a number of transactions in the second half of the year." Note the comment about 'closing transactions' in the second half of year.

But 3 months later the BoD are now saying:

"Prevailing economic uncertainty have impacted negatively on market liquidity", meaning there is now "a greater degree of risks" over these transactions completing by the year end."

Clearly the BoD were mendacious when they put out that April statement. They knew interest rates were rising, they had sold no PBSA, and that the market was becoming les favourable. Yet now admitting that any PBSA transactions are unlikely this year and the same probably well into next year too.

You will always get found out when you lie about stuff in financial statements. Do these people never learn?

Nothing has changed since the Evergrande debt scandal, and ASHM is still heavily exposed to that Chinese basket case. They've kept very quiet about this issue throughout, which remains a Damocles sword hanging over ASHM. Investors are well up to speed about this and they will stay away. This problem isn't going to disappear

It looks like a slow death in store for ASHM. Meanwhile the div cuts will come as they should have done well over a year ago.

'... baldrock getting away with murder, he shafted it all '

I liked him in Black Udder.

"We know H2 is going to be really good and all the issues are written off in H1"

Do we know that? Methinks you are being unduly optimistic here, because so far there is nothing to indicate that that's going to be the case.

Dramatic turnaround over the year . I was expecting an improvement, but nothing on this scale. We've gone from £-5.7m to £50.3m in annual operating cashflow, and net debt down from £30m to £10.6m. No mean feat, that's for sure. Management have done an exceptional job here.

Very encouraging. Let's hope they manage to keep the ball rolling for another year.

When Paul Scott gets it wrong, he gets it very wrong. I've followed him since his days at TMF I'm no expert on the building industry but these figures are bad. They barely broke even in the last 6 months.

The Board are now trying to put out optimistic noises about a recovery in the 2nd half, but I'm not so sure. They've had 3 consecutive half year periods of serious operating cash outflows , so they are not making ends meet. Even though for the moment they have some £2m net debt (after deducting lease liabilities £47m) they are going to end up in serious debt eventually, if business doesn't start picking up within the next year.

'you dont know how the stock market works ..or how Institutional Investors hedge their long bets with Derivatives ....

do some homework'
Oh really! I've been in this game when you were probably still in nappies, sunshine. And what has PAY's fortunes or misfortunes have to do with derivatives? Do tell. I'm all ears.

And all those institutional shareholders, including Asteriscos must be losing a packet on this share.

Clearly the company is in some trouble, even though they won't admit it. Eventually, of course it will all come, out just like it did with Carillion a few years ago, another one who refused to admit until the end that there were serious issues. When the sp behaves like this over a few years, you know the company is in bother

Looks to me like the downward trend bottomed out as early as late June. They've been trading sideways since.

https://i.imgur.com/G7n0fsQ.png

PAY was way overpriced at £10. But the general decline in PBT, EPS and 2 div cuts in the last 5 years paints a fairly bleak picture (Covid excepted). They seem to be the kind of company that's running to stand still,. or even move slowly backwards.

The next set of results will be very telling, as so far there's been little evidence of a return to pre-covid levels, and there would have been a big increase in poverty levels over the past year thanks to food and energy price inflation, which should be benefiting PAY's business.

Agree with this.

They have got themselves into something of a financial mess, unnecessarily IMO. Having an uncomfortable level of debt in a with high inflation period, and hopefully lower interest rates will help the situation, but they still need to bring that debt down. The phrase in their summary - "the Board is currently reviewing the level of the final dividend and further details will be provided at the Preliminary Results." - strongly indicates that final div will be cut, if not omitted for this year anyway.

'Broken above £4. Next stop to break £5 '
==================================
Most definitely, not!

Decided to sell at a loss, thankfully not too hefty. It would have been easy to panic out of this a lot earlier on. So quite pleased to sell at this price (240) It certainly doesn't look like an Xmas rally, and if market weakness continues into the new year then this could fall back 10% or more as it's already shown.

Good luck to those who persist with ASHM.

is stockpedia worth paying for ?
============================
IMO, no. They are a glorified tipsheet , but a number of their tips do go badly wrong, a classic example of that being RWS, which they were plugging confidently around the 550-600 level, only to see the sp tumble by over 50% not long ago. There are plenty of other casualties like Strix whose sp has fared even worse.