Member Info for Beo1

"In Food, our focus on quality, innovation and trusted value translated into strong sales and market share growth, with M&S the top performing store-based grocery retailer over the period. 500 new lines were launched, and sales of new Christmas products grew 14%. Core category sales grew strongly as more customers ticked off their whole shopping list at M&S. There were a few growing pains as we delivered our biggest ever volumes, particularly in smaller stores, reaffirming the opportunity to accelerate transformation of the Food supply chain and go even faster on store renewal and rotation."

basically on the internal memo they had a lot of waste / markdowns on food so it didn't just get wasted. It was a big call out on the internal memo, the normal waste is high TBF, so to call this out it must have been material. My mrs works the night shift and the quantity of waste of the period was very high

Sorry not losses from theft. Wastage, I'd have to look at the RNS again as I may be taking the update sent internally vs the RNS, but there was a big comment about the very high level of waste

I guess it's the comments around stock loss and acceleration of cost reductions, with the absence of cost information info in the update the market seem spooked by the size of it. No point sales being up 8% if stock loss was up 20 or 30%, it won't be that high, but the absence of the value means people have to guess and in today's market they want to guess on the bad side

Agreed, the results will show profit up over £80m IMO. But the SP is on future earnings not past (its just the past give a good indication of future earnings). But he's already messaging to staff that the future cost base is challenging, so I worry about the outlook messaging. The future growth will be challenged and unless your growing at beyond the cost of capital then your actually going backwards

Or YouGov!

Your like a gambling addict. Singing from the rooftops on your wins, but silent about all your losses.

And you'll see another 4 tranches here, They are doing them in tranches of £500m, and the Italy sale will enable a further £2b of buybacks

And yet up 1.4%, nearly at 210 which was your new short wasn't it. Is it getting hot where you are Apendragon? Got enough bankroll to fund a margin call?

Mrs works for M&S. Stuart Machin sent a flyer out, praising the work they are doing, but finished the mail, saying and I paraphrase "the current performance can't continue and the transformation must continue at pace, the cost base needs to come down". This is on the backdrop of other internal mails saying record sales etc etc. so I think the recent one is the next stage to improve bottom line. Capitalism at its finest I guess, improvement YoY but they now need to get that growth from operating leverage so blame the cost base, when in reality the company has been growing well but if you stand still your going backwards. but feels like they dont see the continued improvement from sales growth continuing at the same rate

So you wont be investing at all then! Nice to know

Unlucky Apendragon

70.25p

It does seem overkill at times. Went trafford centre and they had 2 stores, but the main 1 which was 3 units (i think) will become 6 or 7 units. Im assuming the smaller one will close. They must be near completion as the main one was closed on saturday, Timing seems off, opening the new flagship store in the quietest period of the year, and causing disruption in the sale period, but i guess they mitigated some of that by having the 2nd small store. But im guessing the maths works for them on new store openings, the level of new business vs just stealing it from a store 5 to 10 miles away vs the extra overhead. Infrastructure isn't cheap, but it must work for them

Did you take a photo of the SP last week Johnjo? know how you like your photo's wandering if you got one with your 70s prediction. And yet your here claiming your looking for a long position, yet call others clowns for aspiring for the SP to rise, only 1 clown here mate and if you look closely enough you might find him in a mirror.

JD are well undervalued on no growth, nevermind a company growing like it is, FCF abundant, you mention LfL sales being the barometer but thats just wrong, if the company grows its bottom line 50% you dont think the SP would move unless it came for LfL? Which in itself has its flaws anyway, new store openings dont just capture new business, they capture business from other stores nearby. EG if you live 20 miles away from the nearest store and one opens 5 miles which one are you going to shop in? (assuming same availability) you'll shop nearer to home, that then results in overall growth % but LfL drop.

For me, its the market negative sentiment that has took this down so much, and a few good reads across the sector will restore confidence.

I too have outperformed by portfolio, 2 year return on my fund is up 20%. Im up on my individual picks 60% in that same 2 year period (even with my vod investment being a bit of a headwind to those returns) but I don;t under estimate that variance (and risk) is a lot higher. As mentioned its all about balance for me, I do both, but have more in my personal portfolio than the fund.

No, I'm saying for every £100 i have in a fund, there amount invested in 1 company is so low. Its called Variance, 1 share heavily invested is more at risk to variance. as opposed to 100 shares. therefor if you believe the overall market will go up then a fund will remove the variance and give steady returns. Whereas as a individual investor you only need 1 to go tits up and your years profit is severely hampered.

Because the opposite of netting all the rewards yourself is that net all the risk too. Not saying your portfolio isn't diversified but they are playing with billions and diversifying, for you to be has diversified you need a big bankroll or small investments. Not saying either is wrong tbf, i do both to spread the risk

They sold Spain & Italy for 13b cash, of which they allocated 4b as buybacks. the rest will pay down the debt, So 70% of the value will pay down debt, that wont be far off there current gearing. paying off anything over the current gearing will only make there cost of capital higher, and considering they are struggling with the ROCE vs cost of capital already, they wont want to increase it.

With regards the dividend, the dividend cover was under 1.0 on last FY results and since then they have halved it, so it is sustainable, although doesn't leave much for growth, but i suspect they will have wiggle room in the gearing for growth

You think PE Ratios are old fashioned? Its simple economics? you pay £xm and you get the payback on that in Y years. Its not old fashioned its simple maths.

How can they? At the time its a 20% discount. They don't know if it will go up or down and they don't know who will leave and of those who stay who will exercise the option. And most of the effect is outside if the balance sheet, the dilution is the market value not the asset value

It's both, if they got them free then it's purely the count of shares relevant.

But getting them at 20% of the price 3 years ago, that money goes to M&S for selling the new shares. If the price hadn't moved then the extra shares are somewhat compensated by extra money in m&s bank, but with the low exercise price means the count of shares vs extra money in bank are disproportionate, hence creating a further dilution than had the option price being say 350p