Member Info for ByeHi

Sg0913 they want your shares cheap, don't let their games make you give them what they want, sell them for more.

Perhaps these shorts are hedged, you have to disclose short at .5%, and long at 5% or 3% year end up to 4.5% differnce. To me conviction shorts at these prices are risk totally outweighing reward. Bond 4 yr run, 300m rfc to use expected 180m cash fy26, no imediate sign of collapse, so cost of long term short at say 5% + div is 20% over 2 years. even if you wiped out all the profit from 16% of revenue they're are worried about, ebitda is still 80-90m. so the floor cant be much lower than 250p. but trading a range and accumulating scared or frustrated retailer stock becomes very lucrative. I dont believe smart money would sit with the reward being so small, if future sent RNS tomorrow saying they had a data licensing deal with a couple of AI platforms for 25m per annum, this is at £10, if your hedging the downside riskyour long makes money, just slighty less

As a market maker i imagine it had something to do with Barclays trade yesterday, there not bullish so i dont imagine their buy yesterday was conviction,

Long Haul, logs too heavy these days

I'm in this for the log haul, my eyes have opened to the direction this is going and i'm far more comfortable with it now than i was. Think the CEO and board speak volumes about what they want this to be. I don't see it as avalue play, this is a sector change share re rating play.

Look what they have that doesn't even get mentioned in valuations. A tech stack that when they plug a tool into it generates 10m high rev from cold introduced in Dec25. And Helix intro March 26, 21% uplift in click thru compared to non Helix. That tech would be worth almost a billion on the Nasdaq now. It may take 18months but this is more like Autotrader than Reach.

My only comeback on that is you said you bought 30k more at 290p the other day, as a value play, if thats to make 20p per share great if not, its an investment in a company that drives you mad. My post was not about my opinion, i was just emphasising what seems to have been missed this company has fundamentally changed its outlook and is data first business, establishing itself in that ecosystem quite well i may suggest and as and when the contracts start coming in the whole valuation structure changes, this is a tech business now. they've launched the tools, they've embedded in LLM platforms now the conversion to cash starts.

Why would a Vice president of T-Mobile advertising solutions come back to a struggling media publisher in December. Selling data products to the big fish maybe. It's my take, and unfortunately, I worked out after the end of this buyback tranche i'll own .4% of the company. So it doesn't sit well with me the share price today, but it will. thats only my view for qualification.

There is a slide in the 25 fy presentation that sums the cup, "Future is a data first platform that monetises high audience engagement powered by technology and enabled by our trusted specialist brands with authority". This company has changed its board, for that reason they have switched the brands to enablers, they sell data in this new era. Brand content is back of house.

No coincidence the board changes to align with platform, data monetisation. Future has tools tested as optic with Samsung, embedded in all LLM platforms, its the second most visible publisher. They are ahead of the curve, "First to market" as they say. and its going to be the biggest market around. Every AI tool needs Fresh data so it doesn't hallucinate, future has some of the most trusted data across fashion tech wealth management.consumer services. they have some of the most advanved tech, they will hopefully be signing leasing deals with hundreds of companies and platforms multi million if the few already done are the market rate. these deals are 80-90% marginx and if taken in line with data saas type multiples 20-25x ebitda. thats just one revenue stream, there are several. It could be a very interesting 12 months.

TP they said finish buybacks, pay Sheerluxe performance payment,and deleverage. 1million a week buybacks takes us to September. Doubt if there will be any in 2027 though.

I do think they have thought this downturn through ahead of time, pretty sure that's why they tied the debt up into bonds for 5 yrs knowing there would be headwinds. And they must have conviction in their strategy as they upped the divi 5x, not an easy thing to pull the rug on without losing trust.

I personally found the results presentation a real clarifier as to where they are headed, and the company won't look the same in 5 years. streamlined and data focused, the tools they have brought out already,and I believe others suggested in the presentation are very high margin. Future doing a smart deal with Open AI in 2024 for use of data not ownership, they get great visibility on the new LLM marketplace at the top, Who What Wear No1 on GhatGPT.

If they produce 150m revenue from those products in 3/4 yrs time thats probably 90m net profit, if the legacy stuff is pruned, Sheerluxe and GoCo remain at 40% then you probably have a company whose bottom line is 160-170m£2 a share, debt reduced and multiples far more the tech average, 15-25x which actually when you look at 1/2 the companies its a normal multiple. that's £30-40, back to 2021 share price.Just my take, obviosly could be miles off but Future isn't going bust tomorrow, 300m RCF cash generated that a company with 1.5-2b would be pleased with. Fingers crossed .

In the mean time wipe 5m more shares off

JPM appears to have loaded up more with shares than financial instruments. No suggestion that buybacks were being taken off the table, since start of H2 they have incresed progressively, 1m a week. That suggests they have some confidnce in cash H2, CFO did also suggest cash in H2 was usually strong.

If i'm honest i'm enjoying this share price for now, they have debt sewn up for 4yrs, they have said they are disposing of brands that don't align with the strategy, even if they aren't profitable.

i've watched parts of the presentation several times and what seems to become clear is they are transitioning into a data provider . Hopefully as those revenue streams develop, the high margins they work on this business will create the real value its data is worth.

I thought that presentation and question session very interesting and encouraging. Admittedly neither CEO, or CFO should be on Saturday Night Live, but they showed indepth the monetisation and brand transitions that are taking place

The CFO very clearly at the end of questions suggested things were in the pipeline to realise asset value, but could not talk specifics yet.

The fact they are already starting to pay Sheerluxe some of the second Goal oriented money for over achieving after 10 weeks is encouraging.

And specifying they are in the process of bringing out packages to monetise data, at a very high margin item also great news.

Future Optic at 2m rev in a couple of months expected to do 10m by YE that suggests at 20m revenue stream for 2027 as it grows.

They were also keen to state they are taking a conservative approach to debt and targeting 1x leverage.

Free cash flow H1 was 91m

What have Barclays downgraded too? they were at 285p before

Steinberg probably jumped ship because he knew AI headwinds were on there way. All these AI tools they are putting in place , the agreement with ChatGPT 2024 show they have been preparing for transition for several years, but that doesn't make them immune to disruption.

JG68 I'm not sure there is any thing unexpected. They previously alerted profit weighting to H2, in the update they

set out 24% ebitda for H1.

Net debt @314m with 20m in buybacks and 25-30 in deleveraging, that should bring it back to 285-290 level, and the presentation specifying managing debt to 1x .

Looking forward though AI hype will die down, fund managers will eventually look at value rather than start ups on 150x P/E.

Licencing legislation that is being passed to prevent free scraping of copyright will form a layer of revenue, as will the back catalogue of data. that revenue will be almost 100% profit.

People like to listen and read other peoples views, that's why influencers and podcasts are so popular, AI fatigue will kick in.

There is a lot that is relateable to the Dot.com market, If you didn't have .com at the end of your business you were doomed, if you did, you didn't need to earn money, venture capitalists gave it to you.

I thought all travel agents, estate agents, insurance brokers would disappear, many have but the main players are still around they just harnessed the tech to be more efficient. Future is a big player, niche top class data and brands that are harnessing AI to create more accurate advertising targets for clients at higher prices.

In the meantime let the market allow cannibalisation of shares at sub £300m market cap

I also think it is healthy to see JP Morgan add to their position, in Feb they dropped from 6% to below notification level, which i think is 3%, Back to 5% positive.

You have a part of the market that sees Future as a dead in the water business, magazines in decline, AI taking views away from B2B and B2C, Go Co becoming redundant.

To me this is why it will take time to turn around, people want proof that futures profits are sustainable as AI becomes more dominant.

The majority of analysts seem to be bullish on MONY and the PCS model, Go Co is caught up with the conglomerate effect, thus totally undervalued.

I would like to hear that the company, although pushing ahead with the platform effect of the business, are actively looking to sell non core assets to speed up the debt reduction.

In a market where everyone is throwing all they have at AI, the appetite for supposed value stocks like this have almost no interest.

Shorters took this down to 275p, took profit, then when its got back up 20%, go again.

In the great scheme of things they have no significance as I see it. If the company is going to fail, it's not because of them. But at 2.7x est 26 earnings it's being priced to fail. Let the market do some heavy lifting for Future, this buy back tranche should wipe out 8-9% of the company shares.

If, and it may be a big if, 100m is hit YE26, then 25%EBITDA margin is seen as very good generally,

net debt may be fractionally higher at 290m but they should have wiped off 13m shares= 13% while buying Sheerluxe and paying 17p div.

Hopefully, Sheerluxe starts to add to EBITDA 2027 along with some of their other in house programmes Future Optic etc, and start to stabilise the inevitable reduction e-commerce and digital advertising.

Anyway I think tomorrow will be gloomy.

What is interesting is that they have committed to deleveraging in H2, which we are now 6 weeks into, but they have in last 3 weeks ramped up buy backs to almost 1m a week, this could suggest that cash flow is better in H2.

Certainly looks like a retest of £2.70