Member Info for cyberduck

I wouldn't trust much he writes about as he gets a lot wrong and I lost interest half way through reading that one. Currently under investigation himself by the Advertising Standards Agency for making misleading statements. Comes across as a bit of a jobsworth, dwelling on trivia and historical matters, interpreting everything in a way to suit his own agenda or just the most strict interpretation. Many laws are unclear but he is absolutely certain that his interpretation is correct, if you know what I mean. I feel he's out of his depth most of the time. I'm sure I read somewhere that PB are in ongoing talks with the regulators so I presume on the whole the regulator is happy.

Very impressive UK performance, especially raising average revenue per transaction 14%. USA not looking like an out and out success. For the same time last year Oz had been trading for 7 weeks and had accumulated revenue of £400K. USA trading a couple of weeks less and only £100K. In Oz they were up to 50 LPEs in no time and in the USA they said they were aiming for 50 LPEs in "weeks" and they say they have 40. I can only find 37. So fewer LPEs and perhaps you can say we should ignore the first 2 weeks of trading so you can say the results represent only 4 or 5 weeks for the USA. Very early days though but Oz looks even more impressive in hindsight, £400K in their first 7 weeks! However in SP terms a US success is pretty much factored in. Very speculative as always :)

Wednesday 13th I think.

Welcome!

Terrace, Of course the risk being that the company eventually gets taken over at a value which provides a poor return for those increasing their holdings in the hope of a re-rating at some point in the future. Or even worse a management buyout. Happened to me years back. Would you be against a main market listing then? I can't understand why shareholders don't force the BOD to take the company to the main market. What's this about inheritance tax? Who are the BOD thinking of there? Apparently it's 90% public owned and I can't imagine there are many who wouldn't welcome more institutional interest with a main market listing.

>So, in the game of trading between them that you've recently joined, we really don't want them to stray too far from that or they become as much use to us, for that purpose I haven't read your post yet but if you are holding a share, surely the sooner it becomes overvalued (relatively speaking) the better? Switch into TEF while undervalued and then wait for the market to catch up and get ahead of itself and then sell and switch into a share with better value.

Terrace, There are still questions when looking forward 5 years. For example if the BTR deals don't transpire and foreign buyers don't materialise then will the banks be happy to finance developments in a weak London market? One of the problems I have in regard to TEF is that given the seemingly good value of the shares there is little volume and price movement. Does this mean they will always be at a discount to value? What do you think?

Seemed very comfortable with the £44M profit before tax and also the 17p dividend. Brokers estimating 47p EPS on £44M profit but 3 times dividend cover suggests 51p EPS. Am I right in thinking they've returned to a policy of 3 times cover of dividends?

Strictly, I ignored the period which for comparison purposes looked like an anomaly caused by the financial crisis. 2013 to present gives much the same for BWY. EPS growth at an average of 50% (approx) and an average p/e of 10 (approx). Like I say, I put the figures together quickly and the p/e value was calculated at a single time-point using Google graphs and a shaky hand for the share price :) I must admit it was a bit of an eyeopener because I expected to see a long term trend supporting a p/e ratio of 10.

Steph, I'd be interested in any long term data on p/e ratios. As a newcomer to the sector I was shocked when I saw companies growing earnings at over 20% a year on p/e's of less than 10. I then took a quick look at Bellway going back to 1996 and quickly put some figures together so they may include the odd mistake. I saw that their p/e ratio from 1996 to 2007 averaged about 5 and in this period earnings growth averaged 20%. Between 2011 and 2016 the p/e ratio has been on average about 10 and eps growth on average around 50%. This of course raises the question whether the sector (or BWY anyway) requires massive growth of earning to sustain a p/e of 10.

Thanks steph, If TEF were on the main market more institutions would want to hold their shares. Did they say why this tax advantage was particularly relevant to them? If it was an advantage to every company then you'd surely hear more about it. Perhaps it's not in the best interest of a majority of sharehoders?

Does anybody else think that the SP would benefit if the company moved to the main market? I've heard the BOD have no plans to do this and I think the reason given was that there's an inheritance tax benefit related to AIM stocks. I wonder though what percentage of shareholders would prefer to be listed on the main market and whether this would be enough to call a special meeting and pass a resolution to force the BOD to take this path? Thoughts?

I think as investors we need to be careful about paying too much attention to the trade press. I was guilty of this when I held the shares. There are about 20,000 Estate Agents and these online articles tend to be viewed a few thousand times, so if you also consider there are regular posters and readers who must view them many times a day you are looking at very limited exposure of these opinions. TrustPilot for all its flaws allows people to post negative reviews. You just have to substantiate your experience with them. Usually if you've had a negative experience you are very motivated to exact revenge and yet there are only a very small percentage of customers who have left negative reviews. Allagents may claim that their reviews are genuine but I've been told by somebody who left a review that since the PB reviews were taken down they have emailed him to check whether he'd had a genuine experience. I fully support PB or anybody else challenging the authenticity of negative reviews. If you allow fake negative reviews then you just can't compare one agent to another. It would be like a red flag to a bull, the review systems would become useless. If all agents ensure their fake negative reviews are removed then at least you have some way to compare even if the actual ratings are flattering.

I was thinking "with over 95 per cent of gross profit secured" and estimates of �44m gross profit, this means there's going to be �41.5m gross profit whether they sell another property or not doesn't it? How then do they account for building costs and land? Yesterday I calculated �25m worth of properties as still available. Surely that can't mean profit could be up to �66m less any costs incurred selling those properties? That sounds too good to be true. Can somebody explain?

Also happy to hear average price of property in pipeline is less than �540K and after a few calculations see there is quite a bit of leeway in terms of the current available properties which do have a high average price of about �750K.

Just bought some TEF. Bought some RDW last week and fee quite comfortable with them. Not as heavily invested as I was but will increase my investment over time probably. My main concern is the London market but if they sign up to another big BTR deal then they will be looking pretty for a few years.

No BTR deal tied up yet though and in the webcast JDS talks about the difficulty of selling homes and the test of the market coming up with the two new developments.

Thanks Steph, So this migration of well paid younger workers explains the steep increase in rate of growth of the average price to wages ratio since 2011. The question then is what is happening now in regard to these young well paid workers. Will they be put off by the uncertainty over Brexit and the drop in house prices? I can't get away from the idea that this might actually be a 'London only' issue this time around. That there could well be an adjustment in London whilst the rest of the country gets back to a more confident market spurred on by stamp duty changes.

terrace, I know that historically speaking the UK market follows London when it declines but with the gap having moved so far between the North and London it might not be the same this time round. If you look at the graphs the gap has widened significantly since 2011 https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5568/housing/uk-house-price-affordability/ I know everybody thinks it's grim up North but Manchester is doing pretty well and Liverpool is booming now second behind London for tourism.Until Brexit I actually felt people were starting to feel more confident for the future but I can only speak for the North West..

In 2007 the average house price in London was 7 times the average wage. For the North it was about 4 and for the UK about 5 10 years later. It's 10 for London, 3 for the North and for the UK about 5. I thought the average wage in London was about twice the rest of the country but I've just read something suggesting it's 50% higher.