Member Info for Davius

Talk in the papers this morning says that Pipex could be valued at up to £500m, or about 21p per share. Pie in the sky until there's a bidder though.

We have movement, update on Granby Oil and Gas regarding the Galoc oil field, in which FEP has a small stake. A bit of buying has brought the share price up to 62-65p...

Probably not, but they are due to announce contracts on the 21st March, which would be a day before last day for me to sell on account, so purely a speculative punt. I made the same comments re ULT and staffing many months ago incidentally. Regarding SOLA, still here but watching the share price closely, any dip below 530p will probably see me take my profit.

Don't get carried away with Pipex, all they've done is put themselves up for sale. This is not the same as having a bid made for the company, all the announcement says is that they have appointed UBS to explore a number of options, including a possible sale of the company. A bid war to 25p? Well, it would help if a single bidder came forward to start the ball rolling. :) Lots of profit taking now as sense sets in, hope no one got in today... (Last 14 transactions are all sells)

I've not been in PXC for a while, I made a small profit when I was but they were under 10p then. If the rumours are anything like correct re ULT it should see a significant rise within the next 2 weeks. I have taken a punt on ULT this morning as I do think an announcement is likely. Hard to guess where they may go if so, but I would hope for 1.5-1.7p. If SOLA shows any sign of dropping off I'll be out, but then I only ever bought these on account with the intention of selling by the 20th. I can't advise someone to switch from one share to another, if no announcement is forthcoming and ULT dives back down to 1.25p then you would rightly consider my advice as poor. My opinion is that ULT has a stronger probability of rising more than SOLA (in percentage terms) in the next two weeks, hence my buy of ULT today. Hope that helps.

It might have drifed on Friday, but has started brightly enough this morning, 540-544p at present and roughly double the number of shares bought as sold. Markets overall doing ok so we might see a breakout above 550p...

Alas no, 540p was not to be, but at least it is still well into profit. The markets appear to have stabilised a bit too, which bodes well for the next week or two. I very much doubt I'll be in until the results as I would need to switch from something else, and having reduced my long term portfolio to 8 stocks there's not really anything left to sell. I did feel quite confidant about a short term revival in SOLA though, my punt was a bit bigger than usual so I'm pleased to see it doing well. I stand by my 600p fair valuation for the time being, but if the accounts are above expectations in April this will need adjusting upwards.

It should be by the 31st May as that is when the option to purchase the property portfolio expires. The relist price is anyones guess, if the deal goes ahead then it should be much higher than the 0.41p suspension. My own estimates based on valuation is perhaps up to 1p, but as posters have pointed out both here and elsewhere the market can go a bit barmy on an RTO, in which case it could be higher. One suggestion of 10p is completely wild in my opinion, even after the deal the company will have net assets of under £1m if they pay for the portfolio via debt. 10p would value the company at £20m+.

The last quarterly figures came out on the 9th November, so we should really have expected a quarterly update in early February. However, there was a trading update at the end of February which indicated that the final results for 2006 would be released by the 16th April. The update stated that sales would be $86m with profits of $22-23m. That puts the current P/E on around 44, but with sales expected to around treble this year the end 2007 P/E would fall to under 15. The companies own figures show future expectations as growing much less rapidly, by about 40% for 2008 with a suggested P/E of under 10. The P/E estimates assume consistant margins of course. Assuming the company remains on course then a forward 2008 P/E of between 12 and 15 would suggest a sensible valuation of between 600p and 750p for SOLA shares. The problem with forward rating a stock this much is that any bad news can cause a substantial turnaround on the share price. As I stated before, I would not chase the shares above 600p, but at 525p they look to represent good value.

 indeed, that should have been a smiley!

Someone asked me to say if I made a small investment here, well I did. A little higher in than most of you, but I was looking for more direction on the shares before taking the plunge. Nice to see them making a profit already today. I still don't see these as a long term hold for me, and would hope to sell on account (i.e. by the 20th March), but we'll see. Looking for 550p or above. This is my second bite of the SOLA cherry, first time round (January) I was in for 4 trading days and exited with a 4.8% profit after costs. I bought in then after a few days of weakness too. My position remains as previously stated, I would not chase these much higher, but given the level of interest, there is a strong potential for recovery following any weakness.

I can practically see the blood vessels popping on the side of his head. Oh how shareholders hate their pets to be put down, still, it's given us a good titter. PI (how apt lol!) clearly hasn't read many of my postings, particularly the ones re ULT. I suggested investors be wary of ULT months ago, it's only with the recent fall to 1.3p or thereabouts that makes it worth a punt. And incidentally, my three investments in SEO have all made profit, but there we go. My only criticism was asking if our PI (or Dick as they are affectionately know) needed 10 posts to make his point. The answer is clearly no, he needs at least 15 a day. Anyone remember stocksandshares? Anyway, re IHGP, if they truly have £65m of property on their books that doesn't make them a property developer, it makes them an estate agent.  (Pop – there goes another one, guffaw!) Happy investing.

Was it really necessary to make 10 posts in the same day on this company? (This was NAD before the embarrasment of the company forced the directors to change their name) IHGP remain suspended until the details of the possible deal to buy a portfolio of properties is worked out. The suspension at 0.41p could run until the end of May when the deal has to be completed or lapses. To date this company has never made a profit and has survived on tapping the market for cash, regularly diluting share holdings, with the share price falling from a peak of 12.5p in April 04 to 0.19p in January this year. The portfolio is valued at over 4 times the suspension market cap and represents a reverse takeover. It is expected that they will buy the portfolio via debt, rather than equity which would dilute existing holdings down to probably a fifth of their current level. There have been some truly stupid estimates of at what price they might relist, up to 10p which would value this tiny enterprise at over £25m. Cloud cuckoo land :) If it relists after a done deal, at 1p or more then that would be a good results. If the deal doesn't go ahead (and it is NOT a forgone conclusion) then expect rather less than 0.41p.

Odd one, the market makers just hiked the price after four small buys, by 23p. Perhaps an RNS on the way.

Am watching with interest but not yet in. I would not worry about shares falling after you buy them. Two or three of my recent short term trades in TAN have fallen just after purchase, but have still been sold at a healthy profit. I bought at just under 85p a week ago to see them at 81p later the same day. Sold a couple of days later at 91p. Grandads avice proved correct. Of course, the share has to have prospects. Although I try to buy when the price is falling I won't do this after, for example, a profits warning. Better when big things are expected but profit taking or the often expected share price correction brings the price down. SOLA not doing much today, just under the opening price, thin trade, 79K shares. Will stay in the wings for now.

The slump in SOLA has been far more excessive than the market generally. I did seem to upset a few folks when I advised not to chase this stock higher but only to consider buying on weakness. The share price recovered a tad but then fell back again today, despite the market rising 80 points. Closing at 475p and way off its high of 640p in late February (a fall of over 25%) makes this far better value. If it were to rise back to 640p then that would offer a gain of nearly 35% over the current SP. I have no doubt the keen followers berating me previously now believe these are too cheap. I have to say that at this level I have to agree with them, this may well be worth a punt. And I agree with your posting dasv, try to catch the bottom on this and you'll probably miss the bounce. I'll take a look in the morning before deciding to risk another stake.

Great opportunity of a day trade gone begging... Could have bought at £11.90, a £3K investment would have yielded 249 shares after costs. Bid price right now is £12.70, a net profit of £151.00, or 5%. And there could be further rises in the shares to come. Arse.

I was at my screens early to check on this. The Times stated that a reserves updates was due this week, possibly as early as today, with the expectation of reserves jumping. Sure enough an RNS was out first thing and the share price opened significantly higher, currently the top riser of the day up 338p or 37.89% (as I type). The Times report suggested that the takeover value of IEC could be more like £26 per share. That seems excessive to me, but undoubtely one of the big player would have to pay more than the current share price to get its hands on their reserves. I don't hold these shares, more's the pity. The SP surge this morning was purely a market makers response to the reports, a few weary souls did pile into the shares at 1200p or above first thing. Since then there has been a bit of profit taking and the share price has settled back to a tad under 1200p. If I had shares bought at 900p or less, I'd sell half now, taking a tidy profit and reducing my exposure in case it 'does an FEP'. But a good morning none the less, for anyone with a holding in IEC.

cont... "Although the economic climate is uncertain the board is confident of the company's prospects since our main product is addressing an established stable market for industrial air," it said. That was in 2001, whilst the report from last September stated: LONDON (AFX) - Corac Group PLC said it made a first-half pretax loss of 1.0 mln stg, compared with a 943,000 stg loss a year ago, as sales rose 31 pct to 527,000 stg from 403,000 stg. The intellectual property, engineering and licensing group, which specialises in compressor technology, said in a separate statement that it has shipped its first 150 kW turbo boosting compressor, while a second one will be built and shipped in the near future to the same customer, Leobersdorfer Maschinenfabrik AG of Austria. Chairman Gerry Musgrave said: "We are pleased with our ongoing progress and continue to look forward to the future with enthusiasm." Potential? Yes, I would think so, but how many years before profits... (and I should have started the last post with '...headed over here...' not hear!)

Hmm, I headed over hear from your suggestion on one of the other threads. For the last 5 years turnover has been between £11K and £836K with losses averaging nearly £2m a year. Reserves have fallen from £11.8m in 2001 to £3.2m in 2005 and non cash/securities assets were just £273K. Predictions are for losses of £1.9m in 2006 and £1.6m in 2007, finally hitting a profit in 2008 estimated at £2.4m (although this figure is the approximate average of the two brokers, £4.8m and £0.3m, yikes!) The 2008 forward P/E is therefore a bit under 14 but that is dependant on an estimated turnover increase of about 6 fold on the expected figure for 2006. Prelims are due March 9th according to my broker. Any signs that they are running low on cash would be bad news for the share price., however the tax credit of £400K in December will likely ensure that this is not the case. I would rate this as speculative. The positive talk by the company goes back rather a long way: LONDON (AFX) - Corac Group PLC said it is confident about prospects and expects strong demand. In a statement alongside results for the six months to June 30, the company said it has made major advances in its contract negotiations with Shell and further developments in its technology base. "Although the economic climate is uncertain the board is confident of the company's prospects since our main product is addressing an established stable mark