Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
I’m the same. I was looking for a good return for a small investment in June 2017 and was attracted by the divi. Whilst I accept I was a fool for continuing to average down and so widened my eventual loss, I believed that the turnaround was just round the corner because of the previous results, the fact that when I invested they had just paid a handsome divi (only 8 months ago) and continued to average down when they continued to pick up government contracts. It seems that the real info was only given to a select few and novice investors such as myself were led up the garden path, taken into the shed, had our pants pulled down and, well you know the rest!!
In two lots at just gone 11.41 today which is ex-divi day? That’s more than 10% of the entire company?
Happening again today - it’s 11.48 and there are lots of small trades around the 309 and 980 figure. Someone topping up without making a big splash and the amount of trades would suggest automated trades driven by an algorithm rather than Joe Soap sat behind a PC?
Posted after-hours today. Someone just spent over £3m - I wonder who? Tosca upping their stake again? Should be a RNS in the next day or two.
Looks like they bought another load of shares on Friday taking their holding over 20%. Is this significant?
I think you mean 'what we used to do well'!! Speedy haven't done the basic things well since 2008 and the whole Speedy Asset Services and Project Darwin fiasco. I hope they invest that £14.4m in basic kit for the depots & let the people who know what they are doing (if they haven't already jumped ship or been pushed out) get on with doing the simple things well without having to pander to the major accounts with little profit margin and their ridiculous terms (how is the National Grid deal going!). And I don't think you can blame an investment fund for trying to make the best of a bad situation!!!
If the assets had a book value of £15.5m and a EBITDA of £1.9m, why only sell for £14.4m with a guarantee to the buyer that you will re-hire this same kit back off them for the next five years? Most of the top-brass at Ardent are Corky's old boys aren't they? I bet they are laughing all the way to the bank at buying kit well below its book value and getting a guaranteed customer for the next five to seven years. Perhaps Toscafund are right & the chairman & board arent up to much after all?!?
In your opinion, will the other company making an announcement have a reputation for making Hiring Something Simple? ;-)
Some big deals gone through today - thoughts?
https://www.insidermedia.com/insider/northwest/speedy-reveals-300m-merger-is-off-the-table
Two more sales of over 5,300,000 shares each? One of the big boys has had enough & pulled out - what have they seen or what do they know that we don't? So much for riding it out & waiting for the 'turnaround'. Awaiting the RNS with baited breath to find out who it is.
That's a bit harsh, but a genuine LOL moment!
Sounds like the same old story jonny - when will they start to listen to the guys in the depot who only want to be able to hire out good kit at good worthwhile prices? I believe that after getting rid of the regional managers and replacing them with a smaller number of regional directors, they are now getting rid of some of the directors & replacing them with Cluster Managers which is just another name for the old Regionals? No wonder you guys feel it's going round in circles. Fingers crossed for the 10th - there is a lot of good people in Speedy with relatively low-paid jobs (the days of decent bonuses are long gone) sitting on SAYE schemes that they invested every spare penny into that will mature at a lower price than they bought them. These guys who had faith and invested their money into SAYE don't deserve to suffer because of the failures and inabilities of those earning six-figures per annum. Keep fighting Pal.
Two sales of 2,000,000 shares within 60 seconds of each other for only 35p a share? Somebody has had enough, took their money & run!
So both Speedy & HSS are posting profit warnings?!? This is what happens when you 'buy' the turnover from the big boys at a silly price and ignore the bottom line - Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity!! If the know-all's at head office had listened to the foot soldiers in the depots for the last five years, this could have been averted. I remember SC at a conference approx 4 years ago saying that he wasn't interested in the small builder up a ladder because they wouldn't be interested in training, fuel or asset management and as they didn't spend over £10k per year, they'd cut their discount right down - how many of these small builders went elsewhere? The days of local reps knocking on cabin doors trying to drum up local business was replaced by Account Managers whose only way of winning business was cutting prices, giving free transport & cutting margins down to zero. Speedy used to excel in having the right mix of specialist staff, quality kit (and lots of it) and both local and national customers who paid good rates for the best equipment and service, and every site in every town was visited by a passionate rep who took pride in 'painting the town red' in Speedy kit. Somewhere along the line they took their eye off the ball and are now paying the price.
When was the last time there was more Buys than Sells? Does this show a serious lack of faith in SDY - surely a share that has dropped 50% in last six months should be attracting more speculators? It's going to be a long way back I fear.
Can't see A-Plant buying out Speedy - surely they learnt that lesson from seeing what happened to Speedy after their takeover of Hewden Small Tools in 2007. What I would like to know is how much confidence the major shareholders have in the current management team & the future? Toscafund own about 16% of the shares so I can't see them being too happy with the drop in the last few months unless they see this as being short-term and have confidence in things turning around medium/long term. Or do they know something we don't?!?!
The demise of CN can only be a good thing - there was an example of "the lunatic running the asylum" if there ever was one! Some great people left in that company that deserve better than they've had in the last few years, but they need the tools to do the job - I hope the latest management team can deliver.