Member Info for Fishinggardener

Quelle Surprise!.

Lets hope that there is cordial agreement, and no diverging agendas....

This has the makings of a great buy and build portfolio of marketing businesses. It will only succeed of the board, acquired principals, and key Stakeholders all operate to the same plan.

FG

Hooray!...

This is coming good.

A winning "buy and build" formula is being developed, with most if not all of the recent 5 acquisitions accretiative, and self funding - so far so good.

Interesting to see that the maiden dividend was not followed up by an interim. In the short term, and the context of the current acquisition activity, I am not overly worried by this, however I hope that the dividend payment is maintained at the full year, because the shareholder base needs to be kept onboard for the journey.

This is a very exciting business, and has the makings of being the WPP of the Digital world!.

Great progress in bringing together the building blocks at the front end. This needs to carry on at the steady pace that has been established.

Hopefully there is a solid integration plan in play which will deliver on the back end operational savings and leverage the acquired client bases across all the services now offered in what is a growing digital skillset portfolio.

Cavendish's target is quite fruity, however a rise to over £1 (5p in old money) is now looking justified, and very achievable.

Well done to management!

FG

F15,

It didn't seem to stop them buying 152,000 in the market yesterday!. That's more than 10% of the total bought in the first half.

Is there a share buy back program or not?.

FG

Results pretty much as expected, although I hadn't clocked the slow down in UK content revenues due to changed stake limits.

Good to see that the majority of the earnings for this business are now not UK. That will provide some defense against any adverse impact that might some from the Nov 26th UK Budget.

Bigger question for me is, what are the plans for the now £19million cash pile?. Clearly the board don't want to embark on making dividend distributions, but they have started transacting on buying back shares.

Scope of the Buy-back program launched in March 2025 was to invest a maximum of c£6m. At the half year point, the Company has purchase 1.1milion, presumably at a cost of c£500,000.

So, £5,500,000 still to go.

Ramping up the Buy-backs is probably our best chance of moving the share price back above 50p, and supporting it through what sounds like a period of subdued growth, and possible turbulent times resulting from the budget.

I'm still a holder, as the Enterprise Value of this business to an acquirer, is 50% above current pricing, but we need to get a wiggle on!.

FG

Half-time results for FY25 are out first thing Monday.

Continuation of recent trajectories mean that we are looking for;

- Total Revenue greater than £16.1m

- Adjusted EBITDA greater than £7.6m, and

- Cash in Bank of circa £16.5m

If the above is confirmed, then we are heading for another record period of trading, and continuing double digit growth, building upon similar for the previous 4 years.

Management are building a robust, consistent recurring revenue business, that is starting to throw off cash, which seemingly they are just letting build up in a pile in the corner of the balance sheet.

Full year results next March, should be heading towards £16m EBITDA on Sales of £34m, which on a 12x multiple and adding back the Cash-pile, (which will be over £20m by then), puts a value on the company north of £212m. equating to a share price of 72p.

Today the Market cap is £146m.

When will the market start to join the dots?.

When will the board do something useful with the growing cash balance?. - which Monday will confirm as now being over 10% of the current market cap.

Mine for 8090 shares was a top up, - (but not that large a one).

This is a bargain at anything near 60p...(3p in old money).

FG

I don't disagree about the pull back, but I trimmed a few at £1.95, and am how having to pay 25p more per share to get back in.....so, wait a while before committing to the sell button!

Should have had the conviction of my last post....

£2.20 is less than 15p in old money.....so, yes there is masses of headroom.

I agree that a very simple valuation of 10x£100m Ebitda minus the reduced debt is now achievable, and so, I think that (Note to self), £4 is really where the trimming should now start.

In 2017, I was buying Saga shares at £2.20 in old money before the 15:1 share consolidation. That puts Saga into being a member of the 90% club, having lost 90%+ of its value from its peak.

Few shares ever recover from such a position, but to my mind Saga is one which looks to be bucking this trend - and good for them!!

I have paid my dues, and bought back in to restore my averaged down break-even point of just under £5.50. --- (or 45p in old money).

I think that it will get there, - particularly as the size of their market demographic, (Largely UK citizens over 50 years old with spare disposable income, and who are living longer, ) is growing in number!.

FG

In the COVID summer of 2020, when our ships were parked up in Weymouth Bay, Saga was trading in the range 12p -14p.

That's £1.80 to £1.95 in todays money.

Compare the outlook for the cruise industry now, with the situation back then.

For Saga, the ships are sailing with a full compliment of passengers.... the aging population means that the potential customer base has grown,.... and the mill stone of debt, which was once hypothesised as being the thing that would kill us has been reduced.

People say that Markets value shares on a forward looking basis, and yet, for SAGA, the market values the company at no more than they did in the depths of the COVID summer of 2020.

Does that make this a screaming buy?......

I am "overweight" on Saga, and, today I was thinking about selling a few and banking the profits, but unlike a few other shares in which I am in the same position, I just could not justify reducing my holding.

FG

Sounds overdone to me....

so I topped up this afternoon....

More Dust-pan and brush though, as opposed to a Henry hoover!.

Market Cap or £320m

Loan book value of £1.335m Credit card Loans, £733m Vehicle finance, and £371m Mortgages. = £2.439bn total - all from the Management presentation.

One divided by the other = 0.13.

If I am wrong on the understanding of the numbers used in making the comparison, then please show me how you arrive at 0.8x..... If I have mis understood, then I am sorry, but that's where I got the numbers from. (to answer you so eloquently put question!)

At todays price, the Price to Loan book value is c0.13.

For comparison, even with the rise this week, Close Brothers is c0.5, and mainstream banks like LLOY / NWG are c1.0 / 1.1.

So, provided that disciplined operational progress, and some growth is maintained, there is plenty of headroom here.

I accept that the sector that Vanquis serves, is perhaps riskier, but that is their specialism, but 4x from here on a 18 month timescale would be plausible.

I am a holder from PFG days, and so have written off a fair chunk of capital from the heady days of a decade ago.

Current break even is a tad shy of £3.00, which I thought that I would never see, but if, in FY25 and FY 26, this new team clocks up further progress, then I would try to average down in pursuit of actually moving this stock from my list of "mis-adventures" to recording a positive return!.

DYOR

FG

Thanks AVI et al - In the end, I sold the remaining half today.

So, for the first time in many years, I am no longer a JUST holder, - but am very thankful for the tax-free returns, as they were all held within my ISA Wrap.

JUST - one of my better performers, and like a few others that I have held, (KCOM, ADT and, more recently, AGR come to mind), after a few years of repositioning the business, they have been snapped up by private equity, just ahead of what looks like a sunnier days ahead.

Thanks to comments on this board, I have put part of the takings into PBEE, (Pensions Bee), which looks like a mini JUST. They present themselves well, targeting the younger, more digitally savvy professional. Demonstrating good growth, and should pass through operational Break-even in the next 12 months. Market Cap c£370m, which compared to the £2.4bn offered for JUST, means that there is plenty of value upside that could be created there. The rest has gone into MNG / PHNX / NWG and SDR.

Just need to get through this coming Autumn budget, without the UK Pension industry having their pockets turned out, and all those banked but not yet declared future profits booked to the Balance sheet being pilfered to help plug the Government's hole in the public finances.

FG

I have been on the Just Journey for 5+ years as a shareholder, - and so yesterday's news was most welcome, if not a little surprising.

I am interested to see that the price for taking the money now, is near on 5% below the offer price.

Also, before the anticipated completion date, I would have expected Just to have paid out at least 3p in interim and full Year dividend for FY 25, which Bidco reserves the right to discount off the offer price.

The timetable for this, (i.e. that date that we would cease to be the owners of the company), is 9+months away. So arguably, what seams to be a juicy premium of 70%+ compared to Wednesday's closing price needs really to be viewed in the context of FY25 interims, which are expected in the next few days, and which are most likely to demonstrate further progress in EBITDA Growth, and a stronger position on the Balance Sheet for future year earnings.

So, I am interested to hear, what others think as to

1) the likelihood of this offer failing to complete?

- it needs 75%+shareholder consent - which administratively is not a given,

- the price offered, compared to where the Just Shareprice could have naturally risen after the imminent interims being much less that it appears to be

- in the UK we have an October budget, which is being hailed as being a tax-raiser, and for which the pension industry could be in the firing line.

or

2) the likelihood of a better offer emerging. e.g. from Phoenix, who would be well positioned to absorb the JUST business.

For full disclosure, as at Wednesday, I held 25,000 shares, and sold approximately half of them at 211.7p.

Question is - what's the best strategy for the remaining portion?

My gut tells me that the results will show stella progress which will take the shine off the value of this offer, which may attract others to the party. On the flip side, corralling 75% support from a highly dispersed shareholder base is no mean feat, - the Board have irrevocably promised there 0.3% support! - and so it may just all end up in the long grass.

FG

This is a money making machine, with there being no evidence of a slowing-up in the rate of EBITDA growth.

Based on todays trading statement, and joining the dots of previous RNSs:

FY25 full year EBITDA is likely to be in the region of £17m, with the trajectory set for FY 26 to be another 20 - 30% growth, taking it north of £20m for FY26.

EOY bank balance for FY 24 was £13.5m. Let's assume that 90% of FY25 EBITDA gets converted to cash, - this increases the FY25 EOY Bank balance to £28.8m. Let's also assume that the Board use the full £6m allotted to the current share buy back program, which across the year purchases 12m shares, at an average of 50p.

So at the end of the Current year, we have EBITDA of £17m, EOY cash balance of c£22m, and # of shares in issue of 283m.

On a multiple of 12x, (which is not unreasonable for a growing international tech company), that gives a valuation for FY25 of;

12 x £17m plus £22m = £226m or 80p per share.

Even with the proven track record in growth, the market continues to value this business at a 35% discount to what it would sell for in a trade sale.

Why?

In the absence of the board growing by acquisition, I think that it would help the share price if we started making dividend distributions. - even if it is a small percentage yield, at least that might attract a broader base of funds.

FG

Lets assume that

It is likely that it has been Lord Ashcroft's buying that has taken the SP up from the 2.65 to 2.8 range, to the 3.2 to 3.4 range. Therefore, when this buying pressure subsides, there is likely to be some retrace.

During the last few days, I have trimmed my holding to just over 2m shares, with profits from prior sales reducing the book cost of these to an average now of just 1.1p - so not quite a free ride yet, but that is where I am aiming. I still think that this is a gem of an AIM stock, with a great buy and build strategy, that is being executed within their cash and Management bandwidth means. With the value still to come from the integration and cross pollination of the recent acquisitions, The£65k interest that I still have is very capable of doubling, within a 24 month period, however, i felt it prudent to reduce my overall exposure in what had become a disproportionately large part of my UK equity interests, given that it is still a micro cap.

My understanding is that if an individual or corporate body, directly or indirectly acquires a shareholding in a UK PLC, that is greater than 30% or the issued share capital, then they either have to forthwith make a bid for the entire business, or declare that they have no intention of making any bid for the company, which then holds for a period of 12 months, until it can be reviewed.

I may be wrong on some of the detail ^^^^, but it is along those lines. That is why often stalkers acquire 29.99% of a business, and then sit and wait a while for any fall out.

It happens in big and small companies alike.... Just take a look at BT, where Mr Mittal has control over c25% of that business, giving rise to the debate as to will he or wont he make a bid, and whether or not the British Government will or wont allow BT to be sold.

I hope too that the parties are aligned, but it was unusual for three special resolutions to fail at the AGM. - at best it is a case of Management failing to do their "pitch-rolling", but at worse it is a stalking shareholder running his own agenda.

FG

Barking....

Things may not be as you suggest.

Lord Ashcroft now owns 25% in a business in which he has a lifetime of experience, but he is not on the board. ... Perhaps it was he who voted against the AGM resolutions relating to share issuance authorities. So maybe he does have his own agenda.....or maybe it is just his way of keeping the board in check.

The tone of the AGM results RNS suggests that the Board thought that they could equip themselves with the share issuance flexibilities, and they have been stopped in the tracks, to the extent that they have promised to engage with the shareholders who voted against to better understand their position. - that suggests that it was perhaps just the single significant shareholder who voted against resolutions 6 - 8; almost as if they didn't expect to receive the rebuff, and that the relationship between Lord Ashcroft and the Green Brothers is maybe, not hand in glove.

It may be a sign of "Coaching" a younger board, or his way of having a say in the acquisition strategy, but it is tricky for a board who own 20% of a what is a small business (i.e. significant), to then manage a business which has a single largest shareholder sitting outside of the board.

I think that there is more to come here, and in the short term this increase in holding is good for the share price as it reduces free-float, and possibly provides for another wave of demand as his take his holding up to 29.9%, however I just hope that, as promised in the wake of the AGM, that the two parties join at the hip and go forwards fully aligned.

FG

A 12.5% spread seems a bit OTT. In practice it is currently 3.3p to sell - 3.5p to buy, but even so, at 5.8% that is still toppy.

I guess the market makers are stifling the day traders, which is a shame, as there is nothing wrong with trimming at the top and replenishing on the pull back.

Hopefully the rise is as a result of one or two institutions coming on board.

The bigger picture is that this still has more than 50% upside, based on declared results.

The risk is in executing the operational integration of the recent acquisitions, but the upside for operational gearing has yet to come through, and in my opinion far outweighs the risk.

Did anyone get any further info as to why significant shareholders voted against some of the AGM resolutions.... (other than they didn't agree!)

FG

£1.80 equates to just 12p per share in old money, - before the 15 for one Share split in October 2020.

I know that a lot can happen in a decade, but to put this in context:....

In the 12 months before Boris announced lock-down and the suspension of cruising that followed, (And our parking 2 brand-new ships in Weymouth Bay for a year), this share traded within the bounds of 40p - 52p. That's £6.00 to £7.60 in today's money.

And this was a period after two significant profit warnings / periods of underperformance - call it what you will.

Prior to these warnings, in the 18 month period Nov '17 to March '19, the share bubbled around £1.20 to £1.40 - That's £18.00 to £21.00 in todays money, and in the 30 months before that (i.e. Feb '15 to Nov '17), the SP was in the old money range of £1.80 to £2.20, equating to £27 - £33 per share in todays money.

I agree that we are starting to see green shoots, - the harshest of trading conditions are behind us, and the board has moved the model to being one that is less capital intensive.

Would it be stupid to suggest that they should now look at commissioning a younger sibling to Adventure and Discovery? ... They could name it "Spirit of Survival" !

In cruising, They have a great product formula, and the UK over 60s segment is growing in size, (due both to ageing population bulge, and folks living longer), and one that has plenty of disposable income.

The asset light banking, insurance and financial products are relevant and okay, but are in truth best suited to the younger cash rich, but time hungry sector. Travel is exciting, and when delivered correctly, (as SAGA is doing), is more relevant to the cash-rich, time-rich over 60s.

Based on total returns, this is my worst performing share of all times, but I am glad that I did not completely shut-down the furnaces, and that we are up and running again with more than just a passing interest in trying to get back to break-even.

BE for me is £6.90, but in the context of the past 10 years, and, in particular the 12 months pre-lock down, there is every chance that this could be back on the agenda.

A long way to go, but 12p in old money is still only one quarter of where the business was pre-covid.

FG

Rivaldo...

Agreed.

Paragraph 3 gives a good summary of the recently added building blocks, from which the integration benefits are yet to be seen.

And IMV BBSN was undervalued before they went on their recent shopping spree.

There is every possibility that the Green Brothers are going to be the Digital equivalent of Maurice and Charles!....

....Or even the 21st century version of Martin Sorrell!.

Best of luck to them....the value is all in how these acquired assets are combined to make 2 + 2 = 5!

FG