Member Info for Fishinggardener

Repression,

There is no mention in the RNS of Lock-up or Minimum Holding period for the Newly issued ordinary shares.

But what I would say is the following:.

Post consolidation, the former share capital of 1290 million shares will reduce to 64.5 million.

The newly issued shares created to raise cash to part fund the acquisition of MBA will number c27.5 million.

Of this 27.5million newly issued shares, c6 million are being acquired by Mark Ritson, c2 million upon within 12 months of completion, and c4 million within 24 months of completion, MBA Founder, who will continue working within the Group. (He will also receive an additional c2million shares upon completion in return for converting directors loans that he has made to the MiniMBA Business). So, you have to take at face value that baring any major fall-out, Mark Ritson is signing up for the long term plan, as opposed to trying to make a quick-buck, by trading these shares.

In addition, 750,000 of the new shares are being acquired for by the Green Brothers, increasing their stake in the enlarged business. One also has to conclude that they too are in for the long game and not going to trade these shares.

The remaining 20.75 million newly issued shares, these will be acquired by institutional investors, in what was an oversubscribed offering. One has to assume that these incoming investors are happy to invest on the basis of the story and long term potential, as opposed to making a quick return, and if they were minded to sell, then the oversubscribed offering, suggests that there would be other parties wishing to increase their holding.

Increasing the number of institutional investors in the business in itself is a good thing in the long term development of the shareholder base.

So, in the short term, for approximately 25% of the issued share capital, there might be a small portion of investors who have, and take the opportunity to make a bit of short term profit..... but if that occurs does it matter?.... IF the SP crashes , then we have all got it wrong and will be nursing losses. If the SP grows north of 3p, as it should, then compared to where we are today, all shareholders might be tempted to cash in, so really the only candidates are those who have been fortunate enough to buy at 2.45p who sell at a price less than it is today. i.e.3p, and in doing so forego, the opportunity that the bigger picture, and longer term represents.

I don't see it being a problem.

FG

Best look at these events through a time-line that is longer than a few days.

I have been a shareholder in BBSN for over 5 years....Transacting over 100 times,....trying to buy when the price has dipped and trim when it has spiked....that's the nature of the game we play. My holding has oscillated between 2m and 3m shares, and currently sit on an average of 1.2p.

I agree, that 2.45p was the price when the deal was struck - I am completely fine with that - and to be honest, if anyone on this board wanted the opportunity to come on board at that price or less, then they could have bought at any point in the past 12 months, (save for 3 small spikes) when the price went above this amount.

It is also highly unlikely to retrace to 1.5p / 30p in new money. This share is on a journey to creating real value. Current plausible multiples of latest trading results, puts this share at a fair market price for any acquirer of 5p - 6p. and that is before we see the upside from the Cross selling of services to the recently acquired businesses, and the cost savings that should come if the businesses are smartly integrated.

So I would argue that people should take a wider view.... not penny pinch over 2.45 or 2.85, because first and foremost you should invest in the story, the sector that they operate in, and and the team who we are backing to create the value.

I am not a trader, but I trimmed c300,000 shares yesterday at 3.01p and bought them back this morning at 2.9p. An opportunistic trim and add. Does it change my view of the opportunity that we are involved with here?... Not a jot.

So, look at the acquisition in play, in the context of the wider picture, and if some extra cash needs to be raised to add another building block, then leveraging your stock at a price which is 20% north of where it has been for most of the past 12 seems well within the bounds of sensible.

I say "Best of luck in making MBA happen!". - Im in!

FG

Glad to see that this is on the up..... I have been a long term holder here for years, and as with many others, my investment record with SAGA is my single greatest loss of all time, but i have never completely bailed, as all the issues of the past 5 years aside, I love the fact that the business is focussed on a customer segment, .(i.e. the over 50s), who have cash to spend on themselves, who pay for a quality product, who are loyal to a brand and which is growing in size as we all live longer, and the baby boomers enter the segment.

In old money, at £1.65, this share is 11p. (For newcomers SAGA did a 1 for 15 share consolidation c 4 years ago), and so this has a long way to go to get back to where it was, and back to "steady as she goes" growth.

My all time average is now stands at c£9 (60p in old money), so I have some way to go.

But the reason why I have rekindled my interest is that in the Ocean Cruise s part of the business, they have an excellent product.

I have just come back from a 9 day cruise up to Norway on the Spirit of Adventure, - it was my first ever cruise - testing the water to see if we liked that I kind of holiday. To be honest, as always there are bits of details which, in our opinion could be better, but overall I was blown away with the quality of the ship, the food offering, and the whole experience. - it was 10/10.

From a shareholders point of view, I was encouraged by the following, all of which means that, in my view, with the support / backing / patience of the Chairman, SAGA is well placed to reduce their debt pile, and return to decent profitability and cash generation.

1. The ship was full. 990 paying customers - average ticket c £4,000, so gross revenues of £4m for a 9 day trip.

2. The proportion of customers who were returning for their umpteenth cruise was over 50% - taken from a show of hands in the theatre one evening.

3. The turnaround was slick. We were disembarked in Dover between 0800 hours and 1030hours, and the ship set sail at 1700 hours that same evening with a fresh set of paying customers off for a trip to the Med.

4. Looking at the catalogue for 2026, SAGA seam to be increasing the volume of shorter cruises (5 - 9 days), as compared to the longer 17+day trips. Presumably they base their offering on research and feedback, but I think that this is also good for the per Diem revenues often discussed on this board.

So, as a result of my experiencing the product, and observing the loyalty / advocacy of their customer base, I have added to my holding, firmly in the belief that they are giving themselves the best chance possible of getting the Debt to EBITDA ratios back to what might be called normal. i.e. 2 - 2.5x.

It'll take a few years, but if they succeed, it will once again be a very valuable business.

DYOR - include go sample the product!.

FG

Spikeyj,

If you like Vietnam, then take a look at SPEC

Profitable and generating Cash, with a ridiculously low valuation, - they manufacture spectacle frames and have just opened production of their Vietnam factory.

Founder chairman is just being replaced after 30+ years, but recently some VHNWI have taken positions. - Just for complete openness, I am a holder of c30k shares. - part of my small, High risk / high growth fund.

As, for Aviva, for me too, it is a cornerstone of my portfolio, but I have taken some profit from recent highs, and hope that we see a dip before next year's full divi, as if anything I am a little under-weight now.

But I think that Marksith is very optimistic hoping to trade at 480. - I think that it will only be a complete catastrophe that takes this back below £5.

At £5.75, the forward looking Dividend will be 6.5%, which is good enough for me to start adding again.

DYOR and best of luck,

FG

I think that your reference to 30p is very old.... Pre-Green Brothers getting involved.

I've been here 5 years plus, and the share has not traded outside of the 1.5p - 3.2p range give or take.

Definitely expect a re-rate, although this might be camouflaged in the short term by a listing of new shares at a discount to the current price.

Over the past 18 months, The Company, has had a good run of securing interesting bolt-on deals.

Best of luck with integrating them and then leveraging the client base across all of our skill set / products.

This is a gem in the making!.

FG

I suspect that the "oh so smart" algorithms don't have a routine for a critical incident such as a cyber attack.

I sold my modest holding 0f 2200 shares at c383p and took the profit.

Agree with all the remarks re quality of product, and resilient customer demographic, but one thing is for sure, a website without sales for best part of a week, and an the additional disruption being reported on maintaining stock levels in the branches will have a hit on financial performance.

The longer that it goes on, the more out of kilter their operations will get with optimum trading, and the longer it will take to get back to BAU.

I've set buy orders to get back in at 365p and 350p.

Arbitrary figures i know, but basically -5% and -10% off my sale price,....but its no less illogical that the current situation of having a FTSE 100 Company sustaining a major Cyber attack, and seemingly not managing to recover it in a timely manner.

Small armchair private investors (like myself), can't move the share price, even in these situations, and so at some point there has to be a manual intervention from a major holder to override the algorithms.

FG

Completely agree Kat....

After the failed misadventure of trying to acquire The Mission Group, (which to my mind was a blessing), Management are developing and executing a much more realistic acquisition strategy.

- Investing in partnering significant customer brands (last acquisition included The Very Group, and Aviva)

- Initial consideration paid out of existing cash resources

- Good proportion of consideration deferred

- Element of performance related to achieving the upside; only payable at a level that the deal has become self financing.

- Acquired management join the BBSN Mothership, which protects customer relationships

- New Directors awarded share options in BBSN which gives them a continued interest in creating wealth.

- Targets are digestible in terms of operational scale.

Also good news about the dividend. 0.02p, equates to c1%, which is perfect. It is a few years before this gets anywhere near being an income stock, but it is so important, along the journey, to reward the current long-term shareholder base so that they remain supportive if there were ever the need for further cash..... but to be honest, based on the current results and progress, is not looking likely any time soon.

Congrats to the Green Brothers and to all the team that have contributed to the turn around during the past 4 years.

FG

BBSN has risen over 30% in the past month. - but there is still plenty of upside from here.

Anything less than 3p, imho is a good entry, as on current trading forecasts from the Company, and brokers suggests that the SP should be north of 4p.

Growth this year is assured as the purchase of Engage, (a "competitor"), completed in January, so will contribute 11 months of trading.

Still plenty of cash in the bank to do another bolt-on, if the right candidate can be found.

I am well over-weight here, but sitting on an average of 1.3p, having done a bit of trimming along the way.

Nice to see the market waking up!.

GLA

FG..

Thanks for the heads up Terry.

I too clocked the incoming interest in AGR. - also placed a cheeky top up order which I hope will get filled before the bid gets clarified next week.

BId aside, AGR and PHP make for good income choices due to

1. Ageing and growing UK Population increasing demands for healthcare

2. Much of the NHS property portfolio is privately funded.

3. The PHP chairman, (Harry Hyman), used to be CEO, and is massively invested to the tune of 25m shares.

As for DEC, I agree with folks on here in that fixing the dividend for three years has capped the upside for income seekers. Although the Dividend amount was fixed against a backdrop of huge FUD at the time, as to whether any dividend was affordable, rather than creating the stability, which I am sure was the intent, it has effectively confirmed an income decrease in real terms. It is like being stuck with a Fixed Rate Savings account during a period of rising interest rates.

Still in though for 2% of my PF, and hoping to ride the 1280 - 1380 waves in an attempt to reduce my average.... (Which is at present embarrassingly high!.

FG

Thank you Trek, and to Terry too for the follow up... Most useful.

If anybody else is looking to upweight their portfolio into quarterly paying higher yielding stocks / REITS / ITs, then this string is worth a read.

I love the way that you phrased "I built my income pf from a low capital base stumbling on multi-baggers and trading them". I first came across Trek on the ARB board... which was a once in a lifetime share-dealing ride for many. That too was my route to upgrading my trading efforts from what was a hobby, to now me being more like a fund manager!. I never commented on that board in the ride from 3p up to £3.40 and back down again, as it was the usual nuggets from the likes of Trek, buried under a mountain of personal abuse and unsubstantiated fantasy from others.

Outside of my high yielders I have overweight interest in three smallish businesses, Gaming Realms (GMR), Brave Bison (BBSN), and Inspecs (SPECS). All three are in the Market cap range of £40m to £100m, and are profitable and cash generative and have been for several years.

My Moonshot is GST.

That's all for the Non-DEC conversation from me.

One thing relevant to DEC is that I have, in past quarters, cleared out most of my DEC holdings in the 10 day run up to Ex-Div day. The reason for this is that, due to the DIvi Tax withheld by the US, the dice are loaded in favour of creating a better return. Even with the W-8Ben Docs in place, I only receive 85% of the declared dividend. And yet like all shares, when DEC goes Ex-dividend, the price drops, (all other things being equal), by 100% of the value of the Dividend. It only amounts to c4p difference, however compared to other stocks where guessing the Buy / Sell behaviour during the week before and the week after a stock going Ex Div is 50:50, it is handy to use the tax withheld to create an arbitrage.

FG

Thank you Terry.

That's my Monday morning sorted!.

PS I am a LTH in DEC too, just incase anyone thinks that I have completely gone off message. But the arguments for scaling back on DEC are well covered here already.

Trek / Terry,

Can you provide some examples of the REITs / ITs that have attracted your investment please?.

Over the past twelve months, I too have switched quite a proportion of my low yielding equities, and maturing Fixed term savings into tax sheltered ISAs.

I have started two "funds", favouring quarterly payers, (but not exclusively)

One Property focussed including AGR, CREI, GRI, (Which is set to take on REIT status next year), LAND, NRR, PHP, SUPR and BBOX. - tried to put together a blend of property-type focus. Average annual yield at my buy-in price is just over 7%, but this is "pulled down" by GRI, and is a little higher now for people investing at todays price.

The other is focussed on Renewable Energy and includes UKW, BSIF, NESF and TRIG. Again Mixture of Solar, and Wind. Average annual yield at my buy in price is c10%.

Any comments on my choices (supportive or otherwise), would be most welcome, as at the "strategic" level, we are on the same page.

Any insight as to your specifics, would also be very useful for me and others to consider.

Thanks in advance.

FG

Spot on Rivaldo....

The Cavandish forecast is helpful, and makes complete sense.

Today's market cap with the recent rise has reached the giddy heights of £32m - For a company that is likely to have £9 -£10m in the bank cum the end of this year, and which is about to post EBIT of £3.5 -£3.6m for the FY just ended.

£22m for a business which Cavendish forecast to raise profits this year to £3.85m - that's a multiple of 5.7. i.e. cheap.

Medium term it would be nice to get to the SP 4.7p, however on fundamentals alone this year's trading should justify 4p at least.

FG

With the recent acquisition of Engage, there should be faster growth of the top and bottom lines,.

What would a profitable cash generating company sell for in a trade sale?

For a tech business, apply a conservative multiple of 10x gives a valuation of £130m.

Ramp the multiple up a notch as the company is growing both top and bottom line by 20%+. (Acquirers will pay a premium for growth).

So, at 12x EBITDA that gives a valuation of £156m.

Add back the cash in bank, which was £12m at the half year, so could easily be £14m at December year end.

That raises the valuation to £170m, .... or 57p per share.

I do this calculation every half year... have done for the past 5 years.

Like others on here, I don't see what the market doesn't like, so as to mark the market Cap 35% on the Enterprise value.

I also don't see why management can't create more products and open up more markets more quickly. They have a winning formula. and it is not as if they are constrained for cash.

GMR has been very good for me, using the "add and Trim" approach, but something says that it could be so much more exciting.

FG

I managed to add 10,000 shares last night at less than 40p, in anticipation of a decent Trading update, and have topped up a further 12,000 this morning.

This business is on course to deliver revenues >£200m, has Gross Margin over 50%, is on course to record another year of EBITDA above £17m, and is reducing debt, which at FY 24 year end is approximately 1.3x EBITDA.

Yet the Market gives the company a valuation of just £45m. - Approximately 2.5x EBITDA!.

Is it really down to the fact that the company has had a couple of years of flat financial performance?.

If the Vietnam factory is now producing then that is one cash hungry variable which will hopefully be an engine to drive growth. Presumably the capex for the factory is "one-off", which means that there will be £low millions available for the resumption of the dividend.

£2m back to dividends will pay 2p per share, which at todays price would be 5%!.

Maybe that will bring back the investor following.

FG

As I said... I am and Armchair Investor, not an accountant.

Yes, I can confirm that every consignment of shares that i have ever bought and sold has its own line on a spreadsheet, which captures the profit / loss of each individual transaction.

What i am eluding to is that when you consolidate the performance over time, of all transactions within an individual share, and you get to the stage that your cumulative profits to date exceed the purchase costs of the remaining open positions, then you are in a risk-free position. ...effectively playing with profit.

As for the tax man, ...rest assured that all of my portfolio sits within the protection of an ISA wrap....so no crucifixion necessary.

FG

I'm with Mary....

If you can 'Add and Trim' a share, taking profits along the way, so that the rump that you are left with has £zero cost, then you're in for a (risk) free ride on your remaining block.

Personally, I think that it is sound practise, and helps with learning to ride the ebbs and flows of the shares that we invest in.

Across my portfolio, I have over a dozen holdings where my "cost" is less than zero!

We are arm chair investors,....not accountants (speaking for myself , that is!)

FG

My take on the growth being a bit lacklustre is that in 1H FY24, Senior Management invested too much time in opportunistically chasing an indigestible merger with The Mission Group, - an operation 5 times the size of us!.

Thankfully that failed, and they have since concluded the acquisition of Engage which will start contributing to the Group's numbers from this month onwards. (i.e 11.5 out of the 12 months of FY25).

So growth in FY25, albeit purchased growth is assured, with FY25 GM income expected to be >£27m. This TU also confirms that they have over £7m cash in the bank as at end of December just gone, and so that is a right-sized war chest to go and acquire another ailing / sub-scale competitor and to bolt it on to the BBSN rump.

Successful integration of any acquisition is obviously key to moving forwards, but bringing the acquired principal into the management team will help enormously with customer retention.

So, I don't agree that this will half in price, nor drift in terms of turnover, and therefore they don't need to go chase a cornerstone client within 3 months.

If they develop a "buy and build" model, and develop the acquired customers to utilise the full BBSN Group capability, then intuitively, that should be a better way to develop earnings, than to heavily resource the New Business channel, where winning customers off competitors is always expensive, and often compromises margins.

This is still a tiny business, and the flat FY24 on FY23 performance, I'm predicting, should be a one-off.

If they can transact one deal a year, financed out of cash resources and on a self funding formula, in which a target competitor can add 25% to 40% to the turnover, and with it, bring new customers and management into the fold, which they are then able to integrate and successfully nurture, then I think that we will soon see impressive growth in shareholder value over the next 2 -3 years.

Just for the record, for the size of my portfolio, I am well over weight in this stock, currently holding c3.25m shares. Originally I started with a punt, but over the years, I think that overall the Green brothers have done a solid job, and that is why I consider my stake to be a considered investment, and one that is significantly undervalued by the market.

DYOR and best of luck

FG

Peter,

You can buy or sell AGR just like any other share save for the fact that (at least for the first transaction), you will be asked some high level questions by your broker as to your understanding of REITS.

Also at Dividend time, for the REITs that I hold in my ISA, (PHP, AGR and NRR), the dividend cash arrives at 90% of the declared dividend, with the remaining 10% arriving a few weeks later in the form of a tax reclaim. - I use Barclays smart investor service, and whether or not this is a service that they perform, or an automation that just flows through, i don't know, but it has been 100% accurate over a period of several years for me now.

PHP / AGR focus on healthcare buildings. Ageing population / increasing use of private capital to provide for Non-frontline NHS services / Low likelihood of voids and defaults are all good reasons as to why I've invested here long term.

Almost got to the point where I don't care what the underlying share price is, as I have bought a quarterly income that is tax free. - so vulnerable to interest charges increasing - but so far they are both performing well, and whats not to like when the forward looking yield is 9.5%.

Best of Luck.

FG

This week exactly one year ago, the SP was walked down from 36.6p down to 34p, before rising to 38p around the time that the Pre-Close TU Statement was issued on Feb 5th.

Looks like same again for this year.

But, 12 months on, and we have higher revenues, (likely to be north of £27m), Growing Adj EBITDA, (probably north of £12m, and over £14m of cash in bank. - These numbers are not wild stabs dreamt up by me, you can arrive at the same place by drawing simple graphs comprising datapoints from the last 5 half yearly report RNSs. It is a recurring revenue model business with Costs of sale largely proportional to the sales line, and a modest overhead line.

Save for the high level risks to any SME business such as fraud, changes in Government policy to on-line gaming, or loss of key individuals, the performance of GMR from one year to the next is easy to predict

So why is the value of the business not reflecting the progress being made?

FG