Member Info for Franalex

Probably at this stage, largely immaterial but a further illustration of the largely random acquisitions they were making during their revenue growth phase. Overpaying significantly on almost every one.

Marconi went from having a huge cash pile to having nothing. Yes they overpaid for acquisitions but so have Capita on a big scale. I was CFO for a business that occasionally bid for the same business that Capita eventually secured and could get nowhere near the valuations they were paying and if you wanted to sell a business you started off with Capita as your target buyer as you knew they would pay more than anyone else if they wanted it.

Afraid this is beginning to remind me of the industrial giant Marconi, that was too big to fail and for me a stark reminder that shares that fall a lot do not always recover. I lost a lot of money catching a falling knife on that one so not trying to bring my average down on this one.

Predictable initial share price reaction when you look at a pretty disappointing set of results. Very vague return to dividend. Unlike what he said in his retirement announcement, the turn around is very far from being complete.

Trisor, As someone who held both RBS and Renewi at the time I was not convinced by the argument that they made about needing a certain share price to attract buyers. My somewhat cynical view is that over time people forget how bad the share performance has been. Divide their current price by 10 and it looks pretty a pretty woeful performance this millenium.

Would not be remotely surprised to see them announce a share consolidation when the results are released. Seems to be a slight of hand used by several companies (RBS & Renewi as examples) when the share price has languished as a low level for a long period.

They have 5.135% loan notes maturing in October. With current interest rates plus their risk profile, it would be very expensive to replace with another issue. Suspect they are putting cash aside for this.

Entirely agree. I remember the £30 figure and bought some, partly because Woodford when he was still a “star” fund manager had taken a large position.

Stopped trying to call the bottom. Remember someone saying something similar to you when it fell below £10 under its previous name. Disaster of a share.

Wonder if doing something about their shocking share price performance is on their radar? This distraction is doing nothing for shareholder value.

I suspect those who bought at £60, £50, £40, £30, £20 and £10 would think you can go wrong with ASOS.

Everything, this is my big issue with the business model. I have 2 daughters in their target demographic and they and all their friends order a huge number of items from ASOS and return almost all of them. They will order 3 different sizes and multiple colours of the same item. As an example, one has an end of term University prom coming up and ordered several hundreds of pounds of clothing from ASOS and every single item was returned, and apparently a number of her friends did exactly the same. I simply do not understand how you can create a sustainable business from this type of customer behaviour.

Netz, you have been predicting price rises continuously for the last 9 months. “A run up to £15 by Christmas 2022”. Credibility gets a little thin.

Remember someone posting almost identical comment before Christmas 2021 saying come back in a year and find out what the price will be. Anyone who took that advice will be in for a nasty shock.

Agree I am pretty relieved but I do fear that another cut is on its way particularly if we end up with a new CEO who wants to clear the decks.

I thought the company was massively over valued at IPO but thought £2.00 was fair value so entered at that point. I was wrong. Still think it is under valued but needs the balance sheet issues sorted.

Yes I have got a number wrong just do not bang on about the ones I got right. Need to learn from mistakes not blame others.

Sitting on a big loss are you? Clearly if you think resorting insults helps you case, it doesn’t. How have your forecasts of share price movements gone?

I can give you any number of reasons why deals are done. Ego and becoming a larger business often get in the way of rational analysis. We were required to do post acquisitions reviews and of the 15, 5 hit or exceeded expectations, 6 just about justified what we paid over a 3 year time horizon and 4 destroyed value. I am expecting a big non-cash write down and would not be surprised to see it announced in September. That actually may be good for the share price.

The answer is that I do not think they have made an acquisition that justifies the price paid and I think a lot in the market agree with me. As a CFO for over 20 years I have completed over 25 acquisitions of which 15+ were in PLCs. I know how difficult it is to get right and how difficult to accept you got it wrong and I think they got most wrong.