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John Foley has made it onto the investors page on Portas website and holds 0.3% of the company. They have not updated Emma Kane yet. Maybe this will come later?

Looks like the funds have taken Monday off. Far too quiet! Hopefully get some news in next few weeks. 3-3.5p seems way too low here.

Mick as you are now out follow and watch. When they announce any refinance deal this could surge. I am waiting to see what other staff will defect to Porta. For a firm that is supposedly struggling they are doing a lot of high profile hires. If you think things are turning you can always get back in. Sure some historic funds are selling but they may just be looking at the share price and deciding 3 year wait is too long. Once this current fund is cleared share will recover.

I think this is because a smaller fund is selling out here. Emma Kane was responsible for last sell order. The signs have been here again. The 1.75m sells we saw after Emma Kane had cleared out. Also the fact the share has fallen in last 1-2 days even though the buys have outranked the sells hugely. The 1M buys on Friday looks to be to take out a sell order of some sort. The pattern of 250k and 500k trades was same they used for Emma Kane's 4m sell order. I expect this pattern to continue next week. It may well put some pressure on the Sp initially. Although I think 3p would be a big test level. For now better to get rid of investors wanting out. Then the turnaround has investors engaged with the firm. Have you been topping up Adastra??

Seriously considering it Pan. One of my friends thinks if this starts turning around the share price could increase sharply from this low price level. 10-13p short term? Like all shares there is an element of gamble as you can't predict 100% what will happen. Things do seem to be turning here. If all directors buy in heavily that will shift share quickly and hint at how well Porta may be doing. BM could buy in millions here assuming he wants to increase his position? I believe the funds/investor coming in here will establish 5%+ stakes. Between them so far they must have bought 16-20m shares this year at least. At present they are buying up all sold shares on a daily basis. You have to ask yourself why would they buy shares in a company supposedly doing so badly? They have seen something here. I was slightly downbeat after the result but I think things are now coming together company wise. I think as they gradually start increasing stakes in the Asia businesses this company will turn to a profit. With 2017 about growing in size very quickly. Maybe 1-2 big deals which see the company double in size. As they said in their results. 2016 consolidation. Hinting that 2017 will begin a new phase of expansion. Yesterday on ISDX someone bought over 328k of stock here. Today i think 260k bought on ISDX. LSE today there appears to be 1m buys with only 253k or so sells. Why the price is being held back I don't know. Perhaps another sell order? I was confused why price fell yesterday after so many buys. Not suprised to see a few small PI sell out. They are shaking the tree here for shares to buy. Time to wait a few days to see what happens on the market but I expect the buy trades of 250k and 500k to keep coming till these funds announce their position. If you were expecting a great sell off after the results I am not sure that is happening.

If this is such a terrible share then why are so many funds/investor buying up all the sold stock in such large volumes? Opportunistic or delibrate stake building? I suspect the latter. See what next weeks brings. How many sellers are really left here?? A few days after the results the PI sales will die down. At this point funds may start swapping shares again? Once this is done then this 3p level will likely rise quickly. Another late trade buy at 16:06hrs at 3.39p for 250k shares. So another million share bought today?

In some respects I can see this being turned around. Lots of senior hires bringing clients in. Cost savings promoised last year still to be seen. Debt refinance hopefully being worked on. That could over half the debt costs if they can get 6%. Reduction in costs relating to D and A and closed operations. In the back ground you have have fund/investors moping up all sold share. If they keep buying in 250k -750k plus a day they will build up a decent share in Porta. The buys are getting much bigger. Thats 1m over last 2 days. 7-9 million over last 10 days. Could this be the start of a takeover? We also have a new director (Like others) is used to managing and growing firms. People say the board lack direction and are over paid but there is so much knowledge and skill there. Not just in the UK but also in Australia. Exchange rate which gives a 10-20% bonus to foreign operations. Reasonable new clients coming on board too from what the TU stated. As the results showed most of the loss came from D and A and the cost of old operations. Strip that out and the loss is only 200k. People are selling because: 1. The Sp is drifting. My view is management are letting this happen to clear out stale investors. Also so directors can buy in cheaply when the share starts to rocket. 2. Debt - No one believes they are even looking at this. I hope/think they are. 3. Weak balance sheet. Hopefully the refinance can solve this. If you believe they have these issue in hand why would you not buy here?? There are some big plus points here if this is turning around like we suspect.

I assume the 250 and 500k buys are the mystery buyer. Lot of sells on isdx. This seller looks new.

Acquisitions with the right terms could be great for Porta. Agree sp will hold this back. Most sp issues is market sentiment. Economies of scale could also help. I think management do have a plan here. The new hires have been key to some or most of the new business here. Small shifts in numbers here could easily make porta profitable. We know a lot of the 1m saving come in h2. We know bank balance is healthy. From AGM they said they were looking to refinance long term. Personally I think the business needs to find backers to replace Bob. Sp is held back as directors are probably working on something in background. They can't tell the market everything. I think the firm has had a tough time bedding in all these 8 or so firms. I think h2 could be financially much stronger.

Mick - I think the business excluding finances looks extremely promising. With exchange rate and increased revenue of 11% in Asia that can offer some pretty good numbers for the second half. 1.1m profit in Australia + 20-30%. That could add 200-300k onto bottom line. (50% towards Porta. 150k) Same for Singapore and Hong Kong. These profitable pods look great. It's making the 1.2m cost of the HQ and the cost of the debt cover these. The balance sheet needs strengthening. This is why refinancing and maybe paying off some of the debt would be useful here. It looks like they have adjusted the marketing side here to reduce costs. 2nd half of year should be better for Porta as last year this was reduced by 600k or so from closed European offices. They have certainly recovered some of this through Asia. If their overall strategy of more senior advice mixed with integrated approach is starting to work then this could take off quickly with many more high profile staff defecting to Porta. They have taken on 3-4 high profile hires including Gavin, Steffan, Charlie and Simon. Newgate hinted at more senior hires to follow. 'Further high profile hires will be announced as Newgate expands to meet growing client demand.' If they all bring clients and experience to Porta that could be great news. Glencore is already paying for Steffan by the looks of things. The new director coming in has 27 years on experience and is great on acquisitions. "We welcome John to the board. John brings a wealth of board experience having over 27 years of continuous involvement on various public company boards as either Chairman, CEO, CFO or Non-Executive Director." ' At the time of John's appointment, MacLellan was loss making, with a turnover of circa £5 million and 50 employees. When it was sold to Interserve, MacLellan had a turnover of circa £250 million and a profit before tax of circa £9 million, with 13,500 employees. MacLellan grew through a series of acquisitions and organic growth. John is a Chartered Accountant and barrister.' This suggests in 2017 they plan to expand. He will be perfect to guide that ship. For me refinance first hence 2016 as consolidation year. Assuming they do the logical!! For me the main downsides here are debt, weakness of balance sheet and lack of support for the SP. I am sure this will be fixed when directors are able to buy in. If things are going so great why would they not buy in?? Maybe the fund/ investors who keep buying batches of 250k of shares will inject money too? Their buys are getting bigger now as the Sp has fallen. 15m+ buys now at least since Feb. 3% is 8.7m or so shares. So this suggests lots of small buyers or 3-4 fund/investors nibbling. Assuming same buyers? For now I am happy to hold. Let's see what happens.

http://www.*************.com/views/24096/porta-communications-top-pr-woman-emma-kane-some-really-dodgy-looking-share-dumping This article is less than positive about Porta today. Especially Emma Kane selling out a few days before the results. The continued losses each half and debt are a big worry. Headline ebidta is 2.8% lower than June 2015. Albeit partly explained by that 120k charge. Maybe also due to the new hires? The work in progress figure looks promising. The receivables and trades is almost 2m lower. There does appear to be a small gain from currency exchange. 120k. The share price is in steady decline. (Not helped by Emma.) We really need this buyer to start pushing up the SP. Porta need to announce a refinance plan soon or the sells may continue. I guess when the directors do start to buy in they will be buying millions each. At 3-4p the share still looks cheap assuming they are working on debt issues here.

The annoying thing here is our mystery buyer chirping in with all these buys is happy to let the sp drift. The results did have some positive numbers there. Marketing seems to still be posting a loss. Directors must be locked out here. Can't be acquisition. Could be refinancing?

Most of her remaining stock is locked in. She is not the seller here now.

Isdx shows nearly 389k bought. None sold.

Doubtful Drew. Still funds soaking up stock. I think directors may still be locked out. Otherwise I expected an RNS. Not a huge amount of trades so far. No mention of currency in report.

So Asia and Australia are growing fast but London is stalling here. This bodes well with exchange rates. All parts of the business seem to be gaining clients. PPS winning a confidential retail business sounds good. Also the FTSe100 work sounds promising. I was guessing 0.3-1m loss assuming no D and A. So I was somewhat right. The new director already has 900k shares already. No director buys here but perhaps they are waiting or still locked out here. The results are not a disaster really. No one expected a profit.. 600k before D and A with a near 400k hit from distcontinued operations gives a glimpse of break even. Refinance the loans and you soon halve debt costs. The 120k hit from refinancing loan is not good. Overall debt seems to be up to 8.5m now. From what they have said second half of year seems to be much stronger. See how market reacts.

The profile of Newgate and PPS has grown in recent months, in large part due to the high profile hires we have made. As a result of these and other steps forward in the business the pipeline of new client prospects and high profile hires for both Newgate and PPS has strengthened significantly in the last couple of months. Publicasity, which focuses on B2C and B2B markets, has been very solid throughout the first six months with an encouraging level of new business coming through towards the end of the first half, such as BSH Group (which includes brands such as Bosch, Siemens and Neff), and also won a large confidential piece of business from a major UK retailer. Aus/Singapore and HK all doing very well and winning clients. In addition to Hong Kong's existing retained client base, a number of new retained and project clients were won during the period including Asiya Investments, BFAM (in connection with the Kaisa debt restructuring), Franklin Templeton, Merril Corporation, Maxnerva and Permira. Singapore won or renewed a number of retainer contracts (at higher rates and with enlarged scopes of work) for the regional property giant Ascendas-Singbridge, the diversified conglomerate Pan-United Corporation and the high-profile law firm TSMP Law Corporation. Singapore also advised on a number of capital markets transactions, including the successful takeover by Baring Private Equity Asia of locally-listed UE E&C and other confidential briefs. Out look Over the last few years the building blocks have been put in place with the result that we now have scale operations in several markets including the UK and Asia-Pacific. The potential of these operations and the platform we have created need to be driven forward through operational enhancement and further strategic development. The outlook is undoubtedly strengthening all the time now that the Brexit vote is behind us, but we cannot relax our resolve in growing the business. We can say with confidence that the platform is there to continue driving the business forward.

New clients won including Sompo Japan Nipponkoa, Permira, Legal & General Investment Management and the Rugby Football Union. Gross profit down 1% despite the impact of Brexit, offset by organic growth in Asia-Pacific of 11%. Commenting, David Wright said: "After the first five months the Group was running ahead of budget. In our May 2016 trading statement, however, we indicated that the uncertainty caused by the referendum and the subsequent Brexit vote had a marked impact on project work in the UK where we are particularly exposed to the housing and property sectors. "We have continued to attract senior, proven staff to our team due to the quality of our platform. These hires help improve the number, quality and conversion rate of our client opportunities. "Porta is now moving into a new chapter in its development. We need to re-present the company, its strategy and to deliver greater value by building on the good work that has taken place thus far." PPS hit by housing and brexit. Australia was their star performer. In the period I was delighted to welcome Gavin Devine and Charlie Chichester in London. Gavin was hired as the COO of Porta and will help us grow the Public Affairs business in the UK and Europe. Charlie joined as Senior Partner and heads-up the financial practice in London. Both have made an immediate impact to the business. I was also very pleased to welcome Fiona Court and Nick Maher to our Australia business. Fiona, who joined us as a Director, is a specialist community relations practitioner who will work on expanding and developing a dedicated practice area in this space. Nick Maher was a former Partner of his colleagues in Australia. He is a highly experienced public affairs and communications advisor who re-joined us as a Senior Adviser. Nick recently served as a Chief of Staff for the Australian Government in infrastructure and regional development in 2013/14. He was also the Head of Government Relations for the Property Council of Australia in 2015/16, based in Canberra working on tax reform. We are increasingly attracting such talent - drawn by our integrated approach which is fit for purpose in the internet age. All of our senior hires thus far have generated fees from day one, Good progress has been made, with the business advising on several transactions, including Samsonite on its acquisition of TUMI, Glencore on the sale of a partial stake in its Agri business and Blue Prism on its IPO. Newgate also advised Third Energy on securing the first planning permission for shale gas exploration in five years. The business has also increased its focus on pensions advisory work over the last 12 months. The team, which includes public policy, media, member communications and training experts, has acted for several FTSE100 schemes.

D and A is 1.323m 387k hit from discontinued operations. So that is 1.7M worth of the loss. 310k to non controlling interests. That get's you to the 1.9m number.

Looks like a 1.8m loss. Need to work out the numbers.