Member Info for gulfharbour

Yes, that did seem to be a quick completion.

On the face of it this is a very good acquisition, but integration is everything, so I hope that management have full focus on that.

The timing of this completion is good also, because they now have 4 months to complete the integration prior to the key Christmas period.

The increases over the past 2 days are welcome, but there is no obvious driver.

Yesterday and today (so far) we have had rises of circa 2%, but with no big volumes behind those rises - yesterday we only had about 70% of average daily volumes, and today similar.

The next scheduled news is the results announcement in 7 weeks, but if any early news had leaked I would have expected trade volumes to be far higher.

1st sentence should have said "MOON have done other companies a favour...."

That may be the case, however MOON have done other companies by opening that market and making it relevant and attractive.

Given CARD awful previous performance with online it seems clear that they did not have the right people, systems or experience to adequately even start addressing that market, but most of those barriers (subject to good integration of FP into CARD), should have been either removed, or at least reduced.

And another big opportunity is that fact that due to MOON market share in the online space, CARD do not need to make massive inroads into their customers to start making an appreciable difference to the CARD bottom line.

Another thing to consider about this acquisition is that FP is only being sold because of WH Smith divesting what are now deemed to be non-core assets, so it is quite likely that FP has not been getting any management time, attention or focus for some time, and maybe has been drifting.

Bringing it into the CARD organisation should bring better online/digital skills than CARD currently possesses, plus make their people feel wanted, rather than as a spare part.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you say, and as always the jury is out on the acquisition until tangible results are seen, but on balance this acquisition excites me as opposed to the Garven one which was a little puzzling and seemingly quite a big risk.

@nonsense, I should just clarify that of course you are right that the RNS states it will be earnings enhancing from FY27, but my point is that the FP operational business is profitable right now, even apart from other synergies.

Its an interesting point you raise about the existing CARD online business, so I will be fascinated to see how the integration of FP goes, which will most likely take around 12 months to complete.

The RNS states FP has revenue of £32m pa with £5m ebitda, plus there are £5m of synergistic savings p.a. up to FY27.

I assume the timing of this sale is part of the wider WH Smith strategy to refocus on being a travel centric business, so presumably FP was viewed as a non-core part of the business.

I have not been a fan of previous acquisitions but this one definitely excites me and I think its a brilliant strategic fit.

For me there are several key benefits including:

-FP is an established brand that is already profitable and immediately adds to the bottom line

-synergistic savings (annually up to FY27!) of £5m

-great digital/online offering that immediately plugs the one part of the CARD model that wasn't really working

Additionally the trading update reaffirmed the FY financial targets, and I particularly liked the statement that the bod prioritising uses of surplus cash "including potential additional returns to shareholders..." that maybe is a nod to some shareholder pressure to either increase divi, undertake buyback, provide a special divi, or combination of the above.

Given the stated intention to pay back the additional debt from this acquisition within 3 years it is pretty clear that buybacks will be off the table, but it may give a steer towards some increases in divi, although those might well have to wait until next year.

While we are in the current information vacuum there is lots of room for speculation on whether CARD is doing well, badly or just indifferent.

As I understand things the next official company information will be provided during late September which is the normal date for announcement of results, however that is still 2 months away.

I have emailed the company IR department setting out my disappointment in the board's lack of apparent interest in even starting to address the languishing SP, and requesting that they consider providing an earlier trading update and I await their response with interest.

@thumper, as i'm sure you already know there really is no point engaging with that total to55er savage.

he/it is either a bored **** taker, or a paid de-ramper who has no real interest in the company he spams with his drivel.

i filtered him long ago and it made a huge improvement to the ezj board.

That was a crazy drop and imho that was never warranted by those results.

The market is sometimes so hard to fathom and you have to wonder whether a listing in another jurisdiction would be benficial.

I've taken the opportunity to top up in the 480s (can't believe I'm getting that chance!) and look forward to this recovering to 500p + within just a few days.

Probably more like a market awakening than a correction.

Thanks for that link.

It is frankly a bit worrying for Darcy to be talking about being in a number of active conversations regarding further acquisitions.

We haven't seen the true results of the Garven acquisition yet, and in my view making further acquisitions at this stage is a gamble, and one which at best risks the bod losing focus on the current business.

I would much rather that they focused on improving shareholder returns (by a mixture of improved divi and buyback), and reducing debt further.

Hi Bermondsey,

Although I agree that todays RNS on its own does not constitute any significant dilution, I must say I am getting annoyed at the regular drip, drip effect of the bod issuing new shares rather than buying them on open Market.

Even if they had undertaken a small (say £10m) buyback that would at least reverse the dilutive effect, plus sending an unambiguous signal to the market that the bod believe the current SP undervalues the company.

Including todays RNS, so far this year there have been 3.55m new shares issued bring us up to around 350m shares in issue, compared with 341m shares in issue when Darcy took over 4 years ago (circa 3% dilution).

The last res showed we have a divi cover ratio of 3 vs the BOD stated payout range of 2-3, so there was ample scope to either increase divi, or to maintain divi at present level whilst adding a buyback element.

Don't get me wrong because I believe operationally Darcy and the bod are doing a good job, but from a shareholder return and capital allocation standpoint, I'm not happy they are not doing more to increase returns to long suffering shareholders.

Lol Wiscos.

I normally buy and hold rather than trading, but I have to admit that in the past few months I have traded about 15% of my CARD shares to take advantage of the ups and downs.

It's annoying that the BOD don't seem to have any interest in addressing the SP underperformance, so I have used by AGM votes to vote against remuneration report and the reappointment of Moody as Chair.

The BOD need to have a plan, but whatever it is, it's certainly not clear atm.

I can't see any reason for the drop other than possible manipulation (as if), so I just topped up at 93p after selling a small portion of my holding last week at 99p prior to xd.

Currently todays volume of share transactions is running right on the average daily volumes for past 3 months, so if there had been any leak of a problem or other bad news, I would have expected the volume to be far higher than it is.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Yep, I would normally welcome this director purchase but actually he was doing the bare minimum he is required to do under his employment package terms.

Price looks to be firming up nicely, and the next scheduled news should be the trading update in July.

We are fast approaching the best part of the year for EZJ finances, and even though a significant portion of fuel costs are hedged at higher than current POO, I would still hope that we start to see some effects of lower fuel costs filtering through.

Even if we don't see much fuel cost change in July, that fact that the new hedges will be around current POO costs, the short to mid term knock on effect of those lower costs should be a strong catalyst for another leg upwards for the SP.

Just topped up on RIO this morning after the CEO news.

Although he seemed to have generally done ok in past 4 years he had pushed hard for growth (along with the consequential overhead cost increases), and I'm wondering whether his reported resistance to reducing costs has actually put brake on improved company financial performance.

Admittedly there has been a lot of global uncertainty primarily caused by the orange man in the white house, but that aside I feel that high levels of overheads that are not translating through to significantly increased revenue and profit are not a good optic in the current economic climate, and I hope that high overhead cost path will start to change now.

Apart from Trump/China, the biggest risk I see is that the CEO succession does not get resolved quickly, in which case the market will undoubtedly penalise the SP.