Member Info for Hardboy

"Now with the shares at a rubbish price it is time to nationalise BT."

But the Government is broke - they couldn't afford to buy out our local chippie let along a FTSE100 co.

"Ex CEO should be barred from attending AGM." He almost certainly owns far more shares in the company than you do, so, like all good shareholders I'd expect him to be there!

"CEO doesn't know how to run the company and got kicked out.... Or he knows **** going to hit the fan for this company and did an early escape.
Which one?"

Well as he was buying shares after stepping down it's obvious

There is a strategy paper on it - bit of light reading for you!

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-hydrogen-strategy

That debt figure makes your eyes water. Too early to say whether this take over will be disaster or a great success - good words about synergies, so let's hope to see some real progress in Q4

It's a good supportive article, but it has to be remembered these interims will look good because of invoice timing, rather than winning any new contracts.

"Growth companies and particularly companies in the renewables sector are being harshly treated by the market at the moment.
In the main, because interest rates are liable to keep on rising."

Yes because most growth companies need to borrow to grow; but Ceres are sitting on a pile of cash - rising interest rates should be earning them a bucket load in interest

Just checked the last time Phat posted on the CWR board he was saying Bosch are going to take over Ceres. That is virtually impossible while Weichai hold over 20% of the shares. Maybe that's what he means about the contracts being signed though, in which case I suspect it's not true, and if he means some other contracts we won't know until he clarifies things.

Sorry - I don't follow this board as closely as maybe I should - but what contracts are we talking about?

In current markets any news release which is 99% positive and 1% negative seems to send the share price plummeting. I've quickly scanned through the RNS & I'm pretty happy with it, but looking for any negative which might send the price down - tea is weak but we already knew that (that won't stop current markets reacting though) the FX strategy is a bit vague but suggests they might not have been doing as well on that front as they could have. They've increased stock levels, which some people could see as negative - I see it as prudent. They describe the year as "challenging" & that word never sticks well with markets, Net debt has gone up - again we knew it was going to, and I have been impressed with the way they have managed their debt levels during this period of huge investment, but maybe markets will see higher debt levels with rising interest rates as bad. T ~ 1.5 c profits it's quite manageable and cash flow is good so it should start coming down quite quickly.

I'm pleased with it - no surprises, everything going pretty much as management think with sales up 13%. BUT there are enough possible minor negatives for the market to react badly. Oh for those heady days when the SP was over 1200!

I began reading it and felt a warm glow - the words were very positive - then I started seeing numbers & knew the market reaction would be negative. Turnover may be (but only just) but profits are down. (Sales = vanity, profit = sanity.) And the immediate outlook looks like rising costs and reduced margins. I have to give credit to the board - managing to sound so positive on such difficult numbers.
The good thing is the level of customer retention and let us hope they can get a few more long term customers on board and keep them too.

Sadly in the current irrational markets good news only lasts one day.

Porvair came out with a similar strong unscheduled trading statement recently - the stocks went up on the day of the releases and have been falling back ever since.

Liz Truss stated very plainly that she did not believe in windfall taxes - companies have to understand what taxes they are paying or they will not operate in the country - simple. So she is a against them, so I can't see it happening. That isn't to say there may not be some increase in tax going forward.

share price down about 40% in the last year (& then it did not lookover bought) profits up 30%.

There's only one conclusion - BUY

I tend to agree, but in the current atmosphere the slightest negative means share prices tumble. They seem to have recovered slightly through the day, and good to see directors buying, even if it was relatively low volumes.

There are so many great businesses in real bargain territory at the moment!

MT - I remember reading about Sky Diamonds when it was being built - sounded a wonderful idea. Do you know how it's going? I believe it is am private company with no intension of floating.

As I understood it one of the reasons the markets have been pushing Halfords price down is because they have been buying businesses and increasing their debts at a time when interest rates are rising. So today they announce another acquisition which although giving synergies does not seem that much of a bargain and which presumably increases their debt levels further, and the markets welcomes it with open arms!

"Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"

When a company releases an unscheduled Trading update so close (3 weeks) to a scheduled one, and says the full year profits will be ahead of current expectations it's likely to be a significant improvement.

I'm still waiting for them to tell us when we can open the jars of jam they gave all attendees at their AGM a few years back (they were having a poke at the discussion boards who kept saying it's always jam tomorrow!)

Were out last week. Has anyone got any views on them? It seems to me unless they land some serious contracts soon they will have to raise some more capital, so the begging bowl will be passed round the shareholders again.