Member Info for Hexam

"I'm sure you will keep squirming and twisting though"

There's only one person "squirming and twisting" but you would need a mirror to see who that is. Some priceless posting from you today trying (yet again) to suggest other posters have written things they haven't and then attacking them for what they haven't said - and accusing (yet again) the MM's of market abuse but presumably without proof (because you say yourself it is nigh impossible to prove and so one presumes you are just making it up as always).

If in doubt though just start a post "Oh dear..." and everybody will believe what you are saying rather than simply trying to 'sneer and domineer'. Then again...

"I’m not joking Dags, start a YouTube stand up comedy show, get chopstick and Hexam involved. Call it the three divorces lol."

Thanks for gratuitously dragging me into this bizarre thread. Just what is your obsession with other posters' marital status? Why do you think someone being a divorcee is a reason to look down on them or abuse them and what has it got to do with ARB or investments in general anyway?

Every post you make seems to be more cringeworthy than the last. Perhaps try talking about ARB rather than just making stuff about yourself and other people? Like for example that I'm divorced and have lost the house (which will come as a bit of a shock to my wife if she reads this)!

Btw I don't think you are Bowlers - you are just the latest in a rogues gallery of idiots the fake cruiser seems to have latched on to.

For once I agree with Bfd - I'm not seeing a rights issue as being very likely. They have already, and just recently, raised cash from one equity issue and now from the sale of the Head Office (together around £88m). This still leaves them with a net debt position of perhaps £50 to £75m but this should be manageable so long as they can return to positive cash flow in the not too distant future (and that the £125m RCF can be extended beyond October 2026).

Of course it's a different matter entirely if cash flow does not improve reasonably soon but even then they will have other options for raising cash beyond a rights issues and some of these (like sales of parts of the business) will probably be considered anyway as part of the business review. So any need for a rights issues could at least be delayed for a while.

So one way or another we should avoid an RI in the near future but nothing is guaranteed and if they do end up doing one then I will almost certainly not take up the rights for new shares but take the cash on offer for selling those rights instead . This tends to be the smart move as the sp nearly always drops more than it theoretically should do after an RI and often to below the price the new shares were offered at. This means you can usually buy the shares close to (or even below) the price you could have bought them in the rights issue AND you have the cash sum that you get for selling the rights.

Most people mistakenly think the 'discount' of the new shares in a rights issue is a real added value (it's not, it is just smoke and mirrors as it is exactly offset by the EXPECTED loss in value of the existing shares because of the RI) and that taking up the rights is the only way to take 'advantage' of that discount (selling the rights in theory gives the same value and usually more as the sp nearly always drops more than it should do i.e. than it was expected to because of the RI).

“Well Hexam, if there is a bear case it hasn't been stated.”

Well try this:

The ‘credible plan’ doesn’t work nor any of their other actions so that losses continue at their current rate (of around £100m per year) and cash continues to dwindle with no buyers attracted to any part of business in order to shore up finances.

Eventually lenders lose patience and call in the debts as it becomes clear they will not be able to service the remaining loans. Company then enters administration and shares become worthless.

All very straightforward and plausible just like many other bear cases I could come up with - along with many bull cases - any of which can be debated or argued against. But to simply doubt ‘IF there is a bear case’ at all just shows an incredible and ridiculous level of denial.

Not sure how you can say there isn’t a bear case when just carrying on as they are and continuing to make heavy losses is bad enough on its own without anything getting worse or some kind of Armageddon scenario.

It’s the bull case that needs something to change, not the bear case.

Sshhh! stop getting ‘hysterical’ ;-)

Maybe you should have voted for change then Reardon?

So if you bought a house for say £720k and then sold it a few years later for less than £500k you would mutter on in some way about rent and say it 'seems like a poor price' but it all 'depends'?

I don't need to say anymore - your own words condemn you and if people can't see through you by now then I suppose they never will.

And you wonder why everybody argues with you? You mention 'rent saved' but neglect to mention the interest difference on £72m cash - or other additional costs of owning the property vs renting.

It's an atrocious piece of business however anybody (or at least most people) look at it.

"I was an Insurance salesman so I know the markets"

I just come here for the comedy. A priceless gem from the man from the Pru.

Not sure how the lady emoji crept in!

Agreed FED - all the numbers etc. I’ve been talking about are in terms of the marketplace business 👩‍💼 only but they can be bumped up if they can get other meaningful sources of income.

On owning their inventory they already do for the labels (reported separately now) but the margins are even lower there (as percentage of revenue) but the revenue (not GMV) is higher so certainly scope especially if they expand beyond those labels.

“You’re just a bully Dags, everyone here has just seen you in action.”

No Poor, you don’t speak for ‘everyone’ on here so stop making out that you do. You certainly don’t speak for me and I see you’re still just as nasty a piece of work and as poor an investor as you’ve always been.

Unfortunately you now seem to attracting other like minded idiots to the board as well now.

Even on your optimistic numbers though it is only generating £50m profit. That’s not really big money in terms of profit for BOO historically and how much can it realistically grow beyond a £1bn GMV? Maybe double?

Even on my numbers I think Debs had decent value and suggests the business is undervalued but for the sp to get anywhere near the levels it once was it really needs the youth brands to start performing again - and that seems a long way off at the moment.

Fair enough so you are looking at profit from Debs of around £50m if they get to $1bn GMV and I'm suggesting up to £30m. Hardly that far apart really and even on your (I believe optimistic assumptions) you don't think Debs marketplace will be the most profitable part of BOO should the rest recover to past levels. Interesting.

So what do you think is a likely future margin for Debs?

I will stick my neck out and suggest they can get to a net income of 3% GMV (so around 30% of revenue which I think would be excellent).

What do you think? Much higher?

It's not quite that high and anyway 2.7% is 'around 2%' in my book. And I don't think ii's will work on a less than 2% margin for Debs (the margin on revenue, not GMV, is much, much higher). I do think that they will find 2% GMV acceptable but anyway in profit terms, if all was going well, Debs would just be a small part of BOO so they won't be focusing as much on just Debs as you seem to be. You seem beguiled by the huge GMV numbers - they will focus on bottom line.

Don't you ever stop to think that as you argue so often and so much with virtually everybody on this board and that you are always right and they are always wrong that the problem may actually be with you and not with everyone else?

Agree Parsnip. To me it was the worst possible outcome. Unless Frasers make some kind of other move I can’t see the sp heading anywhere good now for many months. Will hang on though at least until it is clear what comes next in the saga.

It seems though that turkeys do vote for Christmas after all :(

Oh and nice deflection on Tesco but silly on two counts. First its apple and oranges as the margin for Tesco is based on revenue whereas that 2% for Deb is not (it's based on GMV with revenue just 11% of GMV so the margin on revenue would be much higher). Secondly from what I can see Tesco DO work on around a 2% margin anyway!

Btw are you still insisting that Frasers only have a 27% holding?

I never backtracked at all on the 5-20%. I said that you misunderstood your 'quick google' without properly researching what it was. I said it was too high a range for a profit margin and was much more likely to be the percentage companies kept of GMV as this seemed much more reasonable. The 11% from BOO sits nicely near the middle of that range. I have not changed my view.

You're right, I don't know if that 11% will change in the future but neither do you. I can't see it going up or down by that much though.

It's strange that you pick arguments, get facts wrong, deflect and twist to try and squirm out of it - but still claim you win the argument afterwards. You seem to do it with everybody though, not just me, so I don't take it personally. It just gets very tiresome.