Member Info for JohnLewis79

Afternoon cap'n. I don't think it makes any diff now we have sold the pools. I shan't continue playing as from this Sat.

Apologies..Gaughan not Vau...

Assuming the pools sale goes through we'll be left with Racing & Venues contributing c £12m. Our net cash position will be c £95m after deductions and the tender offer for 20m shares. Debt free has its attractions for a small cap co we can be quick off the mark in seeking aquisitions. Many say we should load up on debt in this low interest environment and seek to boost revenues something Spo has failed miserably at. That has its attractions but with rates set on the upward path I much prefer to be free of interest obligations especially as liabilities are only c £50m....well covered. No doubt the board have thought long and hard as to how the Co progresses from here, so we should be hearing soon enough. An opportune moment for Penrose to step down and hand over to Vaughan. Quit at the top Mr Penrose you have had your successes and some failures along the way, staying on I don't think serves us or yourself very much.

Surprised to hear your out. Hope you made a profit. It's very slow and the sp hardly recognises the strength of Zam. However you can say that about many stocks..spesh the ones I'm in. Very frustrating....Anyways see you over at the bloodbath if your still on a drip!!

No mention of the compound interest claim going back-aways... So perhaps not material to current news. However worth keeping in mind as I've heard this could be as much as the vat award. Small uptick to the sp kinda expected as there were good profits to be had..depending on the tender price, am considering locking in some decent profits if I'm offered a decent chunk of stock to sell.

The sale consideration represents c 6-7 years of gross profits that is an excellent deal even after £40m of impairments which was a bummer! However in the release Spo said that a further payment could be on the cards following completion of Pools sale. Very strong hold imo.

It's gonna be all about what price the tender offer is pitched at! For £20m don't expect a bargain! Seems the pools sale has been ignored atm as traders extract what little is on offer.

I take it that the impairments are goodwill write offs (when the fair value is less than the carrying value). A snsible decision as many co balance sheets are bloated with goodwill often realised by paying too much for aquisitions.

Highlights inc....sale of Pools after some hefty impairments.....tender offer to shareholders to buy back 20m Shares (in due course).....net asset val £149m....net cash £36.5m....Impairments on the pools £42m...£17m racing... £4m venues.

Morning Cap'n....it does seem very low key from Streatham anyways and now from your area. I asked the sales girl (couldn't find the Manager) why no promo posters in the outside window she said she had never seen any. I guess its down to the individual Manager as to how he promotes the pools in his store? Perhaps they consider it a chore and just another bloody promotion foisted on them by HO? There certainly seems to be a lack of "get-up-and-go" which is being reflected in the low sales at Streatham. If your expierencing similar how wide'spread is the malaise? I should imagine Spo would have said we expect x nos of sales by such a date and will be taking action if these are nowhere near forecast. With such great gross margins increasing the spend per head by another 50k players would add c £120k+ in revenues a not insignificant sum to a game that has been fighting a rearguard action these last 20 years! The lottery is in decline a game past its sell by date and incidentally my local newsagent tells me his lotto sales are well down on last year and took another hit on the Mirror story of the great lotto fiddle. Where are these thousands of small punters who like a weekly punt going? We need to capture them and quickly and imo we can only do this by blitz advertising in all forms until as you say "they are sick of it!" Atm they have nothing to be sick about. I'd stick a load of canvassers outside say 100 WHS stores with a simple questionaire, for instance.... "Do you know the Pools are on sale in this store?" "If not would you be interested in playing the game?"....or variant of....perhaps they already have? We won't know till the H/Y whether the old tried and tested methods of promotion work anymore.

32Red the online gambling co agrees to a £176m offer from the Kindred Group. At last accounts Turnover was £49m...pre tax £1.05m...net assets £11m. Obviously the business has grown since those year end figs but still £176m!! Not strictly a read across to Spo but you gotta wonder what price Spo?

Morning Cap'n. Agreed this tie up with WHS is a longterm deal and as you say will be many months before SPO can accurately gauge the response. P.S I was up Streatham yesterday and asked if any interest had been shown on the pools and the girl replied. .." your the only one!" I sort of expected that given no outside adv and poor positioning of the stand......and the managers are not being encouraged to push sales through a bonus system. At least that's my thinking. Hoping Penrose has lots of good news for us, we should benefit on the currency front for starters and plusses in all our divisions could see us top £30m ebita. That should see us over 100 especially if Spo decide to pay a maiden / special dividend. Personally I would prefer to take shares in lieu of cash if offered. HG & Co will I'm sure have been pushing for a cash payout, perhaps the £4m owed c 2p could be used? First time for yonks I'm looking forward to not being disappointed by the results.

I hope investors here are not "roundophobics" or suffer from O-PHOBIA as we near 100! I noticed the tv ad on a sky channel so would seem it's getting plenty of air play. Never been sure if tv advertising drives sales more than awareness...... but i guess they must as we need to get playing nos back over 400K pretty quickly and then back to near 500k by years end if this campaign is to be seen as a success. Perhaps 500k is optimistic a c 50% jump from current but possible if we can expand the playing demography as Cap'n B suggests. Be interesting (come the H/Y) to hear how the WHS promo has done. Re-invigorating the pools is going to be tough considering the near mortal blow to playing nos it suffered at the advent of the lottery but I'm sure the Co has targeted it's spend in the right place and must have had some agency profiling the market before committing X£. We may have the cash so let's spend it wisely....no use throwing good money after bad. If the terms agreed with WHS allow I'd be inclined to fold after 12 months if revenues had not increased substantially.

And....the last shot would have been a judge at the Old Bailey marking his coupon in court. That would capture the wide spread of people who play the pools and finish on an amusing note. The judge could turn to the camera with a knowing look saying..." everyone a winner" Enough it ain't gonna happen.

Your most likely right Captain. I must admit I had not thought through as diligently as you have. Mine an on the spot, off the cuff idea which come to think of it would have started the adv with a young man selling the Pools outside of Man U ground (black & white) of course and then snap shots of his progress through the years..etc.. My gripe was it didn't involve me but I'm hard to please and it sure wasn't one of those ads you 'talk' about the next day like Sky TV seem to do so well. Heh maybe were on Sky? I won't add to the dirty diggers millions so cannot check. Anyways were nearing 100p so looking good.

Ok Cap'n checked it out on u tube. Pretty isps poor imo. Very dated, they could have been promoting jam tarts. They needed someone filling in the coupon sweating over the nos to pick..... then waiting for the results on the radio as in the old days getting 7 up then leaving you in suspense....did he cop 8 score draws? Needs fleshing out....perhaps in black & white at the beginning then cutting to mobile in colour as he checks the results?.....surely better than having a load of people you don't give a hoot about doing a West Side Story march down some back st in Oldham. WTF has that got to do with playing the pools?

Cannot access that stuff...gm55svgkSW...etc..it's gobbledygook to me and my fat fingers don't do 100's of digits. Sorry.

I saw an ad for the Pools while watching Pawn Stars on ITV 4 can't remember much about it as was half asleep. Should pick up some interest.

Still waiting for our balance of £4m which HMRC was ordered to return back in early Dec 2016. Incidentally they were also ordered to pay costs, perhaps this is what's holding up proceedings? That could boost the final settlement to over £100m leaving us with c £40m in credit if we decide to eradicate our debt which costs us c £6m a year in charges. That (being debt free) would make us unique among listed gaming/leisure companies most of which trade on debt financing. I think Penrose will throw every bit of good news into the results statement...... (new contract wins/ Bump 50:50 making money/expansion in the East/ Fantasy football acquisition? / venues throwing off cash and pools re-organisation improving the bottom line. Almost a beauty parade if you will? There's no doubt in my mind were readying ourselves for sale and a price of 150 is not out of the question given our 3 divisions produce similar revenues from different sources (all in profit) and are solidly based in the bigest market in the world. I think we can rule out a UK listed acquirer, they have enough problems of their own which leaves us with Fred or 365 who I don't think have the management or will to run Spo. Most likely a US based Co will be the best way forward and will pay a higher multiple unlike the cheapskate UK firms.

CB have you checked your local WHS?