Member Info for KiJaHu

Did anyone see the news or Morrison's partnership with goPuff? Delivering Morrison's products in 15-20 mins? Sounds like you might need a pretty robust network of smaller shops to do something like that.. interesting

What did it say? It's just a bloke on Twitter so I don't think you'll get in trouble

Yeah I read that RNS and two months later it craters 90%, that 24.8% figure is based upon the performance of how many daily conversions? EBIT is down, net debt is up, relationship with morrisons is murky, which is exactly what morrisons wants. We'll wait and see.

I wouldn't say that's a slight issue, CD&R are already in the cross hairs of the CMA over the forcourt comp, taking on another 1000+ corner shops isn't going to work. The banks aren't lending them a penny because they can't say with any reasonable confidence, backed up with figures, that margin will improve in-line with inflation. I'm nearly 90% in the red so that's the reason I haven't sold out because it's not worth it.

Debenhams did exactly the same, paid the outgoing CE nearly a million for losing them half a bil. The share price has sh#t the bed again today, by far the worst investment I've ever made, suppose it happens to everyone if you invest long enough, gl all.

I don't think a CEO who has that much skin in the game stepping down is a good thing, no. At least not for us. Debenhams did the same thing before going under afaik, chief exec resigned and they were looking for a replacement, boom, done. The "Details of Jonathan's remuneration arrangements in respect of his departure will be published as soon as practicable" was the only interesting bit, he won't be losing out that's for sure, must be nice running a 1bn+ turnover business into the ground and getting a pat on the back for it. Utter scum.

Oh Christ ha, that's not good news. Screams sinking ship which was always the stronger possibility, amazing how quickly from Nov last year when I invested til now it's gone down hill, debt has been high for years but it's not perturbed lending banks in the past.

Morrisons really are rotten to the core, typical American divide and conquer strategy, thought the 600m partnership would be enough, obvs not!

Yeah agree on the news front, surprised this is the first bit of news to escape since the 28th of Feb RNS, poor for a 90pc drop and a strong possibility of collapse.

As far as I'm concerned there's two poss outcomes, either Morrisons steps in or it goes bust. I can't see Mccolls ever trading independently again as the interest rate hikes and diminished profit margin have ruled that out. I'm so in the red even after averaging down that I don't care anymore but it's always a stark reminder just how little they care about retail investment. Good luck all.

Interesting article that, Houlihan Lokey are an merger and acquisition specialist but that article stresses that Morrisons is not looking at a takeover...but then mentions they would be interested in a part of the business.

So it's either good news or bad for us. So same as usual. Be interested to see the price movement tomorrow off this. Does anyone know what% is institutional still? Haven't seen much notification changes on the RNS

How much more support can Morrisons lend apart from buying the business outright? " The Group has received the necessary agreement to roll forward its financial covenant test periodically, and continues to receive credit support from its key commercial partner to enable these discussions" that key commercial partner is Morrisons, Morrisons had extended their bank facility to Mccolls 'til 2024 as per news releases from last year.

I have no idea why Morrisons doesn't just buy Mccolls out and re-structure the business as needed, I don't know if this is their way of dipping their toes into the corner convenience market without over-extending or whether the Morrisons takeover has meant they are not able to, but Tesco has nearly 2000 express style stores in operation in the UK, so I can't see it being a competition thing. I see a lot of talk on here about how its a dying business model but the two largest UK supermarkets (Tesco and Sainsburys) also operate the most local/express stores. Morrisons have seen their share of the market fall in the last 10 years. If this doesn't scream opportune synergy I don't know what does. No wonder Asda owners were sniffing around.

The problem is none of this optimism means anything to retail shareholders because we're not a part of this equation, hopefully it goes private and we get a decent payout in the process, worst case is Morrisons lets the business fold, takes the 300 stores its rolled out already and picks any prime sites it think suits the MO from the carcass. Thought we'd have heard something brewing in the background by now.

There's a link from last week showing 52 mccolls sites up for sale, only about 4 of them weren't sold/under offer.

This is literally all just personal opinion. Exactly the opposite of intelligent investing. No one who is invested here is under any illusion: this is a gamble. If you believe the rewards outweigh the risks then it makes sense. You're providing nothing of value.

Yeah it could do, the grocer had an interesting article that's well worth a read a few days ago, apparently the issa brothers withdrew their bid because of mccolls relationship with Morrisons, not because of the books as a few people suggested weeks ago.

It's a double edged sword, it's very difficult for another party (it's even difficult for Morrisons according to the grocer and may necessitate them working through a third party) to buy them out, but it so makes it more attractive for banks to lend money to mccolls with the partnership still intact and accelerating.

Still no nearer to understanding what will come next, I spoke to a member of staff in my local and he confirmed they'd received a Morrisons uniform a while ago, but no info on when the conversion will take place. Paypoint is back up and running and it seems business as usual, I just don't get the feeling this is going into admin. I don't think news will be anytime soon though either so expect this to hang in the 1.5-2.5p range.

Good find that, only 50 stores of the near 1200 on the books though.

Was having a nose at the analyst notes last night, an article from nov 2021 (not sure what dates the analyst notes were published) quoted two from peel and singer at 40p. What has fundamentally changed in the business since then? they had a projected revenue that was pretty much bang on to Mccoll's last RNS @ 1.1Bil, stock shortages, the stupid purchase of 300 Co-op stores back in 2016 which makes up the majority of the debt with the Morrisons store conversions, that's what causing the lending deadlock. Two of those 3 were known in advance, the improving foot-fall, the inventory up-tick, I just can't see how this is simply priced in for oblivion. Rising inflation is hurting and I'm sure that's not helping as is the general mistrust in stocks at the min, it just feels like a really decent risk/reward gamble.

I'm happy to be completely wrong but I'm going to buy more.

Exactly, and although that's disappointing if you were invested here for a good return a buy out probably wasn't the ideal.

Don't blame you on the averaging down front, I'm in two minds but I'm young-ish, not gambling with money I need and think it's not a well-deserved drop. If I thought it was a punt at 8p it's definitely one now.

Good luck mate.

What does that even mean?

Over a thousand stores and 16,000 staff employed, it will be a massive loss of the high street if this goes under. Lot of FUD on figures here too, net debt on the last update in the RNS was 97, up from 89 the previous year. The 30 million raise was not to service debt but to facilitate the Morrison daily roll-out, which again, if you read the RNS's are going ahead as planned and they are in fact converting them quicker than expected. Average basket value is 20% greater as is margin in these stores, which for a company that has not seen any marked improvement of either of these metrics for years should be good news.

I'm absolutely gutted, yes this business is a risk when margins are low and we're creeping into a high interest rate environment, but that rate hike stuff is a very recent thing, we have no idea what criteria these lending banks are looking for so it's pointless even speculating, and the talk about why the buyer pulled out, who knows? bad books or just general market sentiment spooking them?

I think the banks will lend, there's no sharp decline in turnover, margins will defo improve and Mccolls does have a good reason with COVID restrictions only now being fully lifted. It would be mad for lenders to at least not roll this forward 12 months to see how the outlook changes.

I will average down tomorrow and write it off, I'm at an average of 8p(having bought in recently) and feel it's a risk worth taking.

Good luck holders.

The covid detector news is poor and I'm not shocked the market has reacted with a drop, how many locations are they installed in? Why not just give an exact figure, they mention "very positive" results in a lab environment but don't mention what over 6 months of field data has yielded, "identified" an industrial partner means zilch, and they've made a few early stage units and then talk about productisation cycle, so something is not right/doesn't work, the pie in the sky 60-80p figure based on redlen takeover...how many businesses the size of canon are there that would be interested in paying way over the odds for Kromek to add such a specialist product in their portfolio? Olympus? They have a medical division, very unlikely though, can't see any positive catalysts for this in the short term at all, very disappointed

They aren't "deals", one is a refund from funds used in an abandoned project, the other is the selling of a segment of their business, the charts aren't pointing at anything, bring back some intelligent skepticism i.e jolly etc

This company has high volumes of debt and many of its divisions (marine services in particular which is its largest) is on a lull, the buy-ins by management are part of the deal, they have to hold a certain amount of stock so I wouldn't look into that as a positive. True to form, this stock goes up substantially from the bottom and you get nothing but ramping from new posters, keep it level-headed and neutral, this comes with massive risk and anyone who isn't aware needs to be. Past performance is not a future indicator, I own the stock.

As exciting as this all is they have a golden opportunity currently to make a massive move, if they don't do this in this very short omicron envelope (we're close to peaking or have peaked already) it's gone already and everything points to this being the last serious variant (more infectious but less deadly).

Kromek need to release some positive PR on the tees unit, would be interesting to know whether it's proof of concept or it's an actual operating unit which samples daily etc

That's mental, I'm opening a position today if it slips into the 90s, seems crazy oversold (I bought fisher group at 350 so I know nothing ha)