Member Info for Koolhead

I'm surprised too. If they're continuing to negotiate, I genuinely think they should hold out for a big number, like £60. No one - recent opportunist investors aside - wants this to go for much less. Remember that prior to the announcement this was at £28, so the market wasn't pricing much in. Interesting to see where this goes today. Realistically, though, I'm concerned that this gets sold for around £40, which would be an immense disappointment for such an incredible company.

I also think a takeover is unlikely. Alpha know their worth and Corpay would have to pay a huge premium. Does that mean the share price would fall sharply if it doesn't go ahead? I doubt it. It was £28 before the news. Now it's £31 and the FTSE 250 has been on a strong run since then. So worst case scenario would likely be a drop to, say, £27. Plus, the takeover interest shows how under-valued Alpha was (and still is in my opinion).

Interesting to see what price this opens at on Tuesday. Price spiked just before close but only about 5% before falling back a bit. And the RNS came out after the close, so I'm guessing the market hasn't fully factored this in. Personally, I would sell for anything upwards of about 60 quid.

I thought it was a great TU. Highlights for me were:

1. A strong second half giving c. 20% yearly growth.

2. Increase in cash balances

3. 60% growth in overseas business

4. The comments in having only scratched the surface of the addressable market (lots of companies say this, but with ALPH it has more weight given past growth trends, as it suggests there is a long runway for these to continue).

I'll be buying more if it dips under 24 (I'd buy more now but I already have 10% of my pension in this one!)

It's amazing to think that if interest rates stay the same, and if client balances don't increase (which they will), then in about 10 years ALPH will be have generated a cash pile equal to their current market cap from non-core activities that don't even count to measure their EPS and pe ratios. How many companies can you say that about?

I don't really get their policies on spare cash. 217m of cash is a lot to be sitting on for a company with 1b market cap. But they don't seem to want to do much with it. Their not acquisitive. Dividend is very low. And buybacks are modest. I think they should do it like GAW - organic growth and redistribute 'truly surplus cash'. Unlike GAW, though, the SP is criminally low, so they should also increase buybacks as long as undervalued. Best company I own (along with GAW).

BlueRaphus - All I can say is that you have a very charitable view of this company. I, on the other hand, have had a charitable relation with it: I've given it lots of money and got nothing back.

The one metric on which their performance looks reasonable is revenue, which has been 33m, 90m, 185m, and 322m in the four years since IPO (stats from HL). It seems reasonable that they may get to 1b in the next 2 to 3 years, though it's worth remembering that the company has a) consistently under-delivered and b) needs ultimately to make a decent profit on that revenue. Personally, my prediction is that this falls back to 60-70p or so then gets snapped up by a low-ball offer of a £1 leaving uLTJs like myself seriously out of pocket. I certainly think this is a strong takeover target and, if BlueRaphus's analysis is right, it would be a great time to buy. All AWE's competitors either have or could easily raise the small amount of cash required given the AI boom. You could argue, however, that the fact no one has even tried to take this company out of its misery with a low-ball offer shows just how badly AWE is doing.

you can pore over the details of this latest convertible bond offering or you can look at the bigger picture which is this. they raised 500 million pounds of cash at ipo which they splurged on 2 acquisitions which don't seem to have brought any tangible benefit to financial performance (which has been dire) and are now unsustainably indebted. it's a ****show. no matter how promising the company was at ipo, i don't think anyone could deny it's been horrendously managed.

I can't understand why they've just accepted the first low ball bid. Anyone with shareholders interest in mind would reject this, as there's a decent chance they'd come back with a higher bid. Sure, if the company was in dire straits, accepting a low ball offer could be necessary but that's not the case here. So overall, it seems a bit dodgy to me - like Atlantic and management are cooking something up against shareholder interests.

Yeah, I agree Clive Kahn looks good and I'm definitely not selling. Not sure if I want to add at this level or see if it falls back to £16 (unlikely, I would imagine). The cash in hand, buybacks, low p/e (on a statutory basis) are all reassuring and provide a decent safety margin.

The concern isn't just that he's left but that he's left now. Savvy leaders often leave when they feel that a project has peaked. It happened at Future and also at Scottish Mortgage a few years ago. I'm not saying Alpha is set to tank, but there is the worry that growth might be more pedestrian than in the past and that most of the journey has already been accomplished. Of course, that's all speculation. But it's a concern going forward and I'm not surprised to see the SP well down on the news.

Not being an expert in finance and accounting, I have a perhaps rather naive question about this company. Pretax profit for the last five years has been 210m, 260m, 465m, 530m, and 375m, so 1.84 billion in total. A lot of that will have gone into paying tax and dividends but there should be a huge chunk leftover. So why are they not sitting on a huge cash pile? Have they been paying down debt from the Charter House acquisition? Or, to put it another way, if they only pay 1/3 of profit out as dividend, what's happened to the rest of the cash?

We'll see where this goes from here but a recovery looks underway already. Glad I panic sold some other assets to buy more of these at under 3.90! The thing for me isn't that the interim report was perfectly ok, because there were a few negatives, but more that the SP was already very cheap and that a lot of negatives seem to be priced in. I also like the fact that another 50m buyback has been announced. You don't really need growth if you're on a p/e of well under 5, buying back your own shares, and increasing already generous and well covered divs.

The market always has a hissy fit about some minor downgrade to the outlook but seems to miss the bigger picture, which is that the shares are crazily cheap and could easily justify a SP double what it is. The market cap is 1.5 billion but they made 250 million in the first half alone, so should make c. 500 million for the year as a whole, which is a p/e of 3. Where else can you get an 8% dividend with a cover of x3. I know there's quite a bit of risk here and the recurrent lurch down on results day is annoying (though it always bounces back) but on valuation grounds it's hard to beat.

Pleased about this. The arbitrage potential on this when the sp was 180 and the NAV 270 was insane. It will either get to a reasonable discount or be wound up, so I'm not selling yet. May take some profits at 240+

Volatile today. Could easily have fallen back down but now there's a breakout above £24 on the cards. Interesting times

Where's Bar cap when you need him? I think a good clear out is needed though this probably doesn't go far enough. I think the hope here is a takeover. The IP is probably pretty valuable, it's inexpensive after all the screw ups, and competitors might think that putting their own much more competent management in place could yield big gains.

Alphawave has been a disaster so far. Rises on hope/hype then crashes on results. It's a good area to be in and looks promising on paper but management is incompetent.

I agree. One of the main reasons I invested was the divi. 1.7% might not look like much but the track record is fantastic. In 2011 it was under 2p. Now it's about 16p. I don't see it growing as fast over the next 10-15 years but I would still expect c. 10% rises per year. Plus, they're basically debt-free now and cover is over 5, so it's almost zero risk. My main reason to buy is sp growth, but the divi is a significant factor.