Member Info for LongerGuy

Looks like Premier Minton are still involved. Surely this institutions could buy the entire company for less than their original investment :

Swedbank Robur AB 14,728,994 7.30%

Hong Kong NetEase Interactive Entertainment Limited 12,889,171 6.40%

Premier Miton Investors 9,500,000 4.70%

Crazy tor think that people who followed tip will need almost to 100 bag this stock to break even and it’s less than 3 years old: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/investing/stocks-shares/questor-computer-games-firms-founders-believe-shares-should/

Questor share tip: bosses at tinyBuil d have held on to 45pc of the company following its flotation – a vote of confidence in a bright future

“We went through years of hell before making any money.” So say the people behind tinyBuild on the computer games firm’s website. They finally got their reward last month when it joined Aim and its founders became millionaires many times over.

Alex Nichiporchik, chief executive, is now worth £204m as he owns 38.2pc of a company valued at £534m. His colleague Luke Burtis owns 7.1pc, worth £38m.

Their retention of such large stakes is hugely reassuring to this column, whose belief in “following the money” extends to the actions of company bosses as well as those of outside investors. But at least one fund manager has put his clients’ money behind tinyBuild too.

“We like the computer games sector: it is bigger than film and music combined,” said Jon Hudson of Premier Miton Investors, one of the largest institutional backers of tinyBuild. Questor likes the sector too: we have scored big gains with the likes of Frontier Developments, Codemasters and Team17.

And tinyBuild takes Team17’s approach: rather than developing its own games it takes on promising titles from independent developers and helps them with funding, marketing and technical expertise.

“Alex and Luke discovered the value of this model by direct personal experience: they wanted to release a game called No Time To Explain but were strung along by a publisher, jeopardising the entire project,” said Mr Hudson. “They realised they could help other developers to commercialise their games so they changed course to become a publisher.”

Sign up to our Business Briefing newsletter for a snapshot of the day's biggest business stories

Read Questor’s rules of investment before you follow our tips

The company says that since August 2013 it has formed partnerships with dozens of independent developers, acting as a publishing partner and “providing funding, knowledge, production, artwork, guidance, etc to make other developers’ games better”.

“They come at it from a developer’s point of view,” said Mr Hudson. He said tinyBuild selected just 1pc of the games it saw, picking those with the most promise and advising the developers on how to make their game more appealing to users. “It’s a partnership that works,” he said, “and this way you don’t have to commit much capital – it’s a low-risk way to generate a big hit.”

The ultimate goal is a game that can develop into a “franchise”: one that can remain popular through multiple versions, with spin-offs, books, prequels and so on.

Moneyshark, I agree it wasn’t good, but I’ve seen shocking updates and companies have still bounced from a certain level (REVB was an example).

The CEO could buy this back with the pocket change he got from the initial floatation for a start.

Despite the evident doom and gloom here I’m surprised there hasn’t been a bounce from these levels yet. Surely this is now worth less than the value of all the IP’s etc? It seems strange that no larger organisation has come in to snap up a chunk like Boohoo did with Revolution Beauty

This article relating to FDEV who seemed in a similar position (albeit about 10 times the market cap of here) was interesting to read as there are potentially some parallels https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/stockwatch-there-life-left-share-down-96-ii530003

Plus the games in the pipeline actually look quite good from the previews. It’s just a question of patience as the volumes being sold a tiny in comparison to the shares in issue. I actually increased my holding here recently (wish I’d waited), but this drop on low volumes isn’t concerning in my view.

This is also being destroyed on tiny volumes, all it would take is some persistent buying and the price would soar. Today it has dropped by 20% on less than £50k worth of shares being traded. Personally I think this is the drop before the rise.

Wouldn’t surprise me if this is all priming for a takeover, CEO has such a strong majority holding he could orchestrate taking this back under private ownership without challenge.

Looks like they have dropped below the reportable short threshold. Hopefully this can now actually have a nice run up and push past the £4 it tested a couple of weeks ago.

OSB reported that in the first nine months of the year it had achieved 7pc loan growth. This was previously the target for the whole of 2023 and guidance for the year has now been raised to 9pc.

Its ability to win market share thanks to its specialist focus is a key long-term attraction. It is also a reason to think it could weather tougher markets better than most as the specialist focus is reflected in the bank’s strong reputation for risk management.

On this front, there’s reassurance from low levels of problem loans and average rent-to-interest cover of 178pc on OSB loans and 154pc for its Charter Court Financial brand, which accounts for about 45pc of gross lending. Meanwhile, a scarcity of rental properties makes landlords well placed to pass rising interest costs on to tenants.

OSB’s resilience should also be helped by its bias to professional landlords who use corporate structures to secure tax and property management advantages.

This buy-to-let specialism keeps costs down compared with mainstream banks. OSB expects its costs to amount to around a third of its income this year, compared with more than half for many larger rivals.

Advertisement

The branchless bank’s low-cost model underpins its attractive levels of return on tangible equity. Even after the profit hit in the first half of this year, analysts expect the metric to reach 15.2pc in 2023 before rebounding to the high teens from next year.

It is not hard to see why, following the slump in the shares this year, top fund managers are betting that OSB’s valuation offers protection from further share price falls and the potential for significant gains should the third-quarter results prove to be a taste of things to come.

Questor says: buy

Ticker: OSB

Share price at close: 347.2p

We sold this bank, then the shares lost 25pc – now we’ll buy again

Questor share tip: buy-to-let specialist does not deserve to be lumped in with lowly valued high street giants

By

Algy Hall

13 November 2023 • 6:00am

In March, Questor advised readers to sell OSB and was right to do so – shares in the specialist buy-to-let mortgage lender have lost a quarter of their value since.

This column is relieved to have sold before a profits warning in July that sent OSB shares tumbling. The lender disclosed a £180m hit because mortgage borrowers were refinancing more quickly. Broader investor unease about the banking sector, which prompted our advice to sell, has meanwhile persisted.

Now, however, we’re recommending the shares again, guided by the investment decisions of some of the world’s best-performing fund managers.

Ten of these professional investors – each among the top-performing 3pc of the 10,000 equity fund managers tracked by the financial publisher Citywire – own shares in OSB. As a result the stock is rated AA – just below a top AAA rating – by Citywire Elite Companies, which rates companies on the basis of their backing by the best-performing fund managers.

OSB’s share price

Line chart with 268 data points.

View as data table, OSB’s share price

The chart has 1 X axis displaying Time. Data ranges from 2022-10-21 00:00:00 to 2023-11-13 00:00:00.

The chart has 1 Y axis displaying Pence per share. Data ranges from 280.8 to 568.5.

End of interactive chart.

What’s more, many of those investors have been adding to their stakes over the past few months. They include Matthew Tillett, who bought more shares for his Premier Miton UK Value Opportunities fund in July. Tillett took over the fund in November last year after delivering four times the market return over three years on the fund he ran before.

He told his investors that shares in specialist lenders such as OSB were trading on valuations as low as those of Britain’s biggest banks, yet they were “less dependent on the interest rate environment to sustain high levels of profitability”.

Advertisement

Trading at just 0.6 times forecast book value, shares in OSB are close to the cheapest they have ever been on that measure and 30pc cheaper than when we advised readers to sell in March. A forecast dividend yield over the next 12 months that stood at 7.1pc when we sold has meanwhile climbed to 9.9pc – a level that suggests the market expects a cut.

But a trading update earlier this month indicates that the bank may be putting its problems behind it. There was no worsening of the situation that caused that big hit to profits from earlier in the year, when OSB was burned by borrowers spending less time between fixed-rate mortgages on stop-gap “reversion” rates that are lucrative for the bank.

....

Https://apple.news/A_yT254XMSMKHCDJsc_Hqrw

That’s the uncrossing trade

I’ve been thinking this for ages, but doesn’t seem there are too many people in agreement. My extra funds are becoming free soon though so should be able to add.

Metro Bank has been in dire straits for ages. OSB is an entirely different proposition. If anything the news this week of a huge shortage of rental properties and people entering bidding wars should have had a greater influence on this share price (in a positive way).

Any idea why the big drop again today? Doesn't seem to be anything in the news

Good to hear it Neon. I'd imagine, with house prices falling and mortgage rates being as high as they are that buy to let will prove more popular and rental demand (and prices) will increase.

I'm still shocked this hasn't seen an uptick yet, but have some more money becoming free next month so if it stays at these levels I'll probably go all in and wait for the sentiment to turn.

Adding makes sense, it's just puzzling me where they are finding sellers at this level. The adjustment was a one off impairment and yet the company still reported a sizeable profit.

Seems to be just a question of how low the short wants this before they close and let it rise back up. Can't have them losing their hard earned money after all

Thanks Bigpercy. It's good to see I'm not the only one here.

All the fundamentals suggest it's a great company. I just can't fathom who is continuing to sell at this level. It must be quite heavy to continue to drop despite the buy backs pushing it the other way.

No-one to rationalise these drops with.