Member Info for Nick1234

Agreed, the trading update is excellent. No news on the divi though unless I missed something?

It's a shame the release coinsided with a wider fall in the market or this would have bounced.

Nothing like rising tensions in the Middle East to boost the price of oil. That and the £ pulling back a bit against the US$.

Struggling to understand why this company is worth 10% less than it was 4 weeks ago. I'm still holding...

Interesting article in the Investors Chronicle which is a bit pessimistic. They have it as a hold.

Great rise today. Onwards and upwards. 300p incoming!

Great news. Worth noting that Germany vaccinated 1.1 million people in one day last week. The EU is finally getting it's vaccine house in order.

Edit: just seen the HSX update. 13% rate increase in Lloyds which bodes well for BEZ.

BEZ Q1 trading update on 13 May 2021.

The market definitely ties these two share together as peers in the specialty insurance market.

I actually think that BEZ is in a much better place than HSX. BEZ is expecting to return to profit this year, HSX not till 2023.

The most interesting aspect will be what sort of rate increases Hiscox are pushing through. I expect they will have managed big increases (10-15% on average) on cyber, PI and Management Liability renewals. If BEZ can replicate that then we will be in a strong position.

I expect it will be good... Completions on or above target, average asking price up, plenty of land in the bank. Expect the usual warnings about the end of government support including the end of the stamp duty holiday. There may also be some concerns about inflation feeding in shortly with higher costs of building materials impacting on margins.

I'm surprised the SP has dipped going in to the trading update. I sold up at 795p a couple of weeks ago but tempted to go back in now.

Does anyone know a rough split in B&M's turnover and profit between food & drink, homeware and garden & DIY?

The garden and DIY part of the business will surely have grown significantly in recent months and will hopefully offset any decline for non-recurring stockpiling at the beginning of lockdown this time last year.

Swanny, thanks for the reply. I guess it must be hard to forecast loss ratios when a lot of liability claims are not reported for a while after they happen. Plus a lot of their policies (PI, management liability etc) are issued on a claims made basis rather than claims occurring.

Nice rise today on the back of the broker upgrade. I still think this is undervalued

Even if they didn't want to move to quarterly divis, just spreading the 2 payments out a bit more evenly throughout the year would help. At the moment you go 9 months without any divi money, and people definitely move their money elsewhere during the drought.

Forgive me I'm not 100% familiar with the insurance terminology so I would appreciate any assistance from those in the know... Bez's gross written premium (turnover) in 2020 was £3.6bn. They are (according to the latest financials) expecting double digit rate increases on average in 2021 across their product lines, which would take it to £4bn.
The financials also say they expect a combined loss ratio in the 'low 90s%' for 2021, let's say 93% for arguments sake, giving them 7% profit on £4bn = £280bn profit before tax. The current market cap is £2.077bn meaning that forward profit/ earnings are just over 7 which seems very cheap.

Appreciate there a few ifs and buts there, but am I missing something?

I would definitely top up if it dropped to the early £20s. I'm not sure it will get that low, there does seem to be support at £22.60 having bounced off that 3 times in the last couple of months. Although I do note that the European on-premises market is v. Profitable for CCH so an extended lock down in West and Central Europe would be damaging. That said, I think there will be a decent rise once Europe gets it's vaccine house in order.

I would be delighted with 310p, as it would give me a 50% return on my 207p purchase. Would not sell at that price though, this is a long term hold for me and I plan to reinvest the divi.

Spotted it on sale in Aldi for the first time the other day too. It really is everywhere at the moment.

Robleo I'm going to guess 280p. Could be slightly higher with a fair wind / positive vaccine news.

We lose a couple of trading days with the Easter break too.

Some nice movements. Is this just a general rise in the run up to the formal release of the 2020 results at the end of the month or is something brewing? I.e. news on an acquisition.

Ex divi on 15th April.
Payment date is 27th May.

Am I reading that correctly... At a price of 935p those 2 x £3m purchases must have been made first thing. Someone's lost the best part of a half a million quid today if they've spent £10m at an average of 910p.