Member Info for Paulof2

Has anyone actually emailed investor relations to find out if a trading update is imminent?

Do we know if we are even due an update in the next few trading days? I know there was one last year but I can’t see anything on the financial calendar until January

Yes Rockslide you are correct. The fact they have offered to underwrite it should have alleviated any concerns anyway, they clearly wanted to build their holding not reduce it however given the share price doesn’t like they will by much.

I don’t really foresee much of a drop once the shares are added, a large chunk of the placing shares will be going to other iis outside alliance. My suspicion is also that a lot of people will have sold already when it touched the likes of 62 over the past few weeks. After all selling now and taking up the offer anyway is essentially a risk free way of reducing the investment in your holding.

Let’s not forget that the prospect of a placing has held the brakes on this, all the way through the vaccine news this barely moved while the market rallied. It’s been due a rerate from that news alone and hasn’t yet properly had that, once these shares are issued and it’s over and done with I can see this really picking up steam.

Indeed let’s wait to hear some more info. Remember one of the so called analysts The times were speaking to said this would go for 5p just a few months ago..

If the 3bn is correct it’s roughly 63p but anything above that has a big impact on the price. Just 100m more takes it to roughly 85p which may be a lot more palatable and still a steal on earnings multiples.

Also need to consider that while covid may have some negative impacts through the precautions required it also benefits in some aspects. E.g significantly less insurance claims as people are driving less etc.

There isn’t much between these netting out hence why the guidance is pretty much in line with last year even through covid.

Not sure how I managed to post half of that..

Mcap of £163m and 286m shares = 57p per share

Going to mcap of 263m and 461m shares = 57p per share

There is no immediate impact thats the beauty of a placing at 0 discount which is relatively rare and only when companies are severely undervalued.

One would hope that the 100m will also lead to significant finance savings and the additional investment they highlighted for the remainder should lead to future growth.

It may put a ceiling on the price until the placing yes but I don’t think it’s as bad a move as some are making out.

Yes rock you’re diluted but it’s not for nothing.. there’s £100m going into the business...

Last week, at the closing price of 57p the UNDILUTED MCap was 286M x 0.57 = £163M

Add £100M to the pot means TOTAL DILUTED MCap is now £263M

New Share issue represents: 100 x (£100M / £263M) = 38% of TOTAL DILUTED SHARES

Current Share issue = 286M

100 * Y/(286 + Y) = 38%

Yes you’re diluted in absolute terms but they’re still worth the same.

Whether that’s a mcap of £163m and 286m shares

To add further, I’m not expecting much of a discount on a raise.

One of the key reasons you offer a big discount is to minimise underwriting fees. If lord alliance is willing to underwrite it there is no need for a discount.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a very small discount purposely to try and reduce the take up so that lord alliance can hoover up more shares at these quite frankly ludicrous prices. Once in a lifetime opportunity for him to pick up more at these prices.

I may be completely wrong but if so I’ll be enjoying my even cheaper shares!

Agree with most of the thoughts here. I was shocked at first but now it seems to make complete sense.

Firstly, the move to aim is very logical it will be solely financial based, they can save a lot in fees and resource by moving there.

I’ve had a little longer to comprehend this news my thoughts now are is this just a way of the alliances increasing their investment in the company?

If they want to increase their stake now what options do they have at this moment? Realistically - The free float is so low now if they want to increase their holding by a reasonable amount that will send the share price rocketing. If you saw that the alliance brothers were buying and that there is only 8% free float left would you be willing to sell for a reasonable price? I certainly wouldn’t.

This to me seems like their only option of increasing their investment whilst subsequently plowing cash into the company. I see it as a win win, it’s one thing taking part in an equity raise but if you’re offering to underwrite the whole thing you’re clearly after more shares!

I bet lord alliance has been itching to pick up more shares at cheap prices since the initial drop and this explain now the lack of buys from him , he now his chance to increase his holding whilst simultaneously injecting cash into the business and that’s fine with me.

I’d be questioning the need for this if it wasn’t for lord alliance underwriting it, to me that screams he is after as many more shares as he can get and if he’s confident with the inside info and huge shareholding he has then I have no reason not be.

I wouldn’t be worried based on what happened to Boo. I’m also in Boo but that drop was just down to horrific governance at the end of the day, complete kettle of fish to n brown.

Judgement day tomorrow and I’m feeling confident.

Nice post Pmoran and think you’re spot on. Good to see someone actually compare n brown to a business which is actually really quite similar rather than comparing to the likes of boohoo.

Completely agree that definitely bodes well for n brown.

Beech, may I ask what other loan books you have come across which are at 39.9% apr?

Look in the financial statements, every year they profit from selling the undesirable portions of the loan book at a significant premium, not discount.

People seem to have this mistaken view that n brown cannot survive an economic downturn, there have been posts about it almost every week since the share price was 10p and people were claiming defaults would send the company bankrupt.

It couldn’t be any further from the truth; if you look back some of the companies most profitable years and particularly fs were through the financial crisis. People taking longer to pay is a good not a bad thing with the ridiculous APR. If anything, counterintuitively the improvement in the loan book whilst will stop some defaults which is obviously positive will actually be having a negative impact on the profits as customers pay earlier.

A loan book at 39.9% APR can cope with a significant amount of defaults and still hold its value, it’s just a shame regulations are much tighter now so it’s restricted

Fair enough if that’s what they said, gives a few more weeks of good trading and debt reduction hopefully then.

Apologies if I’ve missed it but where have they said results will be in November? If I recall it’s normally first half of October

Interesting post Bazz, just because you bought in at a peak and then sold for a loss a week or two later doesn’t mean it was a bad buy, probably more so just demonstrates naivety and poor timing on your part if you think all shares go up in a straight line.

I read through a few of your posts and also had a quick look on your profile, I don’t want to get personal but I found some of the points you mentioned really quite comical.

“all I can say mate, is do your dur diligence, read up and learn some calculations on how to pick stock“ you said today.

Yet just two weeks ago you said the following on your post “ Ever since their owners changed, it's been a steady decline.“ I find that quite interesting given the last time the owners changed was 1963 so it makes me wonder what level of due diligence you’re doing and whether you have researched another company by mistake?

I also note in another post you said the following - “was just looking at the graph, I do not know how to research in financials, I just got caught up in losses.” Yet now seemingly brag about your due diligence prowess?

I’m all for healthy discussion so if you have anything which your due diligence has uncovered would be good if we could perhaps debate it instead of just saying this is overvalued on seemingly no basis?

Of course you don’t have to but makes me wonder why you would seem so intent on posting on this board if not to start a discussion?

Even more encouraging though to me is that they’re achieving this with massively scaled back marketing so efficiency is improving incredibly. I think we’ll see good top line revenue growth but it’ll be the bottom line and debt repayment levels that really shocks people into thinking wow this is ridiculously undervalued.

For a summary of just visitors by brand - https://twitter.com/paulofpicks/status/1303049020525420545?s=21

Copying my post from advfn & Twitter for those which don’t use them:

Apologies for a long post but Similar web data now out for August - usual caveats apply about usefulness of web visits as a sole measure but does provide at least a little guidance of performance.

Jacamo - stand out performer in August. Huge increase in visitors just shy of 19% Increase on July visitors - makes sense, we’ve seen them ramp up the marketing in recent weeks returning to ads on YouTube etc, looks to be working.

Jd Williams - really steady in July with visitors practically flat - up 0.28%. Still massively up (more than 50%) on the lockdown lows.

Simply be - ever so slightly down on July visitors (2.7%) but still above June levels and almost double the lockdown lows.

Home essentials - after the initial growth seemed to flatten out here in June & July it’s good to see some strong growth in visitors again in August - up 7.4% on July.

Overall the key ‘power’ brands do seem to be performing very well indeed, with Jacamo which seemed to be the laggard of recent months now seemingly absolutely flying which is encouraging.

What I found more encouraging about this month however is the growth in the more propriety brands. In trading updates they’ve mentioned that it’s mainly been these especially the non digital customers which have been struggling.

Oxendales the Irish arm of the business - over recent years this has really been a solid performer that has gone under the radar. Incredible growth in visitors once again this month up another 11% on July. Now up more than 200% from the lockdown lows. Incredibly low bounce rate also of just 36%, a lot lower than most clothing companies. Also surprisingly the 147th most popular Irish website in the world.. not bad for a brand which barely even gets a mention.

Ambrose wilson - whilst it had picked up from the covid lows in the past couple of months it seemed to somewhat stall with visitors relatively flat. Completely different story in August, Brilliant to see this has really got going now with visitors up a whopping 23% on July.

Premier man - similar story to Ambrose wilson. Growth in visitors seemed to stall after the initial Covid rebound, however now picked up nicely again with visitors up 11.64% in August too.

Marisota - pattern seems to be emerging.. same story as both premier man and Ambrose wilson. Steady in previous months but incredible growth in August compared to July, up 25%.

Whilst these brands individually aren’t huge parts of the business when combined their performance can really have a material impact on the business, so it’s great to see them returning to great growth too.

I think it’s important to note though that not only should the value be equal to pre covid it should be higher. They will be coming out of this in a much stronger position than when they went in.

Ignoring the future benefit of increased customers now shopping online the balance sheet has been impressively improved. For example, they are looking at reducing net debt by more than £100m in the year, that’s more than 35p per share alone.

Given the way this has been valued by the market over the past few years you’d expect a lot of that would have translated to an increase in share price.

Same issue on HL thought it may have been just me!