Member Info for Pmoran1969

Interesting viewing. I liked the reference to this board as a source of useful information!

I searched for and found the video on you tube. One of these trsder fellas who shares his thoughts. Seems he purchased boohoi during the july lows and ecited at a profit and some of his followerd have asked him if he is going in again on the latest share drop.

He isn't and gives his reasonong which is essentially his opinion of why pwc resigned when they did. They supposedly resigned due to reputational concerns and he doesnt link this to concerns because of supply chain and the levitt inquory arguing that if they were concerned about that stuff they would have resigned in july.

He refets to a statement pwc made (along with the rest of the audit world) after wirecard saying they would toughen up processes and be more robust about spiotting fraud. He then highligjts the last trading update from boohoo which the company gave which are unaudited financials and decides that pwc resigning the following month is a red flag.

He infers that pwc wouldnt be able to sign off the financials presented at the trading update as to do so would cause them reputational damage so they resigned.

Whilst i disagree with his interpretation of the facts/inplied facts at least he has an opinion that hes prepared to back up with his reasons in a coherent argument.

Jupiter were obliged to respond to the mp who had written to them suggesting removal of senior management whereas the FT weren’t obliged to publish the story. Let’s hope this is the start of the press easing off a bit instead of looking for something to be able to report on boohoo with a negative spin.

Ragtrafe are you sure those stats are correct?
I know the manufacturing quality might not be all that but surely if my new top turns up covered in vomit i would return it not throw it away? ;)

Spouting there are better growth shares fact or top auditers wont go near boohoo fact is a bit like me telling anyone who recently purchased a tesla that it will break down - fact.

It almost certainly will stop working even if thats in 20 years time or becauae some eejit in a van crashes into it. so factually i might be correct but without some context i would almost certainly come across as a bit of a Richard head!

Anyway perhaps we shouldnt even be bothering with shares, growth or not, given we are all dying - fact!

Kando for all you or I know grant thornton who were appointed by levitt during her inquiry could have identified something that pwc were not doing or were doing incorrectly and highlighted this in their report which to my knowledge was not published. That might have been the catalyst for boohoo wanting to change auditers and both parties might have agreed to say nothing other than the agreed prepared statement issued by boohoo!

Wyndrum, will boohoo have extra costs in the future? Oh yes I am very confident that they will be required to spend a lot of money in the coming months.

No one is going to gift them a new distribution centre and I’m pretty sure the next brand they add to their stable won’t be free either. The new factory they talked about is bound to cost them money as well.

I’m sure there will be costs associated with the things you’ve mentioned too.

So I guess the real question is does kk (or anyone else) think boohoo are capable of bringing their corporate governance in line, addressing factory supply chain issues, acquiring new brands, build a factory, open new distribution centre and so on and so on whilst maintaining their growth and profitability?

I understand what you are getting at with covid and world economic stress affecting growth and impacting on share price given relatively high P/E ratio and I understand where you are coming from regarding impact to overhead or margins.

However what if boohoo growth comes from simply being available in more countries and with more brands? Let’s say the PLT crowd in the U.K. buy less because they have less disposable income but this is off set because they increase their presence in Australia and US and Middle East. All areas might be going through Economic turmoil with consumers who have less to spend but if boohoo can get more of the available spend, maybe at the expense of other companies whose product is more expensive then surely they can continue to grow?

Likewise what if they find they have to produce less in the U.K. because all of a sudden U.K. factories cannot supply at the low cost they currently do? Of course that assumes that every single supplier to boohoo is only able to supply currently because they pay less than minimum wage or are on a tax fiddle (not likely I would argue). What’s to stop boohoo following the test and repeat model, paying more for U.K. produced product to get it into the supply chain immediately and less for product produceD abroad that can hit the supply chain in time to meet the follow up demand? Maybe the net effect of split production of this type will be the same or even less than current so maybe margins increase?

And what if margins are affected and go down slightly but the company grows beyond market expectations and the improved growth is forecast to continue at said lower margins? Will the market be somewhat forgiving of such success or will they demand less growth at a higher margin?

The fact is for the private investor there is a good deal of unknowns when investing in a company. Sure you can do your daily research research research as advised by people power but at some point you have to take a personal decision as to what you believe about the data your research has provided.

Some people believe in boohoos future and some don’t.

Wyndrum, when the share price dropped off a cliff in July following the times article the main reason was that institutional investors offloaded shares. As I see it for the share price to have a chance of reaching new highs of £4+ it will require institutional investors to buy shares.

The hl comments are spot on insofar as there is much that is unknown about how the company, regulators and the city will react to the Levitt report.

I think we can remain confident that boohoo customers have not been affected by the minimum wage allegations or the loss of pwc etc and for the time being it seems that boohoo are continuing successful growth both at home and abroad.

However what we cannot know is whether there will be fines levied against boohoo, whether boohoo will quickly and robustly address the Levitt recommendations and whether in doing so their margins will be affected or whether there will be significant costs to implement.

I believe the board have a desire to continue to be successful and will do everything necessary to improve the company’s image and reach the required market cap that will get them their bonuses.

Perhaps the share price should already be £4.60ish instead of £2.60ish but is being held back by the uncertainty as suggested.

So for me it’s a simple question of do we think the uncertainty is priced in and are we satisfied that whilst there are issues in the Leicester garment industry boohoo are not directly involved in tax fraud, modern slavery or health and safety issues Etc?

There’s plenty of risk associated with this stock but if, as I do, you believe the uncertainty is priced in and they are not directly involved in issues outlined above then it’s a case of hold and expect it to rise as the issues that need to be addressed are addressed. Of course I am only a hold because I didn’t get out at £3.85 and am currently holding at an average of £2.50ish.

If I wasn’t already holding I think I’d be watching rather than buying because of the uncertainty but if the next news about boohoo is an update on the factory or the opening of a distribution centre in North America to manage the unprecedented demand (and such news won’t be far off I’m sure) I’d be hitting the buy button!

Just had a quick scan of the article. Made me smile that the spokesperson for the Texas pension fund is called Rob Maxwell!

Better late than never!
Marston’s
It probably sounds odd to be tipping a pub stock in one of the worst years in living memory for the industry, but Marston’s has been pursuing an altogether different path to its quoted rivals, making it worthy of consideration as an investment (Dominic Walsh writes).

There are two issues in recent years that have called its strategy into question. The first is its debt burden, which stands at £1.3 billion, although the flip side up until the Covid pandemic was its generous dividend policy. The second is the market’s failure to properly value its brewing business. By injecting its brewing unit into a joint venture with Carlsberg, Marston’s is killing two birds with one stone.

In addition to having a 40 per cent stake in the venture, it will collect £273 million — £230 million of that on completion in the next couple of weeks — which will reduce its debt and means it will not have to raise further debt or equity to ensure it has sufficient liquidity to get it through the pandemic.

The joint venture, which this month got the green light from the Competition and Markets Authority, also means that, at some point, the company that traces its origins to 1834, when John Marston established his brewery in Burton upon Trent, will deploy the exit mechanisms enshrined in the terms of the deal to exit brewing altogether.

Mind you, as Ralph Findlay, 59, the chief executive, has made clear, the deal already represents a move away from Marston’s being in control of its beer business, adding: “Operationally, it will be a pub operator.”

With the strategic issues neatly filed in Mr Findlay’s out tray, he can now focus all his efforts on keeping the group’s 1,379 managed, franchised and leased pubs ticking along in survival mode.

He has already announced up to 2,150 pub-based job cuts, possibly with some head office casualties as well, while the 10 per cent decline in like-for-like sales since reopening on July 4 represented outperformance of 7 per cent relative to the wider pub sector.

The path to recovery will not be smooth, however, as local lockdowns compound the impact of measures such as the rule of six, table service and the 10pm curfew.
Advice Buy
Why Brewing exit cuts debt and bolsters its finance

David. Law one of the things to remember about nbrown is that they sell branded products so someone might well reach jacamo by searching for fred perry polo in xxxl rather than searching for jacamo per se.

The other thing to bear in mind is that they have an existing customer base wbo ready shop. Witj them many usimg the spread.paymemts facility. So its likely that tgose existing customers did more online shopping durong lockdown and did so with nbrown without having to search for them.

I think nbrown are a very different proposition to boohoo but an interesting one none.the less especily given their stock. In trade is buy now and spread the payments. Its possible they will see an increase in customers and customer spend when f money is tight for a lot of folk in the coming momths.

Sports direct? That would be the inquiry where a bunch of MPs questioned mike Ashley and when they attempted to continue to ask questions after the time they had allotted for the meeting he responded along the lines of I’m sorry but you said this would be finished at x o’clock and I’ve got a lunch appointment so I’m off. He then proceeded to go and have his lunch in the commons restaurant I believe.

Given Kamani did a zoom call with Levitt while he was having his breakfast at some hotel when she wanted to speak to him for her inquiry I suspect he will treat any dodgy parliamentary committee with similar amount of contempt to Ashley and may even ask them a few questions about what have they done to combat the known problems in the Leicester garment industry given that they have supposedly been known for some considerable time according to local Leicester mps.

Keepit, I suppose there’s two ways of looking at that.

If you were next or ASOS why would you risk your brand by allowing boohoo back on your supplier list after the accusations and the inquiry found boohoo at fault in certain aspects. Perhaps you would wait until they have implemented the inquiries recommendations. Of course if the volumes of boohoo product you sold before you dropped them were significant and made a relevant contribution to your sales and bottom line you might try your best to get the products back on as soon as possible.

From boohoos point of view we already know that wholesale sales through next and ASOS were not If numbers and not instrumental to their business success and they might therefore take the view that whilst being on next or ASOS gave them a different shop window to advertise their product those people who have purchased and want more can always logon and buy direct from boohoo. They might take the stance that they would rather plough their efforts and spend in to directing more people to their brands rather than support people who they see as being competitors. They may take the stance that actually the newer brands like coast or Karen millen would be better served being available on different sites so they may want to nurture those wholesale relationships especially if they are eyeing up other brands that would sit well on the likes of next ASOS or others.

Personally I think the volumes are too small to be a concern for either boohoo or ASOS and next and boohoo will concentrate their focus on bigger impact issues such as appointing relevant directors, publishing supplier list, the new factory space and new acquisitions. After all these would be just as or more positive news than being back on ASOS or next website and when communicated will in a sense be advertising boohoo to those customers who had previously purchased or seen their products on the other companies websites.

Gewilla - I’m sure there must be a forum out there you and sain can both agree to join with the same user names you have on here and then could use the forum to pm each other. It doesn’t even have to be about shares it could be gardening or underwater basket weaving for all you guys care but once you are members and have the personal message facility you can then swap email or whatever without anyone else being able to see it. Just an idea, Hope that helps.

Wyndrum I remember the lights going out when I was a kid and grew up in thatchers britain so I’m no stranger to a recession or two.

One of the things about recessions is that whilst there are job losses and all the negatives that go with that and whilst we see what was once staples of our high street disappear life still goes on.

People make sacrifices which for some might mean they keep their current car longer or they won’t be doing the Caribbean this Christmas because they couldn’t possibly not do the skiing trip at half term because Tarquin and Elizabeth love it so!
For others it means proper sacrifices concerning which bill doesn’t get paid to put food on the table.

There was a point in the 80’s where it felt like the champagne guzzling cocaine taking yuppie set of London were partying like crazy while the rest of us seemed to suffer the after effects of industry’s decline. But for the ever resilient teenagers from the hard cities of Birmingham and Manchester etc we had the music and nothing would stop us donning our baggy jeans and dodgy tee shirts to find a warehouse or a field to dance in on a Friday night.

There’s no doubt that if we get hit hard once the dust settles after Covid all companies will suffer and boohoo will not be totally exempt. But people will continue to party regardless and will still want the pleasure of wearing new cloths and in theory at least boohoo should not be affected as much as say other companies with high retail rents and rates to pay etc or with the more expensive fashion offerings.

It won’t be all doom and gloom on the fast fashion front anymore than it will be for the supermarkets. Things will slow down (considerably in some cases) but the world won’t stop.

If someone parked on double yellows outside a factory that either does or did supply boohoo the headline in the press would be ‘boohoo in illegal Leicester parking scandal”!

And heaven knows what will happen if someone is found working at a car wash wearing a boohoo hoody and it’s later determined that said car wash was merely a front for washing cash as well as cars!

They’ve brought in on themselves to a degree with their failure to get to grips with their suppliers and even as a shareholder who believes the sp should continue to rise in the coming months if they play it right I am not naive enough to believe that they didn’t know some of what was going on.

Russ Moulds comments highlighted by razors edge (great album that) below are spot on. Boohoo need to quickly demonstrate that they are implementing Levitts recommendations and are generally cleaning their act up.

Sla may have been one of the the major causes of the share price drop in July when they dumped shares but my understanding was they were a long term investor and still walked away having sold at considerable gains to purchase price. There are other institutional investors who will be holding at an average share price that means they too could walk away with decent profit and the effect wouldn’t be pretty.

Here’s hoping boohoo will use their not inconsiderable pr and marketing expertise to elicit some positive press or at the very least some balanced article/comment soon.

Chloechaos, nice post.

I suspect a certain Mike Ashley might disagree with your comment that no other company has been subject to such a sustained and relentless attack from the press though. He has also had the politicians on his back not to mention thousands of Newcastle fans!

I’m not suggesting that boohoo and sports direct can be reasonably compared to each other as companies anymore than Kamani and Ashley can be compared to each other but there are some similarities in how both the companies and their founders have behaved.

A few on here have been frustrated by boohoo’s lack of communication with investors and the fact that they haven’t attempted to counter some of the press stories and to be fair it can be hard to sit by and watch a company we are invested in taking flack from the press and mp’s which may have a negative affect on the share price and not have the company issue statements in response. But issuing a response to a story keeps the story alive for longer, gives the original writer the opportunity to counter the companies claims and ultimately say it’s too little too late or we don’t believe you and can sometimes have the opposite effect to what the company intending when issuing it in the first place.

I do think there’s something about billionaires who started on a market stall or with a single shop run from a shed or selling gear door to door. They tend not to care too much what other people think about them, they can be a bit belligerent on occasion and when faced with criticism from someone who’s never done a hard days work in their life they can be downright dismissive.

It’s unlikely that Mike Ashley will become a member of the House of Lords anytime soon or that Kamani will be replacing lord sugar on the apprentice but their attitude isn’t much different than Alan Sugars (he dabbled in football club ownership too once) and he too took a fair amount of stick from the press in the past simply because certain aspects of the British press don’t like success stories!

Boohoo is not without its problems and owning their shares is not without risk but I think you are spot on with your outlook and I also think that the people worrying about this negative press are not the big investors (who let’s face it are more knowledgeable and involved with the company than we could be) or Kamani but us.

If the press or mp’s behave in a way that doesn’t deserve your respect or your response then sometimes the best thing to do is not give them either and just get on with it. That appears to be boohoos stance at the moment and in reflection I think it’s probably the right one.

Maybe they want the recording studio so they can hit us with more ‘it's from boohoo baby’ tracks!!

Here kitty only article I could find regards this was from dealers who said he joined the business last month.

I would have thought that given this is one of the things boohoo said they would be doing in response to the Levitt inquiry they would want to shout about it. After all if he joined last month one can assume the recruitment process was underway before the Levitt inquiry outcome was delivered.

So it’s an opportunity for boohoo to say hey look at us we are acting on Levits recommendations but actually we were acting in them before she recommended them to us!! Quite a positive message I would have thought.

Agree jet7 but I have one concern about the big funds.

William hill raised a couple of hundred mil through a share issue in June supposedly to put them in a better financial position to expand in the states.

Given here we are 3 months later with the board claiming to be in advanced discussions with Caesars and Caesars claiming to have done their due diligence I can only assume that the board were talking to Caesars at the point the share issue capital raise was done.

Interestingly they kept it amongst the institutional investors and didn’t offer existing shareholders the chance to obtain shares at discounted rates.

My concern is that William hill have effectively used that rights issue as a sweetener for the existing institutional holders. Here you go lads buy some shares today for £1.28 and we will get back to you in a couple of months or so with an offer to buy them back at more than double the value. All you need to do is use your existing holding and all these new shares we are giving you to vote Yes to the deal.