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Kamani doesn’t strike me as the type to buy a dog if he wasn’t prepared to walk and feed it but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be attempting to win one man and his dog or crufts with it either.
Dan - you are absolutely right. This board if full of plumbers blacksmiths ex sales people and gamblers who don’t know their ass from their elbow and with the exception of whoever you deem worthy of an ‘at last someone who understands’ couldn’t value a share any better than they could value a Monet.
Clearly rag hasn’t got a clue about the fashion world and is stuck in the penny wise era, I have no clue what the word context even means and am prone to picking on you for some reason unknown to everyone including me.
But I have seen the light and concede that you are indeed the cleverest bloke in the room and I would like to offer my sincere apologies for not recognising that you are merely trying to educate us all so that one day we might be able to value the shares we hold rather than merely owning appreciation tokens and think because we own said tokens we have the right to an opinion about the company we hold.
Sorry it took so long for me to realise but thanks for sticking with it and helping me to get to this stage.
Now if you wouldn’t mind furthering my education please tell me. What should the boohoo share price be based on your extensive knowledge and expertise and at what price should I consider selling my appreciation tokens?
Dan, you took my post out of context mate. You deliberately left off part of the post and then presented it to us as the worst post ever on LSE and suggested that I was somehow claiming that the, as you put it, plumbers blacksmiths and ex sales people on here were qualified to work at a private equity firm.
I’m not here to defend rag or anyone else for that matter and if you think he needs calling out then feel free to do it yourself but don’t take the comments others make out of context to suit your argument.
My personal view is that you simply cheapen some of the good stuff you want to say by constantly dragging up your past arguments with ragtrade. The constant ‘this is what rag doesn’t understand’ when responding to unrelated posts from other individuals isn’t particularly endearing and as someone else pointed out a few posts back makes you come across as trying to establish yourself as the cleverest bloke in the room.
Maybe when you ask a question you are genuinely looking for someone to give you their honest answer but in all fairness the way you ask and then respond can come across as someone asking so that they can then dismiss or ridicule the answer given.
The ways to skin a cat are plentiful and all I am really trying to convey is that if someone is invested in a share then we should allow them to have an opinion and to share it with us and if we disagree with their point of view there is a more polite and positive way to go about offering them an alternative view point than the one you sometimes choose to take.
It’s 30th September.
Kallu it’s ok to base your conclusion on the past three months if you wish but i can assure you that the rest of the available data shows that for the past 11 years internet sales have grown consistently year on year and as I pointed out, when I asses trends I prefer to look longer term than the past 3 months.
Dan, I can’t break it down anymore simply for you. My point is that regardless of what or who you think you are everyone who owns a share gets a vote so unless you want to make it that only people who are ‘a corporate finance professional, IPOs, reverse takeovers, buy-side, sell-side most things tbh’ are able to own shares and therefore own companies and therefore vote at the agm then everyone who owns a share has a valid opinion.
Now if you want to change that it’s probably best to go back in time and argue with Thatcher rather than me but given that’s how it is you and me have to accept that some people who own shares may or may not have the best background or knowledge to explain why they actually are invested but that still does not invalidate their point of view given that they have put their hard earned cash into a given share. He who pays the piper and all that.
As for context you simply took a portion of my earlier post and declared it was the worst post ever on LSE suggesting that I had said that anyone was qualified to work for a private equity fund when in reality what I said was that when someone is invested in a company their opinion is just as valid as mine or yours.
If you can’t understand that then it really doesn’t matter what profession you claim to be in you lack either logic or common sense or perhaps both.
Kallu - what that data tells us is that internet sales using all metrics has been consistently growing year on year and each month compared to the same month the previous year apart from jun jul aug of 2021.
It also tells us that the growth in 2020 compared to 2019 was considerable.
The long term trend is that internet sales is growing year on year but the 2020 vs 2019 and the 2021 vs 2020 figures are abnormal compared to the underlying trend. Not surprising given the forced closure of retail increasing internet sales and subsequent reopening reducing it to more normal levels.
So either the lock downs and forced closure of high street retail caused the anomalies or the last three month trend is indicative of internet sales (that have previously been increasing every year) have reached peak and are now going into decline.
Personally I interpret the data as showing internet sales increasing year on year, the lockdowns forcing the pace of this increase artificially during 2020 and the 2021 data showing a return to normal, that the long term trend will continue and we will see internet sales continue to grow. Of course that’s the beauty of data one can interpret it in different ways but when it comes to analysing data such as this I do prefer to take as much of the source data as possible into account to base my decisions on rather than just the last 3 months.
Dan
That’s a perfect example of what I have tried (and clearly failed) to put across to you. Namely that you have a tendency to take someones comments out of context to suit the argument you cannot help yourself from having and that you clearly feel you must win any which way you can.
You stated in your earlier post that “ What I say is lost on this board as people on here are plumbers, ex-salesmen or small shop clothing manufacturers. What they own is a share in a business which has a valuation”
My response to that (in full) was actually “ As for the people on here I’m not sure what their professions are but since the late 80’s the number of individuals who invest directly in shares has grown considerably and there are sure to be plumbers and blacksmiths or any number of other professions out there who manage their own pensions and isa’s and I don’t see why that should make them any less qualified to have an opinion about a share they own than you me or anyone else.”
Not that everyone (or anyone) who posts on here is somehow qualified to be part of “a private equity fund where the team is materially made up of plumbers”
Dan - sorry but I was off to drop my youngest to uni today so couldn’t reply any sooner.
I fear once again you have missed the point I was making which was simply that you might have something useful to share but if your only motivation in posting is to drag up old arguments with someone who doesn’t even see your posts then anything useful you do have to share gets lost in the mele.
I’m not defending rags posts or his position I am simply suggesting that you refrain from referencing old arguments with everything and for the love of god please don’t start encouraging kallu to post any more than he already does.
As for the people on here I’m not sure what their professions are but since the late 80’s the number of individuals who invest directly in shares has grown considerably and there are sure to be plumbers and blacksmiths or any number of other professions out there who manage their own pensions and isa’s and I don’t see why that should make them any less qualified to have an opinion about a share they own than you me or anyone else.
I know someone who drives a lot of miles for their job who purchased shares in greggs some time back simply because the noticed the number of motorway service shops that they were opening up and believed that would result in significant growth. They did some basic research prior to purchasing but I can assure you they would be more likely to have known the price of a steak bake on the motorway services and how busy each outlet the observed was at different times of the day than they would to be able to quote the expected revenue for the next three years and what the retained profit would be. Does that make them a bad investor? Certainly a different way of looking at an investment but not necessarily the wrong way given it their money they were investing. And let’s be honest no amount of research or valuation calculations could have led an investor to predict that the Sunday times would run an expose on boohoo and the resulting problems with the share price.
Dan - we are all painfully aware that you constantly want to take every possible opportunity to trounce ragtrade. I have already shared by view (for what it’s worth) that you do have a tendency to take a piece of information out of context sometimes and you insist on bringing up what are essentially old untreated issues in an attempt to score points. Which is unfortunate because I think the good stuff you have to offer is in danger of being lost amongst the petty.
But regardless of whatever battle you think you still need to fight with rag (especially bearing in mind that he doesn’t even see your posts) encouraging kallumama to spout even more of his diatribe in order to try and make a point that let’s be honest only you seem to care about really doesn’t add value to the board (again only my opinion but from the comments of other posters I don’t think I am alone).
Maybe it really is time to prove that you are a grown up and just drop your issues with rag and concentrate on offering your views or opinions about boohoo and related issues?
I agree that being debt free is often a good position for companies and indeed individuals to be in.
Historically any good investment advice would include paying down personal debt prior to investing and let’s be honest there’s little point in putting monies into a diversified portfolio that you expect to grow at the rate of say 7-10% annually if you are running an overdraft or credit card facility that attracts a rate of 15 or 25% .
However if a business is in the position to borrow at circa 4% and can realise a return significantly better than this then the do it now approach would be the obvious one to take.
Danl90 I agree that the likes of us distribution, additional warehousing in us/eu as well as U.K. and the development of brands including Debenhams internationally is key to boohoo’s continued success. However it needs to be done properly and at a pace that the management can cope with. Our excuse for the Leicester supply chain issues was along the lines of how quickly the company had grown and it’s cost us both in terms of the company paying out to fix the issues and the share price. Neither the press or the market would be very forgiving if boohoo were to attempt these projects and fail to deliver.
As long as the board are walking before they attempt to run and as long as they are developing the new brands and such one would expect this to be reflected in the revenue and profits and ultimately the share price. As always for the little shareholders not knowing what’s happening behind the scenes is frustrating and requires one to have faith that the board will deliver what we expect of them. Given the track record of over delivering against can only hope that they will do so once again and that the next financial update will both beat estimates and deliver some clarity on where we are going with Debenhams, Karen millen and Dorothy Perkins as well as how intend to manage our us growth and compete with shein or next or whoever it is we determine as primary competitions for our customers and their cash.
I think you already have the answer but just to confirm when William hill was subject to their takeover there were a couple of employees on the wmh board part way through their share save scheme and they were allowed to buy the shares at the agreed offer price for the value of the fu d’s they had so far saved.
From memory the explanation went along the lines of the shares are issued and earmarked to employee share save scheme at the start of the scheme even though they are not available to savers to purchase until the required 3 or 5 year saving period has been completed. So if the company is subject to a takeover during the scheme period the share save shares (issued and held by the company on behalf of employee savers) need to be purchased by the bidder alongside all the other shares. The company therefore allow savers to buy the proportion of shares they have saved for so far and the remainder are cancelled prior to the takeover.
Dan - like I tried to convey in my earlier post there’s a lot of our own personal interpretation and option influencing our views on here and just because I make an observation or offer a view doesn’t make it correct or mean anyone else would or indeed should see things the same way. So yes in my opinion you can come across at times as the big I am and be at pedantic and argumentative too not to mention that once you get the bit between your teeth you can emulate the Duracell bunny somewhat!
But please remember I have already stated in the past that I enjoy our debates and I shared my opinion not to try and insult or upset you in some way but to highlight that the good stuff you have to say has the potential to be lost as a result. And I see and accept your point that you don’t intend to come across that way but perhaps it’s the determination to prove rag wrong even when replying to other people’s posts that exacerbates this?
I understand what you are saying about what the platform is and how it’s been part of the long term strategy and I don’t disagree with you. However from memory the first time John little uttered the p word was when boo held a video call when we purchased Debenhams. At the time it prompted discussion on here about how all of a sudden everyone claims to have a platform and in fairness prior to this point one would have been forgiven for simply referring to the website and ordering system as our platform rather than the whole process. In fact I think this was a point made by rag himself (amongst others) at the time which was in fact valid in that context.
Likewise I see how you would dismiss the idea that a camera has any significance when compared to the mighty platform but in fairness when you don’t have your goods on display in a shop where it’s possible to distinguish the difference between say sports direct and flannels and their associated stock the right quality photographs are one of the ways it’s possible to demonstrate this difference. It’s why next directory included material swatches in the actual catalogue when they launched to demonstrate the quality of the cloth and differentiate their quality products from the other catalogue boys at the time. Again when taken in context rags hard on over which cameras are being used by boohoo vs asos makes sense and is as valid as your excitement about the platform.
So all I am saying here is, with the exception of some of the stupid stuff observed on here like claims that online is dying or the claims that this will be £2 by the end of next month, a lot of people bring their own experience and insight and if we take the time to understand the context it can be useful stuff. Of course we won’t always agree (your opinion of the flea gate was that it was potentially the straw that was about to stick the camel in a wheelchair compared to others that saw it as tomorrow’s chip paper) but in the main all the opinions are of some worth.
Dan - the board havent exactly come out and informed us exactly how they envisage the platform to work or quite how they will develop the Debenhams marketplace.
Maybe they will aim to eat everyone’s lunch as you like to put it but for my money the whole Debenhams announcement amounted to not a lot more than a bit of buzz and a suggestion as to what the future might hold and since then there’s been not a lot of substantial update from them to paint the full picture for us.
There’s no getting away from the fact that every man and his dog claims to have a platform these days and whilst it’s easy to assume what that means we don’t actually know for sure what it means in boohoo speak.
I don’t much care if you want to pick on every point rag makes and turn it into a, dare I say it, platform to show us all how clever you are but much of what you state as fact is merely your own personal interpretation of what little info the bod have given us thus far.
Personally I trust that boohoo will make a success of Debenhams and the ex top shop brands but I would not put it past them to do it by allowing certain brands within the stable to be sold wholesale if they decide it’s the right thing to do and likewise buying certain items in on a wholesale basis if they determine that’s the most appropriate way to ensure they can offer home or beauty products to customers. I definitely see an opportunity for boohoo to allow 3rd party suppliers to appear on the Debenhams site with all fulfilment and customer service being looked after by the supplier but given boohoo’s expertise in fulfilment and returns management I see no reason why they wouldn’t also offer a full service at the right price for the right product where boo carry the stock, manage the order, payment, pick pack and deliver and return etc without taking the risk on the stock itself.
In short I can see any number of ways boohoo could make the whole Debenhams and marketplace product work that is very different to the current test and repeat model and why not as long as they do it in a profitable way. But until they tell us their plans in detail all we are doing is speculating and my best guess or interpretation of what John little actually meant when he said x is no more or less accurate than yours or rags or anyone else’s.
So please by all means continue to share your insight and ideas but please stop with the big I am attitude because it has a tendency to make people switch off rather than listen and at the end of the day if you are correct in your assumptions there’s no point being able to say ‘I told you so’ if there’s no one listening when you say it.
Ancient - we all own shares in a company whose executive chairman is effectively a barrow boy ‘done good’!
Piece in the times business section today concerning the £500 million investment reported yesterday.
This from the sister paper who broke the ‘Leicester slavery scandal’ and in which any report that mentioned boohoo since dedicated several paragraphs to regurgitate the investigation by the times and subsequent levitt report.
Is the anti boohoo press tide finally starting to recede?
Boohoo has £500m plan to create 5,000 jobs
Emily Gosden
Friday August 13 2021, 12.01am, The Times
Boohoo plans to create 5,000 jobs, mostly in the UK, as it invests £500 million in this country over the next five years in an attempt to sustain rapid growth.
The Manchester-based fast fashion retailer, which operates 13 labels including Pretty Little Thing, Warehouse and Oasis, said it would add warehouse space and buy in “smart IT solutions” to improve efficiency.
It aims to meet growing demand for its products in markets such as America and Australia and said about half of its sales are in international markets.
Boohoo, founded in 2006 by Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, reported sales of £1.75 billion in the year to the end of February. It sells clothing, shoes, accessories and beauty products.
The company has been heavily criticised over the poor treatment of workers by suppliers in Leicester and is aiming to restore its reputation.
In January, Boohoo employed 3,476 people, mostly in the UK, though this number is understood to stand at 5,500 now.
Numbers have swelled at two new distribution centres in Daventry and Wellingborough and through acquiring the Debenhams brand and Arcadia’s Burton, Wallis and Dorothy Perkins.
“Also, where’s Kallu gone?”
He got his a level results yesterday and failed so he won’t be going to uni now. He is currently at the local primark asking if there’s any chance of a job as a meet and greet with a view to progressing to the tills once he’s experienced enough.
Understandably they are a bit reluctant to give him a job because they had to ask him to stop going to the store once they reopened after lock down as he was constantly in there touching and feeling the organic cotton underwear and it made some of the customers a bit uncomfortable.
I suspect he will be back soon though!
Pjf, I’m not sure it warrants an rns.
Effectively what boohoo are saying is that they expect to continue to grow the business over the next five years and as well as creating a lot of new jobs the growth also has a knock on effect in the communities inn which boohoo operate thus creating even more jobs and contribution to the U.K. economy. In many respects this growth story has already been communicated to share holders.
So the story is essentially a pr release from boohoo and the good news should be along the lines of ‘boohoo not only sorting out supplier issues etc but also creating U.K. jobs and so on’. Let’s see if the times or the guardian pick it up and how they chose to handle it if they do.
N brown is 50% owned by the alliance family. Not sure how David Joshua and Nigel alliance fit into the category of entrepreneurial Asians but one things for sure if anyone is thinking of buying nbrown it’s the alliance shares they will need to acquire.
There is a rumour the Barclays want shut of very though and are considering floating it so if boohoo, and it would be a big if as far as I am concerned, wanted to own a catalogue company and have a few hundred million to spend I would think that very would be a more likely purchase than nbrown.
I’m inclined to agree kindness. There can be a tendency for us to sometimes focus on the ever changing share price and try to make sense of why it’s gone up down or sideways in the short term and to seek solutions whether that’s the chairman or key directors purchasing shares, introduction of a dividend to encourage a broader range of institutional investors or seeking an update to the markets to assure us that we are either on track or beating issued guidance targets.
However whilst the individual fortunes of investors rest on the share price (we only make a profit or loss when we sell after all) the co founders, directors and employees of the business are being paid their respective salaries and only need to worry about hitting their individual and business targets in the timescales set to achieve their associated bonuses.
If Brian levesson were to publicly leave his boohoo role because they were not taking the agenda for change program seriously or if John lyttle were to up sticks and move back to primark citing promised bonuses being unreachable or if the likes of the anti slavery charities or the glaa were to come out in last weeks sky news piece and be critical rather than complimentary about boohoo working with them to eradicate supplier issues (and let’s be clear here the sky piece last week was about supplier issues not boohoo issues) then I think we would have a problem. As it stands the situation is that boohoo have put a robust program in place to deal with the supplier issues and the relevant organisations have commended their approach. Recent articles in trade and investor press are starting to suggest that government bodies need to do more to protect workers from unscrupulous factory owners rather than laying the problem at boohoo’s door (kamani told the commons select committee months ago that fixing Leicester isn’t something boohoo could do alone) so whilst some journos are still dragging up the past the tide is turning.
Sure the usual issues that boohoo face in terms of competition or managing rate of returns or unexpected cost due to raw material or freight cost increases will remain and no doubt be added to but boohoo have already consistently demonstrated that they address such challenges as good anyone else and if the cost of a container from China or Singapore or india is double or even 1” times the cost it used to be that affects everyone in the industry not just boohoo.
So whilst the board might not be focusing on keeping the retail investors up to date with sales returns and profits on a daily basis there’s every reason to expect that they are focusing on doing their usual and beating guidance targets and in time as long as they continue to do so the share price will undoubtedly rise whether that’s because profits are reinvested to grow the business and share price even more or because they want to return profits to shareholders by way of a divvy.