Member Info for ragtrade

@scott an R8, i trust is was the V10 even still poor decision , investment will tank, you'd have been better off getting a Maclaren 650S Spider or even Ferrari California or even a late 991 where values have bottomed out, so i'd stop the flexing as it's showing bad choices.

It will stand BH in good stead that Green and Ashley really despise each other with this in mind Ashley will be even more driven to fight tooth and nail to become the King of the H St (whats left!) however he will also be buying online web sites already in place along (anyone seen the Flannels.com ad out this week) with DC's and a whole load of stock in the pipeline, issue for BH is that i suspect Ashley's desire to take more than a handful of stores will be more attractive to Admins, can't see anyone else other than BH and Frasers getting a look in unless it's broken up which will be one hell of a messy drawn out complicated process. This is a generational change to the offers within the Fashion Industry and will draw up battle lines for years to come, i believe there is a bit more pain to come for the H St but we are getting towards the bottom of shocking period and are about to enter a new era with less players, and hopefully if landlords start getting real, an opportunity for a rejuvenation of the H St by the Indies, for young kids growing up today going out to a fashion retailer and trying stuff on may actually be a novelty, this is not a H St v Online debate, we are at a stage where online is a given but a store presence may enhance the experience.

@Dan 100% re the stores, could be a lot more attractive to Admins if someone is prepared to even take a third. This does look like a long game now, Admins today started doing deals on made stock that's not even in the Country, this stock is min 10 to 35 days away depending on source but it's SS21 so is vital to keep the Brands alive which in it's self will be adding value to them.

We could end up with a bidding war for Arcadia, if the Debs deal goes through Fraser Group really needs the brands to stock Debs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55256457

@Buff just to clarify, i think it's undervalued in the med/long term, a lot of stuff could make it dip again because as you point out its def not invincible, at mo it's pretty stable, but now i've said that i've prob just gone given it a kiss of death!

@Buff actually i think amongst it's peers i think it will have traded better than most, sadly for all LD2 has pretty much put a dampener on any going out so no one really has a reason to splash out on clothing like they normally do so i just think their cash will go elsewhere. That all said i believe in B/H in medium to long being a solid investment for all the reasons i have stated on here previously but of course everyone has their own view which is why as always DYOR because we are all in this to make money short, med, long and no issue if someone has made money and wants to quit while ahead seeing value elsewhere, like i've said may personal view is that B/H is undervalued at mo.

@GPJ - I supply this sector, yes your right stores are not as prepared, they have def bought less and have also angled a lot of the ranges towards more casual.
The discussion was actually about Black Friday and how B/H was trading as the traffic figures were not looking great, so my point was that reason maybe because traditionally most buys at this time of the year are for Occasion Wear and whether its High St or pure E-tail the offer is built around this, given that most parts of the Country are still effectively in L/D (btw looks like London is going into T3) no one has a reason to buy, so Black F and Xmas trading figs won't be great for most hence why we have no early trading updates from anyone yet which is what most are wanting for B/H as it will show they are exceeding expectations. Not sure who else might go in NY on H St as tbh not many left, New Look was looking dicey but the debt has been swapped for equity (fools) so its down from 500m to 100m plus had 50m pumped in to keep afloat but i still think it could go.

Suspect we may have an issue across the sector for Black F and Xmas. B/H & Asos were the form horses through L/D 1 , the Summer and poss thru L/D 2 was Casualwear, now you can only sell so many sweats, joggers and T's, i think the summer freedom meant that everyone perhaps splashed out into other areas of casualwear but and its a big but, Xmas stock is normally built up of less casual, Occasionwear, so more going out. It's been a nightmare for buyers to predict when placing orders for Xmas to actually know how much to book, this area also tends to be higher cost so if they can it wrong then markdown can impact heavily on margins, so whilst we all get carried away that online only is King , which it maybe, we have to consider what the actual demand is, because as far as i can see Xmas parties, Clubs and House, Dinner parties are pretty much cancelled, this cannot fail to to have an impact on clothing, this time of year normally all areas within the offer are on fire but i have a feeling that L/D 2 is going to have an impact on about 50% poss 60% of everyone's clothing ranges due to the "no reason buy" everyone going to make do, possibly get another pair of bloody joggers but it's going to be fairly limited, i think hard earned cash will divert to other areas. So i'm not convinced that B/H is making a killing, not because it's peers are stealing share but because demand for Xmas Ranges is weak across the whole sector, that said amongst it peers it surely is one of the winners so i'm sure whilst performance won't be off the scale it will be ahead of the pack.

Yes the new fully automated DC started up in 2019 , this year they borrowed £50m against it to get them thru CV, God knows if its on the asset books but it's state of the art apparently ! To get 10.4 million followers (topshop) and a loyal following on your basic denim package takes years, i cannot tell you how important i think it is for BH to nail this, the warehouse is just one aspect of the synergy that is unseen, the cross fertilization would be massive and this is the only Brand out there that i would even contemplate is right for them, the ones they already bought are going to be a hard slog, with TS/TM it's almost a bogof and an awful lot immediate hidden value, £200 million is however i think tops depending what they are actually getting for that eg DC, existing stock on water etc , some times the stars align and with CV, Arcadia in this position, the TS/TM demo and JL having worked their and knowing what makes it tick then i think this is one of those moments, the newish management teams at TS/TM he knows and they were starting to make an impact in late 2019/2020 confidence was returning as figs were really improving, these guys are still in place. TS already takes a massive share of the jeans market and they were def gunning for Zara to steal share. If this goes through i'm going very long on this share, there is a distinct possibility if it does that it could get hit £2 bill and some t/o towards the end of next year, issue is i guess at what cost.

The only ones it needs is TS/TM and poss Miss S, the others def agree are too much like hard work, Topshop has 10.4 million followers on insta alone, Asos 10.9 and BH 7m , that's a lot of people to dismiss.

World of difference with the Brands that B/H have bought and TS/TM, they def operate as a pair and unless something drastic occurs will be sold as such, for BH i think this is important because as much as everyone mentions TS it's Brother TM is equally as important as a revenue driver, in fact most on here over look Men's totally, B/H has two weakness's, its one dimensional demo and its Men's offer is shocking, buying TS/TM solves both issues. Unlike the other Brands they bought TS/TM are locked loaded and ready to go, as recently as last year they opened at a cost of £30million a new DC at Daventry, its state of the art and fully automated on Prologis’ DIRFT III scheme (no idea what this but sounds good!!!) with 1 million sq ft of storage. Very hard to put a figure re the on line only sales but in 2019 TS/TM had sales circa £850m. This revenue has to be very tempting to B/H and as i keep saying JL fully gets TS/TM, so i guess the question is do BH see value in a store portfolio and if so what value. I think that they will try and cherry pick some store and landlords will be biting there arms off to do amazing rent deals, however they have to strip it right back to the bone in which stores they take, so ultimately the structure is there its just a matter of how much they take and whether this will pay off and that's only if the Admins see value because speaking to people y.day i u/s there is an awful lot of people standing in the wings but with the attitude they have i cannot see BH ego's not wanting their name above a store in bright lights at one of the busiest shopping junctions in the World.

I worked for an Independent Men's Fashion Retailer as a teenager in my local town. In the town there was 3 family jewellers , another 3 indie Menswear shops, 4 indie Womenswear shops, 4 indie shoe shops, countless other mixed independent shops, the Multiple retailers consisted of a Burtons, DP's, Woolworths, Boots, M&S. In the Independent fashion shops, brands were key, Denim brands were everywhere, Easy, Pepe, Buffalo, Zeus, Second Image, Splinter, C17, Chippie, Lois i cud go on, these Indies and the diverse offer made the H St desirable. The 90's arrived and the multiples moved in destroying the indie's, whether it be a coffee house or a big multiple group the result was that rents and rates sky rocketed and the little ole family firm shut up shop as they cud not compete, along with it went all the indie brands, today all the big boys that once saturated the UK have either gone bust or gone out of town leaving ghost towns in their wake. Ironically i actually think over the coming years this will create opportunities for the small indie again, i'm hopeful that some individual character may come back, it is essential tho that landlords are realistic and rents / rates must fall along with free/cheap parking, we need to Shoreditch the rest of the country with young niche exciting retailers and food outlets, take a walk around the back streets of Brick Lane near The Old Truman Brewery, its busy, vibrant and hip, go back to the 80's and only thing of note in Brick Lane was the Bagel Bake, still an institution btw, venture off Brick Lane and the area was almost a no go in the 80's. S i wouldn't be so fast to dismiss the H St, we are very good at reinventing things in the UK and online could end up being the new homogenised High St with only the pure play e-tailers having the power to pay what it takes to influence and get their brand down peoples throats. In time the High St could once again become a novelty, niche and new, especially for Gen Alpha !!! but only if the landlords get real.

Dan yep data the new gold.

Yep most are 300pcs for both online and retail. less if they can get away with it!!!, TS 300pcs across 10 stores selected from each A,B,C tiers.

It's an absolute no brainer and one that JL and AR know only too well, of course with stores ditched it will have a big impact on volumes for TS but at the very least BH/TS fabric orders will double which means a positive effect on margins.

Dan -trialling is part of most fast fashion retailers and e tailers remit, in fact you normally find that initial trial is short lead, repeat in short lead and large bulk repeats are placed along side these repeats on a long lead to give better margins. As you know the discussion from @K is just white noise, stock inventory as you point out is a constant battle for the High St, not having sizes in stock is a nightmare for all merchandisers and software companies have made fortunes out of this trying to devise systems to avoid it but you simply can't, where as online all sizes and all legs, for Jeans perhaps the largest volume drivers on bottoms once you get customers hooked into being comfortable with your fit eg Topshop example, your returns plummet, this is why fit fit fit fit is so critical for online and once you have the money to expand the first dept that's normally addressed is to bring in garment techs and drive that returns rate down to under 20% as this is the Achilles heal of online.

Dan, well you know how my valuation works, anything North of what i paid for it, LoL, as mentioned i invested as the market valued these shares circa £4.30 in summer and after they crashed, from a fashion perspective i saw nothing that had fundamentally changed their offer, in fact to date its the complete opposite, i think there is actually more potential value for £4.30 than there was back in June, so i'd agree £4.50 to £5.00, if TS/TM comes off then long term i really have no idea, they could add £500 million to £800 millionmore t/o in a year just on these two brands alone let alone further growth on BH. Another point to make is that with buying power of BH and TS combined they will drive up margin, whilst the actual fashionability is different many fabrics will have synergy and over night they will triple the amount of meters they buy in these fabrics and as consumption makes up the majority of a garment it will drive down costs and drive up margins. Denim is a massive area for both BH/TS, i'm hearing stories of TS demo buying 4 to 5 pairs of jeans at a time in fear that TS is going to disappear from high st, many of the fits are iconic and have been finely honed by garment techs and buyers over the years and they have huge following of the does my bum look big in these, well this massive following doenst think their bum looks big which is why they are so iconic, Jamie Skinny and Mom Tapered sell over 300,000pcs a year.

Dan -Interesting you have given a valuation, based on 14p fy21 and 43 times earnings and before any increment for a possible TS/TM deal.

Flags i don't think the pound plummeting is reason for BH share px fall, it won't have impacted on UK production and for any overseas orders normally currency is covered at time of placing, so if normal lead times then Turkey would have been about 8 weeks ago and India/ Far East about 12 week ago. I do suspect it maybe something to do with no update altho quite why this comp is worth less now than back in June God only knows.

Dan - We wont ship unless Admins give us payment guarantee, of course they won't do that unless they see an quick easy return oppo before any potential sale of the Brands, if they don't then this gives any potential buyer an instant revenue stream. Mike Ashley has an issue with Debs because he could end up buying it with no stock to fill it, unless that is of course he in addition manages to buy Burtons, DP's , Evans, Wallace, again these brands have inventory and a whole SS21 order booked lined up to come in so he can trade for SS21 no issue, if someone else secures these brands (unlikely!) then Debs will be very very low on its clothing offer.