Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
There was recently a sell of over 1 million shares in one trade at just under 427 p followed by a "Neutral" note. from Credit Suisse...since then the shareprice has been in the mid 430 p range .If you compare Beverage Sector charts and,for example,DGE,then REX seems to have diverged inversely since mid 2014 .Whilst it has undoubtedly suffered from forex " hits" in Russia,the effects of drought in Brazil etc. this sp looks "oversold" at current levels as they continue to invest in new plants and have increasing georaphical spread.Their ROCE and the likely dividend make this a buy if it falls below 425 p
15 January article which says that Khoo Kay Peng is considering divesting his 47.7% stake in MUI and refers to the possibility that his wife may get £500 million should his divorce case be heard in London. It does seem possible that the recent appointment of Miss Joyce Sit Meng Poh as an Executive Director may be linked to enhancing the retail estate of Laura Ashley Holdings. Retain 35 p target.
Miss Joyce Sit Meng Poh has an impressive background including Master of Science in Retail Development (M.I.T) September 1996 Thesis on Property trust funds in Singapore...this could well be a positive move in the Retail Estate Development of Laura Ashley Holdings.She also looks to have very good connections in Singapore in particular.
Can buy £ 10k worth today at 30p ..if dividend maintained then yield over 6%.. price looks good value in current retail environment with every likelihood that sp will return to 32 p on good Full Year results
Assume that there will be an update on trading in the next few weeks and Final Results in March.
Looks like sp will settle back around 30 p. Would not expect it to return to 32 p again until March.
giving a market cap of £3 billion looks likely if FTSE 250 slides further
Unless the Malaysians are planning to sell part of their stake..if they did,think this would be trading in the 35 to 40 p range.Does anybody have any up to date news on the Divorce and whether it will be judged in UK or Malaysia as this will have a large bearing on what may happen next.Market cap of £ 250 - £ 300 million seems possible if owners change..there was some speculation some years ago that the Indonesians might do a deal.
Since early December surge in volumes there is a noticeable fall in volume BUT a target range of 31 to 32 p by March looks possible...thats not to say that it may not pull back towards 28 p over the next 3 months but the downtrend currently looks firmly broken....if the downtrend returned the sp would head for 26.5 p by the end of March but this looks increasingly unlikely if only because of the historic dividend payments ( there is more than enough cash to at least maintain them) and the fact that the Malaysians are the main beneficiaries.....it reminds me of when Sir John Hall owned Newcastle United( in other words,why wouldn't you pay yourself extra if you could!)
at this time MOSB were trading at around 55 p and ALY have since sold their stake at a considerable profit Floor to sp has been around 22.5 p in 2013 and 2014 versus ceiling 30 p
Interesting to note that market makers show 28.25 p to 29 p Small sell quoted 28.77 small buy quoted 28.91 but quote for bigger buy 29.30 p Suggests that the sp still has further to climb over next few months Given the generous yield of around 7%
Market fallen around 4% and REXam up 4% from the low of around 436 p post IMS
Suggest that,whilst supermarkets continue price war( and thus lower figures) Furniture and Home Accessories have done well which may have caused the sp to spike at 30 p yesterday.Laura Ashley sales of clothing now represent less than 20% of sales overall ...often the stores have Ladies Clothing at entrance to store BUT the profitable part of the business is the furniture,wallpaper and other home accessories ......the attractive dividend ( which has a baseline,excluding special dividends, of around 7% at the current sp) is unlikely to be cut given that the Malaysian owners hold the majority of the shares.It is possible that the Chairman and MUI could reduce their stake to raise funds for repairing MUI balance sheet/ and help pay for Chairmans divorce(?) which the"City" might view as positive as it would increase liquidity and negate the view that it is run like a private company
in view of current volume surge for December,now estimate buyers to 32 p
Lazards increased their stake to 7.23% on Thursday 4 December probably at around 460 p
Some negatives in Brazil with rising costs and tax( exempt Olympics 2016) on drinks reinstated but they are investing in new plants eg Switzerland on line 2015,upgrading plants in Spain( from steel to aluminium) and expanding through Joint Ventures in Middle East and India and their ROCE is approaching 15%. Target to buy circa 440 p versus current sp 457.4 p
6 and a half million( equivalent 4% of shares not held by major shareholders) traded last week as there are about 160 million of the 727.76 million in issue Share price moved from 27.5 p to 29 p nearly 5.5% up Looks to have spiked on Wednesday on large buys at 29.5 p Target for late March 31 p
"engaged in serious discussions with a potential party to explore the possibilities of disposing of certain substantial assets of the Company in order to realise their value"..coincidentally Broker Kantnor Fitzgerald reiterated their BUY recommendation with a target of 35 p. Have read that MUI may be selling their (Corus) Hyde Park Hotel
Looking at my August notes Bonham Ind Ltd holds 25.8% and MUI 35% which effectively means nearly 61% is held by Chairman Khoo Kay Peng and MUI Other stakes were Ruffer LLP 4.89%...Aeon Co Ltd 4.84%...Golden Palace Holdings 4.17%. .. GAM London 3.1% which means the above totals just under 78% of the 727.76 million shares currently in issue
on 5/9 sp was 16.75 p and I posted that 12.5 p looked likely and its been pretty close to this in the 13s now trading mid 14 p on very low volumes.Regardless of tougher emission control legislation in the years to come ,the falling oil price must be a negative.Also the lack of any sign of meaningful cashflow into the business.Hopefully the new man with JCB past will help....note that he also worked for Antonov!!!!!