Member Info for Senator1

When first half EBIT is down 47%, PBT -48%, PAT -45% and EPS -44%, I wouldnt describe that as a cautious update. Its an unmitigated disaster would be my label. However, the fact that the board decided to pay out as a DVD all of the 1H eps is either just gross stupidity or a signal that they are on top of the right sizing and are 100% confident in weathering the horrendous performance of the US market in particular. It is clear they were far too exposed to one client in that market and that was a dumb thing to allow happen so right now if I had to choose between the 2 options I would side with the former . The fact that yesterdays volume was 29 times the average of the last year tells you someone has given up as 68% of the stock is held by institutions and management and so that is likely the source of the volume. we dont know yet the profile of the buyers. If its retail buying cheap thats the dumb money. If its one of the big holders buying on the other side thats much better, but just now no one knows. RNS's over next few days might help to piece it together.

If you look at the performance of the Eurostoxx 50 to end June the best performing industries are Aerospace & Defense (double the next group at just over 100%) and Banks at an average 46% and then Utilities 21.57%. The reason for first group is obvious, Banks do well when yield curve is upward sloping and Utilities are winning on the AI stuff, as they are in US. Consumer Discretionary is actually down an average 9%. So its not a love fest with Europe per se, it is very targeted following the macro trends. Europe is a basket case in general, one currency trying to navigate very different economies with different cultual priorities. A German's or Belguim attitude is very different to that of a Greek or an Italian. There is no real growth in Europe and no real innovation. How could there be with the amount of regulation and talking heads getting involved in everything. The currencies should never have been unified and then when a country decides to elect the next nut jobs, like Greece did with Syriza, the currency can take the hit. Syriza came sooo close to cosying up to Russia to avoid the Germans, just think where they would be now if syriza were allowed to do that. It went right to the brink before the people got their chance to speak. Thats an asise, my point is be careful with your analysis that investors love Europe. They love the bits that even incompetent management would be hard pressed to reverse.

AGAIN, this is still erroneous information. At half year they have cash £34.6M BUT lease obligations (which is a debt) of £21.2M, so net cash is £13.4 at half year, take off the announced interim DVD of £6.2M will shortly be £7.2M pro-forma or 4.8% of the market cap NOT 25%. You are not just wrong in your calcs you are a million miles away from anything credible. When you are wrong by the margins you have exhibited I label it crap because thats what it is! Sorry if that is just too plain for you but it's not just a mistake to spread information you clearly dont understand. These calcs take less than a minute to verify if you know what your doing

There is an obvious reason. It is going down because it is patently clear that they used price reductions to bring the LfL positive again. This means margin erosion and in a business with 11-12% operating margins this can be meaningful. NOBODY knows yet whether this will persist because it depends on the margin on the new stuff coming in. The CEO has said he sees margin improvement on the new stuff. Thats all fine but it has to be bought to realise it. The market swhoots first and asks questions later when you leave a void. BME left a void, their excuse new CEO and all that...needs time blah blah blah. Market did what it always does, acted decisively and is now saying to management, show me Im wrong. All very sensibe. Nothing to do with leverage, short interests, none of that. Just, you leave me uncertain on the outlook with falling margins and a new CEO who might right down stock values if its over-priced and then blame the previous guy. Market is 100% doing the right thing. Add in that the big elephant in the room is very overvalued (the US market) and if that falls hard the UK will get hammered and in that environment you are best with quality not things that look cheap, like BME.

Manners is not spreading a patently obvious lie. Too many people here have not a basic clue but they still write crap.

I dont care where you got it, be more diligent. If you spread crap you are as guilty as the source.

Your DVD calcs are way off. On historic basis 2H 24 DVD was 0.125 plus 1H 25 0.06 =0.185/1.35 =13.7% NOT 21%! On a future basis they have declared 0.06 1H 25 and if we assume 2H also down 40% as first half was thats a prospective yield of 9.76% less than half of what you wrote. These calcs are not difficult , stop writing crap.

Stop making crap up, clear enough for you?

No interest in this until it goes to 12.70 area. An operating margin at 6.9% and PBT at 6.2%, just walking a cliff edge all the time, one stumble and it falls hard.

Diluted eps down 15.8% and operating margin now starts with a 6 rather than almost 8%. These guys are running hard but going backwards. The 2H is more important than ever, with all the headwinds can they deliver? I doubt selling to Tesco will help the margin pressure.

In the UK there is only ONE authority on publicly disclosed short interest and that is the FCA. AS of YESTERDAYS report there are only 2 short interests publicly disclosed, Walleye 0.8% and DE Shaw 0.61%. Anyone saying anything else is guessing or just making stuff up as none of these funds will diclose their private holdings to anyone and only publicise what they are required by law to do to the FCA. Further in the scheme of things 1.41% total net shorts is nothing. At times, funds use short interests to provide cheap funding rather than necessarily a view on the value of the stock. Everyone knows that there wont be many triggers upwards for BME as we wont know more on the margin issue until the next release so its a pretty ok source of cheap funding to be short rather than necessarily an outright negative on the stock. i wish there were more shorts (as Im long) because they are GUARANTEED future buyers. The shorts on this stock are also a non issue, there is no conviction and I suspect only used for safe funding.

Ebitda in a post ifrs 16 world is a total nonsense, misses over "250M plus in cash outflows. Total nonsense to suggest net dent to ebitda is an important metric, if that is your understanding of BME's numbers you are in the wrong stock as you have no idea what you are doing.

No it is not

No they dont. At FYE 25 they have net debt of £920M with net operating cflo of £675M. The conventional debt is just not an issue, total red herring, anyone who says it is does not know what they are talking about. What is an issue is they have £1.4bn of lease obligations under IFRS 16 and £1.2bn RoUs. As we dont get the details on these leases, the terms of breaks etc, the IFRS 16 calc of lease obligation is conservative as it takes the lease payments to maturity and ignores the potential breaks. This means in the absence of far more detail NOBODY knows whether this £1.4bn is an accurate reflection of the actual liability. What we know as a fact is these leases cost BME £253M in actual lease payments which is again very manageable with a net operating cflo of £675M. Any suggesting the net debt is an issue doesnt know what they are talking about. The issue, if it exists, is the leases. For now it just isnt an issue based on the cashflow and anyone putting too much emphasis on the Bal Sheet figures, again doesnt know what they are talking about.

Yes forward PE is high at 27x BUT the operating margin is a huge 68.7%, rev growth is 10% and eps underlying 11.4%. £8 is going to put up a battle but this is a quality stock. A bit too expensive at the moment but quality nonetheless. For a swede to come in to the UK and build this, hats off. They have so much data now they are untouchable.

This is total rubbish. The holding co is Jersey that is it. BME taxed on worlwide income at UK corporate tax rate with credit for tax paid in France. There is zero opportunity to allocate bricks and mortar profitability to jersey, a holding co. Total rubbish. The advantage is the new shares out of Jersey can go in to Crest directly. stop this rubbish, you have no idea what you are talking about.

The tax home of BME has always been UK when they had Lux HQ and now Jersey HQ. All that stuff about tax saving total rubbish as tax home of BME hasnt changed.

Market uplift annualised, this is beyond words. The market is the best fundamental analyst I know. The fact that return to shareholders will very likely be buyback rather than special DVD will improve EPS and so this all other things the same might result in a market uplift. BUT everyone knows this is coming and so the current price reflects this info. For now the market is focused on margin erosion and more details on this will drive market uplift not information that everyone and his granny already knows.

Capital return boost!!! there is no boost, just substitution of buyback for special, so thats all rubbish.

So is tax optimisation as the tax situation hasnt changed for BME. All total rubbish and believe me it is patently obvious who has any basic knowledge about finance.

This was total rubbish the first time you wrote it and it still is. No factual basis whatsoever

I suspect Lux was really the HQ was for the benefit of Bobby Arora as his investment vehicle was a sarl. and i suspect he was indifferent between capital gains and income tax and so he didnt care about the form and suspect same from the Gray foundation. Only 31% of shares are held by the CEO and top 5 shareholders so about time they put a more flexible stucture in place. Im sure pressure from GIC, Capital Group and Fidelity kicked them to this approach.

Also that scale of advantage would require an RNS as its 10% plus of the current market cap. The fact there wasnt one and fact it wasnt in EGM circular in Appendix 1 gives you the real data.