Member Info for simon1367

S8raff: thanks, that's basically what I said in my last comments.

When Frasers sells puts, they immediately have a percentage holding in Asos, including voting rights. This is the case even though it is the buyer of the puts who calls the shots not Frasers. Frasers, as I see it, will only potentially own the shares (and if the price rises, will be unlikely to be called upon to buy them), so it's interesting that they acquire the rights straightaway. Explain that one!

Hi Turtlehead: You may well be right, although I think it may depend on what type of option is written into the contract at the outset. I dealt in options along time ago, and there was a time when you could, depending on what is agreed, either exercise anytime between two dates, OR alternatively decide on a fixed date. You're probably right that the latter is the case with MA's put option sales.

As I thought would happen.....shares are down nearly 7% today. By announcing what they did, it's almost as if someone wanted to make a quick killing, before reverting back to business as usual. Cynical me!

Knowbodyyouknow: I'm no in depth expert on derivatives either to be honest, but if you think about it logically, if you're selling a put to someone, you're generally getting something for it... an upfront premium. Conversely, the buyer of the put option has the right, but not the obligation, to sell the stock to the put seller at the strike price at any time before the expiry date that the seller wrote into the contract. Basically if the SP rises, the buyer will simply let the option expire, as obviously he won't want to tell the seller to acquire them at the (cheaper) strike price. If the SP drops, the put buyer will usually exercise his right to tell MA to buy the shares, not at the lower market price, but at the higher strike price. This implies that MA is fairly bullish about Asos. Having said that, he may have hedged his position in some way, possibly by placing a short bet as well. Sorry to waffle on!

Knowbodyyouknow: Regarding MA's (Frasers) derivative dealings, these have been 'selling' puts. It is the buyer of those puts who is therefore in the driver's seat. If the SP drops the buyer will probably be quids in and will call upon MA to acquire the physical shares at a price higher than the market price of the day. As I understand it , MA has been gambling on the SP rising. He's even been doing it on his own shares Frasers in recent months. He seems fairly confident that Frasers will continue to do well.

''We would prefer to remain independent'' but we're up for sale. This company has been doing well and was up for a re-rating. My guess now is that if no-one comes in with an offer, the SP , as someone has already said, will drift downwards.

At the risk of repeating myself, this company never fails to disappoint.

An extra week to try and dress up the results hasn't worked. The shares are the most shorted for a reason.

We basically already knew the last twelve months results, but now we hear of the expectations for the future. Reading between the bs, it doesn't look particularly reassuring to me......and the market agrees.

They will have to sell TS or raise further capital in another way at some point. I wouldn't touch a rights issue involving ordinary shareholders with a bargepole. I've heard enough bs over the last few years and what we have here is close to more of the same. There's a lot of long term debt ahead as well......don't forget the £500m bond down the line.

Berenbergs opinion is pure conjecture and not worth taking any notice of.

Calamonte mentioned the stock built up by 'previous management' lol. He was actually part of the previous management as the CFO before being promoted to CEO. What we actually need is NEW 'quality' management at the very top.

On the same day Asos gave these disappointing results, Next raised their own guidance by another 6.5% . The SP is up +40% in two years, and remember £3 billion of the £5.4billion revenue is online sales. Quality management. Then we have Asos SP down -84% over the same period. Nowhere good enough I'm afraid. The excuses are fast running out.

This is a grossly overcrowded market. Shein isn't going away; although the USA will inevitably bring in actions to protect it's market. In Europe Shein will continue to chip away at market share along with many others. Given the choice of buying dirt cheap clothes (through dubious companies) or 'saving the planet', most young people will, despite their general disapproval, still opt for dirt cheap clothes!!! Shein, who has moved HQ to Singapore, is here to stay ftb.

Don't be too excited about black Friday. We had the same hyped up boll**ks last year. They might generate some nice short term cash at zero margin and that's it.

MA has sold put options for this Nov, then Dec, Jan and Jun 2024. He may have to acquire the physical shares at the (higher) strike price in those months unless the SP rises from here.

Not sure how the market would read a TS sale. Selling a brand that has started to show growth and contribute to profits could be seen as a desperate move....cuts short term expensive debt, but in a climate of continuing declining sales. It's hardly a brilliant growth plan.

This could take yet another few years during which time anything could happen. It's a recovery play. Rather than wait that long, I'm praying for a takeover of some sort, but I'm not raising my hopes. MA and others are in it for themselves, not me.

I was aware things were going well, but unaware of any speculation.

Naturally happy about the SP today. The p/e now is really toppy. I think any initial offer would be lower than those speculated on here today. No-one is going to overpay in this environmemt.

Personally I was slightly disappointed by the announcement. The team there seem to have the formula right and are going from strength to strength. Why sell out now? Are they sensible to invite offers? To me it gives the wrong impression.

Selling TS, if true, is merely a short term fix to sort out the debt mess that they brought on themselves. Now we are, at last, starting to see growth in the TS brand, shareholders would be very annoyed to see a fire sale below that purchase price. However, what we are seeing here is that the break-up value of Asos added together is, as we always knew, worth far more than the current capitalisation figure.

The slight delay in the results is either to test the accuracy of financial information provided, or to do with the TS sale talks which, to them, would be seen as giving the company short term breathing space. MA would not like TS snatched away at this point. Given the opportunity, he wants the whole of the business for a bargain, so that he can skilfully dissect it himself and absorb the best bits into Frasers. If the sale rumour is false, don't expect much change tomorrow.

Agazzis....I like your common sense and logical ideas about opening strategic stores around the big cities. Certain brand names, such as Top Shop are synonymous to the high street. For example, look at'NEXT or FRASERS who, along with a few others, have the right formula for now and they evolve where necessary.

The problem is, the likes of Asos' executive are convinced that 'online' is largely the only place to be (all eggs in one basket).... online is 'the future, and the high street is doomed' is their philosophy and their whole operation is based on this false premise. Sometimes what goes round comes round and the high street is fighting back with stores who have the right management and the right model. Meanwhile Asos fights in an incredibly crowded market. Sooner or later there will be lots of consolidation in order to survive.

As for the contiued rumours about Asos, this newest one about Topshop should be interesting. The results this coming week would probably have seen the shares fall given the gloomy outlook, but if you add into the equation the 'rumour' of the sale of the Topshop brand, the SP will be supported once more. In my view Asos is in such a state with it's high (expensive) debt, that the temptation to sell TS to rid itself of a large chunk of this liability must be very tempting.

BrokeNsmoke....apologies for the delayed reply. This type of litigation can take some time as the lawyers involved endeavour to get as many claimants on board as possible. You're correct in your assumption that this could take a couple of years of tooing and throwing. I think at this stage it is 50/50 that it gets to court, as quite often a negotiated settlement before then is reached to contain legal costs. Nevertheless, I think this is just one more thing that will be putting some investors off for perhaps the next year or so until we know how things pan out. However I'm sure it won't put off MA, who is all too familiar with the courts. I won't go into the specific legal technicalities re the differentiation between class actions and group litigation when comparing US law with UK law (WolfofWarks is being pedantic). The fact is, is that everyone understands the underlying meaning of what is happening here; numerous individuals and instututions are threatening court action based on pretty much cast iron evidence that Boohoo's corporate governance was, to say the least, lacking, resulting in financial loss to the shareholders.

An encoraging directors buy, but I'm still hesitant at the very high p/e ratio of about 43%. This 'growth' stock which is down 65% and 59% over 5 and 2 years respectively, is not showing much sign of progressive profits. UK revenue growth is disappointing. US revenue is definitely encouraging. The share is under £10. Six years ago it was over £30. Some growth stock! Risky, despite Questor's recommendation today. Questor in my opinion has been abysmal in its recommendations over the last couple of years. Just look at TBLD and you'll see what I mean!!!

Presently yielding a 7.46% dividend. Tempting, but given there is more news today about the obscene pay off of the CEO, I can't help thinking the SP has further to fall. The results aren't that bad but its amazing how the market reads results these days. Anything other than phenomenal results, end up with a nasty price fall.

WolfofWarks....Class actions, a generic term here for Group Litigation, occur here regularly. As you know, they enable individuals and other parties to come together to bring the same claims against those they believe are responsible for wrongdoing. The CA term is used by UK lawyers all the time, and although the term is used more in the USA. I was only repeating what I read in the Telegraph yesterday; that '' findings have sparked a brewing class action against boohoo, which could reach the High Court if a settlement isn't reached''. The claim in respect of boohoo's working practices in factories involves about 100 institutional investores. A fall in value is the basis for investors' bid to claim compensation. It was based on an independent report that concluded that, at the time, ''boohoo's monitoring of its Leicester supply chain was inadequate, attributable to weak corporate governance'. Something we appear to see too often. I expect there will be a settlement which, given its in the Uk, will be considerably smaller than if it had occurred in the US.

Peoplepower1.....you are largely correst in your assumptions about Boohoo. Okay, at this level they are speculative and perhaps money can be made, particularly with Frasers sniffing around as they still see value and a 'fit' into their operations. However, this m0dern slavery accusation has been hanging around for years and was never going to go away. I read the Times article at the time who aledgedly found all sorts of goings ons within the extended family holdings. ''Most allegations were well founded and substantially true'' regarding slave labour said an independent barrister at the time. Of course today Boohoo say their position / stance will be robustly defended....the usual legal waffle. Come the end of the day, I reckon they will be faced with a class action and will eventually be forced to come to a settlement. Boohoo always seems to be involved in questionable practices. Remember the lawsuit in the USA. How much did that cost? Its a good job Frasers will be around to pick up the pieces.

What has prompted the big drop today. Seems harsh. I shouldn't have bought last week.

Utterlycluelee.....very true, I forgot to expand upon those scenarios. When it comes down to it, it can be an economical way to acquire shares if one was already probably intending to buy. What I think he's doing is hoping that the value of the underlying stock will at least maintain (or increase) its value during the course of the contract meaning he won't necessarily have to pay too much a price to acquire. Whoever is buying these put options is praying the opposite, that the SP falls!

Frasers has been constantly 'selling' puts each month thereby receiving an upfront premium. They do not hold any ongoing rights but will be obliged to buy the underlying shares at the strike price if the buyer of the put exercises his right on expiry. MA is playing a risky game with these derivatives because while the upside is limited to the extent of the premium earned at the beginning, the downside (loss) is potentially unlimited, which means he has to deposit margin cover with the stock exchange to undertake such actions. His stance basically implies he is bullish on the shares as he obviously doesn't want them to fall long term. That's how I see it anyway.

As Paulleydee says, Goldman Sachs are acquiring more shares through derivatives only a week after signalling a sell recommendation and a reduced target of 3.80. The action was on the 19th, but they chose to announce it after trading hours today. Makes you wonder what they're up to. Call me cynical, but this sounds like some sort of manoeuvre or manipulation whereby they benefit in some way.

Well that was the kiss of death, me buying some. Sorry folks.