Member Info for simon1367

Pretty much a dog of a share. Was already down 33% over the past year, even with divs reinvested. And that's before today's 12% drop and div cut. I've come to the conclusion that most reits are primarily a rip off but that people are attracted to them for the higher than average yield and them being a safer than average bet, rather like infrastructure stuff. Well they're not. Ignore the NAVs as well as they're often meaningless. Look at EPIC as an example. Currently being taken over at 72p when the NAV is 81p....and the shareholders have had a negative return of 35% over five years with divs reinvested. My advice is avoid these types of income shares. They are deceptive. They basically pay you a high dividend derived from your ever decreasing capital!

More than a bit ambiguous Gerry. Why can't these people make it clear to small shareholders in simple terms what the deal offers? Is the dividend paid until the end or is it suspended and interest on cash accrued and added? Or any other scenario?

There's always the chance that the offer will be rejected or that another concern comes in for a counter offer. Personally, I've had enough of this dog of a share and have cut my losses and sold. Better used elsewhere in my view.

And so much for the Telegraph's recommendation to buy at the time for income and growth. And you also just have to look at Hargreaves Lansdown today to see the apparent NAV of EPIC is supposedly nearly 81p. It just goes to show what a nonsense these NAVs are in respect of many investment trusts. Either that or the buyer of EPIC is, in simplistic terms, paying 72p for 81p worth of assets, ie an11% discount. Goodbye epic.

West6809: If one is to give just a very basic and simplistic view of those figures in isolation, one could argue that the true growth started to ebb away in 2018/19. One can discount 2020 and 2021's figures as it was the 'covid' years and, for Asos, it was all too easy to ride along on the crest of a wave. They lost focus during that time. Meanwhile, despite hopeful cost savings coming through, all the signs are that sales over the summer months have been less than expected. I think they are going to struggle to reach even the lower end of that figure you mention. I hope I'm wrong but, as ever, I look at the 'shorts' and see Asos and Boohoo at the top of the league. I've come to the conclusion there are too many online companies vying for the same customer base. Consolidation is overdue.

Boohoo and Asos are now the top two biggest shorted shares on the exchange. It's more likely than not that the next updates for both are going to be disappointing. The markets clearly believe so. The markets have been generally flat in the last seven days and yet both these companies are down by 12.4% and 10.8% respectively. Expect a tough time over the next couple of weeks. I envisage MASH adding on further weakness.

ReggieT : Thanks for mentioning that. My error. I said 18 months in my recent comment, when in fact the bond is due for review in just over 30 months.

West6809: Presently I have no set exit price. However, I am damned if I am going to sell at a loss after waiting all this time! My initial investment in October 2020 was meant to be a quick profit making exercise; an 'in and out' situation within a month as I was convinced through the hype that this was heading much higher. The price dropped, and I bought at £53 which sounds like madness now. Stupidly I hadn't reserched sufficiently. Sometimes we never learn, particularly when it comes to AIM stocks. Over the last three years I've averaged down to £7.57 (which still feels a million miles away) and quite frankly there are some days when I feel that I would be content to get back £8 per share to recover my initial outlay plus interest. However, it is not quite as simple as that. The next announcement will probably be a critical moment for me. Any sign of at least a little progress being made will be a big incentive to 'hold'especially with predators sniffing around. I'm convinced that with patience the shares will begin to turnaround; clearly MA and Polvsen think this. The main problem however is all the hurdles the company has to overcome in the next couple of years. I'm not sure at my age if I want to hang around that long to see the potential full recovery materialise . Online fashion retail is so fickle and highly competitive. The risks are still high and in the very short term the signs are not good. Uncertainty is a bonanza for the shorts. Having reluctantly held for three years, I don't want the excruciating frustration to go on for yet another three. I maybe nearer to an exit target price once I've properly analysed the end of year figures in October.

Mortality: Another £500m figure coincidentally also appears in a completely different guise elsewhere in the accounts. In April 2021 when the share price was £54, Asos, looking to raise money for global expansion, received £500m via a Bond at a cheap rate of 0.75% p.a. (base rate at the time was 0.10%) . This needs to be renegotiated by April 2026, a mere 18 months away. With base rate currently 5.25%, one must pray that interest rates come down significantly by then.

I wonder what basically happened to that money. One could argue that ultimately some of it was indirectly used to over- buy inventory, whch was subsequently written off. What a waste.

Whilst I'm relieved my losses have been reduced due to these developments, I remain disappointed.

Eighteen months after investing, and then buying more after six months to average down, my overall buying price is about £0.78p. And this is after all the monthly dividends have been reinvested over that period. I'm still 6.5% down on my investment.

One easy way to lose money. Should have kept it in my bank account and saved a lot of hassle. Thanks a lot for nothing EPIC!

Wayne90 : I can see your initial rationale regarding THG's bigger SP drop compared to Asos' bearing in mind their respective 'shorts' positions. However, with respect , you are comparing apples with oranges.

It's fairly futile comparing the two companies generally. However, looking at Asos in isolation, I have, more than once reiterated that Asos' share price has been largely propped up by the activity of MASH and Polvsen and the subsequent t/o speculation. Had it not been for this, the shares would still be, in my opinion, in the low £3's range. I repeat, the shorts smell blood at this point and it was a mistake of the company to exacerbate the uncertaintty by delaying the trading update. Whether the news is good or bad, it will now make it easier for the shorts to make a quick buck in the interim period.

Barkils : Thanks for that little snippet about Nick Robertson's yacht sale; my heart bleeds for him....NOT!!! . This is the guy who at the end of June effected, in my opinion, one of the most badly mistimed 'director deal' sales, which brought him in £1m (by selling at a low price) at a time when the shares were heading in a positive direction. Was it really necessary to do that? It sounds like he spends money like water. Obviously it gave out all the wrong signals.

Financial analysts generally don't like delays to scheduled announcements (albeit this one is only a week). It is is, more often than not, regarded as a negative development. However, in Asos' case it may benefit the company as they will want to include some right up-to-date data in order to put a positive spin on a late surge of summer sales in first few weeks of September. Nevertheless the shorts declared figure has increased to 5.72%, the highest shorted stock on the exchange by a fair margin. That simply cannot be disregarded. Irrespective of the what the trading announcement will reveal on 26th September, and barring any exciting major shareholder changes or approaches, I see the SP continuing to drift lower and the shorts taking advantage of the uncertainty. This is just my opinion, but if anyone wants to constructively put a rational argument opposing this viewpoint then I would be interested in hearing it.

Netzeroready : I never went away, but I wish you would. If you haven't anything constructive to add to the debate then I suggest you button it. You clog up the board with puerile replies.

Wayne90 : I agree. The same could happen here. Uncertainty and nervousness regards the update on the 19th, followed by a positive response a short while later when the full end of year results come along in mid October.

Goldman Sachs lower target rate, for now, is fair enough. I suspect the Asos update on the 19th will show a decline in sales of about 10-15% and consequently the final results in October, given the poor summer too, may be towards the lower end of expectations. Barring any unexpected problems, I see the SP rising in October once it has been demonstrated they have control of costs and inventory. In my view, the shorts are only there to get a quick profit when the shares conceivably dip in the third week of September on the back of a depressed market.

The combination of a new HMRC contract, together with the return of the very experienced former CEO, has seen the share back to where it should be. Thr drop was way overdone

Good to see him return. He retired from Restore in 2019 to pursue other interests having spent the previous 10 years with the company as CEO. Must know it inside out, apart from the calamitous last couple of years when he wasn't present.

I take with a pinch of salt the company statement that they pursued a new CEO through an Agency to find the right candidate. Clearly if he was available, I would guess it was a basic chat to say 'fancy coming back to sort out the company again'? I suppose they had to goes through the formal process as a matter of protocol!

SCB One has to befar more analytical than to simply say online sales are surging and that the high street is struggling. That's far too much of a generality.

One only has to look at the likes of SportsDirect and Primark to see that some have the expertise to exploit the high street market. They've adapted, and so too does Boohoo have to in order survive in an incredibly competitive high volume/ low margin sector.

Obviously this may be just a blip due to the high inflation, and the dismal summer , but if you breakdown some of the BRC figures in terms of online / high street / non-food sales, you will see that there has been a consecutive decline in 'online non-food sales' in May - 3%, June -1% , July -6.9% and August -1.7%. So hardly surging.

I see a decline in overall revenue of about 10 -15% for Boohoo but with better effeciencies coming through which will see the company into better times. Long term, I see quite a bit of consolidation in this sector. Only a guess, but I don't see Boohoo around as an independent in five years time.

Itmustbeluck: There was an issuance of shares (equivalent to an extra 19.1%) in the May placing. Look at the RNS's.

Therealegogo: Aktieselskabet / Povlsen / Bestseller ......they are, to all intents, the same person.

Povlsen's long term strategy has always been to hold at least 25% of Asos.

Thanks Barkils. So the 'updated trading statement' will be planned for the 19th September (a bit later than last year), meaning probably that the 'end of year results' will be about a month later.

It looks like the shorts are hoping for another bite of the cherry. At 5.54%, a lot of the big players clearly hope for a disappointing update in a couple of weeks, resulting in a dip in the present SP.

'Non-food online retail sales' have had a poor time over the last three months due to the bad summer. The onus is therefore on Asos to have achieved their objectives in cutting costs as outlined previously. If they have, then then this could offset the sales decline, and shorts could end up in a pickle.

Therealelogo: I concur with all you've said. MF can be the kiss of death, but the article just tells us what we already know. Asos has just begun to turn the corner having had been run badly for quite a while. That doesn't mean to say it's out of the woods. Hence that is why Ashley is sniffing around. He's playing a game whereby he stands to benefit if the company continues its progress, but conversely, he is waiting to pounce if it all doesn't go to plan. He's an opportunist, a gambler, and also unpredictable. That's why he's disliked in the city. Morgan Stanley didn't want to deal with him and so offered onerous terms. And so he's suing them! He's gone to HSBC to get his deravitives facility, secured by his Frasers shares. Interestinglyy, he's not been using derivatives to buy at Boohoo, but scooping up surplus shares. Personally I've never liked the operations of Boohoo, ever since reading a critical and very detailed report of the inner goings ons of the business. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the founder tried to take it private, to the fury of smaller private shareholders.

...another RNS just announced, where Ashley has increased his October 'sell puts' by just over another 0.50%, to 5.145%

This derivative activity is some of the reasoning behind the volatility.

Ahananda....Those 'put' figures have since changed. See the updated ones on RNS 25th August.

Turtleneck. I'm a little confused now. On the basis of what Smugger said, it would seem the conclusion would be that MA's physical shareholding would increase this month and the deriviative figure reduce by the same percentage. I'm not sure that situation is going to happen. Maybe I've misinterpreted his post.