Member Info for Skindle

With the group name change comes the increased possibility of Findel Education (FE) being sold. My guess is that this will happen in the 2019/20 financial year. With the general efficiency of FE improving annually, the company has been able to squeeze out a small operating profit of £3,217,000 or 8.37% of the group adjusted operating profit. The bad news is that revenue again fell from £86,336,000 to £82,081,000 or 16.19% of total revenue. For a business with such thin margins, FE is never far from falling into a loss. After the name change is ratified, I hope to see a positive move to dispose of the business.

If it were £237 Nighthawk, we would all be millionaires !!

I take it all back. Well done Mr Ball, you have finally taken the plunge. I offer you my humble apologies. Well done for finally backing the business.

Good to see Ms O’Donnell buying £20,000 of shares in the company, might that prompt Mr Ball to buy some as well ? Nothing else has so far. Mr B appears happy to take our NED compensation but is not willing to give back. Well done Ms O ‘Donnell. Might be time to move Mr B on in favour of someone who is prepared to become more involved.
Can anyone shed any light on why broker views ceased to update publicly from November 2017 ?

Year on year core debt is down but up a little on the figure quoted in the third quarter trading statement. Some costs were incurred in fending off the mandatory offer from Sports Direct that was made on the 4th March.

The best way to reduce debt EvaRose is to sell Findel Education. Is the name change a prelude to this ?

After supporting the board in the recent mandatory offer, I was disappointed to note that there will again be no dividend payment for long suffering shareholders. Good results but not exceptional.

Sorry to keep banging on about this but my notional £29m PBT as mentioned before equates to a 33.5 pence EPS. Just to maintain the 8.664 P/E ratio of today would mean that the share would need to rise to £2.90. Plenty of upside here then, provided there are no dreaded exceptional costs.

Added 0.71% to their holding yesterday, bringing their total position up to 5.07%.

The good news is spreading EvaRose, some big trades have just taken place.

Thank you KnigelK. We are hoping for a return to the undisturbed price (which I believe to be £2.50) in the short term. Fingers crossed.

I salute your contrition KnigelK, thank you. Now might be a good moment for you to re-invest here following our post closed period trading statement last week.

A notional PBT of £29m results in an earnings per share of 33 pence and a trailing P/E ratio of 5.48 at the current level. Surely a strong buy. Why the lack of interest ?

Nothing bad, just a small increase in core net debt. I am assuming that the “slightly above current market expectations of £27 to £28 million“ does not include the currency gain from the first half of the year.

I’m not sure that delaying the release of the post year end trading statement is to the benefit of shareholders. The statement must have been prepared weeks ago so I can’t see why the board did not release the information to the market yesterday morning at 7am.

Do bear in mind that the board owe us as shareholders a debt of gratitude for supporting them in their attempt to fend off the Sports Direct takeover. The least they could do is present some positive news to the market to move the share price back up to where they claim it should be.

like inviting the burglar that is going to break into your house to dinner !

And look at the share price rocket........???

No doubt in my mind. Toscafund are ultimately responsible for the drop in value of our share price which is currently fifty four per cent down on its high in July 2018. Toscafund sold part of their holding to City and Financial who in turn incompetently ran themselves into administration. Sports Direct, the opportunists they are successfully purchased five million shares at £1.61 resulting in the requirement to make a mandatory offer.

Toscafund were supportive shareholders when they were invested but you must also remember that they, together with Schroder each sold part of their holding in 2015 to Sports Direct to involve them in the first place.

In conclusion, I believe that Toscafund have been a hindrance as much as they have been a help. I hope they don’t buy back in again. The Rottweiler Martin Hughes can keep his ill gotten gains as far as I’m concerned.

Welcome EvaRose, your positive sentiment is appreciated.

Not sure what will move the price positively Columbo. I thought the SPD RNS of late on the 30th April might have had a positive effect on the share price yesterday but I was again disappointed. The board have clearly been holding back our year end trading statement because of the mandatory offer so this will be their latest ever release for that particular statement. My view is that there must be some bad news in it for the board to hold information back the release beyond the sixty day deadline. All will be revealed next week I hope.