Member Info for Skindle

So Schroders were again the seller behind the 700,000 share transaction yesterday. There are now enough shares in free float to allow all the directors to each buy say 10,000 apiece. No excuse now lady and gentlemen. This might help push the share price up through the £2.82 resistance level were it to happen. Equally Express Gifts might start selling flying pigs !!

Yes I read that too 1GW_. An additional one per cent of shares are back in free float and it looks like someone acquired 700,000 of those yesterday. If it was Sports Direct they will be obliged to make a formal offer for the whole business. Interesting times.

Could be one of our large shareholders rolling over Columbo. 1,400,000 shares at £2.77. There won’t be an RNS if this is the case. I was reading the annual report and accounts today which confirms that our large shareholders continue to hold. That is nearly 92% of the total number of shares held by seven holders. I was also interested to note that Mr Maudsley unashamedly received £864,000 in salary while Mr Caldwell helped himself to £418,000. I think it is fair to say that neither is short of money. I am therefore a little disappointed that neither director has chosen to buy shares with their own money. The same applies to Mr Ball who received £49,000 but did not buy a single share. I think that is bad form. Our current resistance is £2.82, what is going to elevate us to the next level, a positive trading update at the AGM at the end of July ?

So this explains why none of the board of directors bought more shares in the business. Why pay for shares when you can acquire them for nothing !

Four days makes !

Good to see the share price responding positively to news that many will feel is negative. I wonder whether this cut in staff numbers would have taken place had we not had the wear issue with the Trent 1000 engine design. What is the purpose of the Capital Markets event now that this news has been confirmed ? Will tomorrow bring news of plans for the marine business ?

I have been an investor in Findel now since 2010 when Messrs Siddle Kowalski and Sugden took control. My guess is this trio firmly believe that this recent resurgence in value is because of what they did. This is true to an extent. I use this analogy to illustrate my point. Imagine Findel as the Costa Concordia. The previous board have succesfully managed to dash the vessel on some nasty rocks and the water is pouring in. The captain and some of his crew have jumped ship and our trio have been parachuted onto the bridge. They then spend much time righting the ship, guiding it away from more nasty rocks and repairing the numerous holes. Having saved the ship from sinking and steering the vessel away from further danger they then try to re start the engines but unfortunately none of them are engineers and despite their efforts they can’t get them going. The ship then floats around going nowhere. Now that the ship is safe our leaders then begin to enjoy the benefits of a stable vessel and are not prepared to listen to an engineer who has been part of the crew pretty much since the launch of the ship. After a while the ships owners become impatient that their vessel is floating around not going anywhere and not generating income from fare paying passengers. The owners exert such pressure on our trio that they each jump ship and a new captain is parachuted in to take control. This captain however listens to the engineer that claims he can get the engines going and asks him to have a go. After throwing some heavy ballast overboard the engineer successfully starts the engines and the ship sails off into the sunset having taken on a full compliment of fare paying passengers. The passengers then spend their money on board and the ship begins to make money again. The end.

There would appear to be a concerted effort to air as much bad news as possible prior to the Capital Markets event this Friday. My hope is that as we move closer to Friday the share price will rise in anticipation of some good news. No mention so far of the plans for the marine business.

Cheeky question Mick but how much did you pay per share ? I have often cheered myself up in former times by reading the Edison Report when the share price was sliding south but we must remember that the report is always going to sound positive because Findel pay them to write it. It must also be taken into consideration that the share price hasn’t yet risen to what Edison valued the business at per share last year. In conclusion we appear now to be moving in the right direction on the back of a very solid first full year performance under our new board. The bench mark has now been set, can the board improve further upon the this excellent first year set of final results ?

I really hope that Mr East can pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat again next Friday. The Trent engine wear problem is really discouraging investors from buying RR. Critical to the short term movement of the share price will be influenced by the decisions made concerning our marine business. Mr East is a fine chief executive who has proved his ability in the past to make the correct decisions. Let’s hope he can continue.

The 250,000 trade and the four trades after that totalling 155,000 were executed at 2.82/83.5/84.5 were listed as buys but judging by the drop in share price thereafter I wonder whether they might actually have been sells. Nevertheless someone has paid well above £2.80 for 405,000 shares which can only be a good thing for us small shareholders. Just think where we might be now had the board ring fenced £5m as a dividend payment. Our P/E ratio is quoted as 12.04 and our EPS 22.68 pence. Let’s hope that the positive momentum continues tomorrow.

This is the first real pre tax profit in about nine years. I am a little disappointed at the low key market response and there is only a very brief article on the Stock Market Wire website which in previous years has appeared as an RNS by 10am. A positive P/E ratio and EPS will be a welcome part of the Findel fundamentals from today.

I feel happy with these results having had a quick skim although I am disappointed not to have received a three or four pence dividend as there would now appear to be head room for this.

I first invested on the 2nd January this year after taking Christmas to look further into the very encouraging RNS released just before. I dipped my toe in the water with 5000 shares. I bought a further 45,000 shares at the end of March after the announcement of the sale of a piece of kit to the value of $4.5m and the news that the “big one” was about to be confirmed. This left me at an average price of just over 25 pence per share. The grant of share options on Friday however following hot on the heels of another year of a pre tax loss confirms for me that the board of directors are laughing in the faces of shareholders who continue to fund their very comfortable life style. I cannot now see any hope of Iranian contracts converting to revenue while Mr Trump in in office. Had I known on the 2nd January that these big contracts were Iran based I would not have invested in the first place. The opaque nature of the way this board releases its information is verging on deception in my opinion. I will sell my shares in this sham of a company by Tuesday evening of this week and invest what is left into a company that is going to report a pre tax profit on Wednesday morning. Good luck to all shareholders of WSG I hope you are more successful than I have been.

Let’s not be too optimistic Columbo. We both know that this company have a history of disappointing shareholders. In saying that of course, this set of annual results is the first under the new Maudsley/Caldwell regime. In June 2017 Messrs Maudsley and Caldwell took the brave step of writing off years of accumulated debt that was never going to be recovered, hence the £59.2m loss. That action should ensure that the annual results for 2017/18 is a nice clean report with a healthy profit before tax. The icing on the cake would be confirmation that the board and Sports Direct have reached agreement over a supply deal.

We can only hope that Liam Rowleys presence at our board meetings will result in a positive outcome. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that those wretched exceptional items don’t make a re appearance in the results this time around.

The recent diminution in value from £2.70 on the 25th April to the closing price yesterday of £2.33 is a serious worry. With ten days still to go before final results day how low will the price go ?

If the prospects are that good Tosh why aren’t the directors filling their boots today ?

Totally agree Dibs61. I was hoping for a small pre tax profit and confirmation that the board had actually managed to convert some of the big talk about lucrative contracts into actual revenue. But no, just the usual jam tomorrow update concerning the mythical Iranian contract. Let’s be frank there is little or no hope of the Iranian contracts being performed while Mr Trump remains in office. I say again, this board continue to paint a picture of optimism to maintain shareholder investment while not delivering any returns for those who commit their hard earned cash to support the business. If you remove the prospect of the Iran deal what else is there left. How much longer can this company survive on other people’s money ?

Yes miken, Mr East promised us news of the result of the strategic review of the marine business “soon”. I hope we don’t have to wait to long for this information. The diminution of the share price in the recent past is quite a concern.