Member Info for Skindle

Welcome back 1GW_. Comfortably beat my target of �220m. Still looking for the devil in the detail but my initial scan of the results brings huge relief. I will only believe the corner is turned when Lspoon1 buys ! Meanwhile, back to the accounts to search for potential problems.

Is my revenue target for tomorrow. The exceptional items realised at this point last year were an additional �3.3m for flawed financial product sale repayments and �700,000 fending off the proposal of Mr Ashley as our new chairman. If we achieve �220m in revenue and incur no exceptional items, we should record a pre tax profit of approximately �4m. But this is Findel so I am certain that if the board look hard enough they can find a whole new raft of exceptional items.

Seeing a Littlewoods advert on the television prompted an ownership search. It turns out to be Shop Direct who also own Very, Very Exclusive and Littlewoods Ireland. Shop Direct claim to be the second largest pure play digital retailer in the UK with revenue of �1,930m. Underlying pre tax profit of �160m was reduced by..........yes you guessed it.....exceptional items of �120m !!! Actual pre tax profit was �24.9m. My initial thought was that Shop Direct with its �31m converted aircraft hangar headquarters in Speke near Liverpool may have an interest in Findel as a going concern but their huge exceptional items make me think otherwise. One can dream !

Interesting observation on Mr Rowley Ejackson. Sports Direct appear to be hovering above the business like a vulture awaiting its demise, at which point it will try to buy the seventy per cent it doesn’t yet own for a knockdown price. They have made no effort to forge a supply contract as this would only help both income and sentiment. I think Sports Direct will only sell if the board manage to turn matters around and the share price increases. It’s a win win situation as I see it for Mr Ashley and his team.

Theoretical support at �1.30 (June 2016). This company however is not supported by anything including its board of directors so we can expect sub �1.30 prior to the results release on the 29th November. Currently this is a shorters dream. Post results release is anyone�s guess.

Hello Ejackson, a warm welcome back. I too had a go at buying this afternoon but my 5000 share order at �1.565 wasn�t filled unfortunately. I trust you are enjoying gains over at N Brown but they too have suffered legacy issues in the more recent past, I hope that hasn�t affected your investment adversely. Our board have a terrific opportunity to show the market that a line has finally been drawn under the legacy issues that have blighted our progress over the past five years after they consigned massive write offs to the previous financial year. The forthcoming half year report is critical to the future direction of the business. Another set of exceptional item riddled results will in my opinion have a very damaging effect and could even lead to massive institutional divestment. You are indeed a brave investor and I am pleased to have you back. I just hope that this time around we can all begin to enjoy some gains in value.

I spend endless hours reading all I can about this outfit (how dull am I ?) and despite my serious reservations about this board of directors, I have a sneaky feeling that on that this occasion this lot might just declare a pre tax profit for the first time in aeons. I can’t help thinking that finally we might just be about to turn that proverbial corner. After all, how hard can it be to sell cheap imported far eastern merchandise into a virtual zero per cent interest economy ?

The group has not declared a pre tax profit at the half year point in the last five years and judging by the recent alarming share price slide, shareholders predict that this year is going to be no different. To try to paint a positive outlook I would draw shareholders attention to the positive trading update on the 29th August, only one month before the end of the first half of the financial year and the very positive Edison outlook released on the 18th July. My hope is that the new board took the opportunity to declare all onerous charges and costs in the previous financial year leaving this financial year clear of those wretched exceptional charges that have blighted our accounts for as long as I can remember. Maybe this was a Kowalski thing, who knows. We shall soon find out what our new man has to offer, let�s hope it is better than what has gone before.

Could our major shareholders act collectively to remove the entire board mid term if results are poor ? Could we see a new board made up of Sports Direct Schroders and Toscafund nominated directors ? Or do we have to wait until the AGM next year ?

As you and I are the only holders outside of the main institutions I thought the activity today was you selling up 😅. The negative sentiment caused by the board of directors lack of communication with the wider market and their reluctance to buy their own shares is clearly having a detrimental effect on the few small shareholders that are left. Today witnessed the reduction of one of those smaller shareholders either reducing or selling up altogether. I don’t think today was about leaked information prior to the release of the forthcoming half year report. This was just a case of another shareholder losing faith in a wholly inadequate board of directors. The question I often pose to myself is would you invest in this company now, fifty two months after the original investment ? My answer is a resounding No. So in conclusion I think I am more than a little naive to expect anyone else to invest given the lack of news flow and a weak board.

If I were Stuart Caldwell and I was in charge of releasing a positive half year report on behalf of Findel, why would I not buy shares in the business that handsomely rewards me for turning up to work every day. Answer - because the half year report is going to be negative. For all his incompetence, at least Tim Kowalski bought more shares with his own money than our current incumbent. For a well paid CFO to be holding only 5,108 is simply a disgrace. Why haven’t our so called activist shareholders insisted that Mr Caldwell make a substantial investment ?

Zero volume for days, static share price and then two lumpy trades appear within seven seconds of one another. At a shade over £1.71 per share this looks like a current holder reducing a position. Toscafund, it looks like we might need you again !!

I missed that RNS as well Columbo. I don't think Toscafund are buying voluntarily. As Lspoon1 said, the market makers have probably bought in as much as they are prepared to on risk and have passed them onto Toscafund who are the only buyers in the market place at the moment. Had Toscafund not bought these shares who knows how far the price would have dropped before the market makers were able to sell them. That said, at least this illustrates that Toscafund still have enough belief in our board of directors by agreeing to buy this latest tranche of shares.

With no activity so far today I believe you are correct again Lspoon1. Pension fund movement or existing holders passing between themselves. Stagnant normality has returned.

Well spotted Lspoon1, you are correct, I put my point in the wrong place, apologies for my error. Hopefully an announcement will follow to clarify the position. It appears to me that the low volume sale on Friday was used as a means to move the price down to facilitate today's share transactions. As the figure is well under three per cent, it may prove that we hear nothing.

Now 1,003,834 or 11.61%. The plot thickens ?

Now 750,000 shares traded or 8.6%. Who is buying and who is selling ?

New face ?

The share price is definitely being moved down for some reason. What is the reason this time ? More poor results on the way or the prelude to a takeover ?

That was a brutal mark down in response to the sale of 12,300 shares. Initially I was concerned that one of our nine large shareholders might have decided to call time on their ownership. As it turned out this was not the case. I don't think we need to read too much into this share price reduction. This is not some large scale holder with advance information dumping shares prior to the release of bad news. The same mark down took place prior to the release of the trading update in August, which of course turned out to be positive. So while the price movement today was negative, we shouldn't read too much into this. As I pointed out recently, some director buys wouldn't go amiss to help support the share price.