Member Info for Slipperman55

It was an all paper merger.

There are 796 m shares issued and just under 1 % are shorted. On any given day up to 5m shares trade, In June 7m traded in one day. If all the shorts were closed out over a couple of days I don't think you would even know.

Both companies have debt levels on a par with their market caps and very low earnings. I can't see anything other than an all paper mash up!.

Well done team SSP. Seems like they are making progress.

Yes, they do franchise various offerings including Starbucks and M & S, Burger King etc. The problem with this model is that you lose so much of the potential margin to the franchisor. They will acknowledge that the haven't been very good at building their own brands and products which is one of the reasons why margins are so low.

It looks like a big slice of the £10.6m comes from an acquisition and some from inventory valuations - possibly old bikes. LFLs look to be at about the level of inflation in their sector, so sales are broadly flat. They have been working hard to lower debt levels which makes sense. Minimum wages increases will add pressure to their wage bills.

Institutions really don't like restatements. £10.6m revision is not insignificant. Also note the delay in releasing accounts which suggests some tooing and frooing with auditors. If you go into a Halfords store and look at what they are doing with bikes and then compare with a good bike retailer (Evans et al) it is very obvious why they are failing in this sector. They are dire. Their retail footprint dedicates so much space to an area where they are performing badly. I'm a big fan and customer of their auto centers. They haven't updated their advice on labour recruitment challenges so assume this is still a problem. Investors will look at this and wonder where they can increase margins. They can't rely on investors stumping up cash to buy market share when margins are looking so thin.

I'm not saying that their results wont be an improvement on previous ones. The SP might even increase, so good luck to you. My point is that everything they do, they do badly. Has been every thus. If you are a shareholder I hope they go to 375, but at some point you pay a price for being crap. They made £25m pre-tax last year on £2b turnover. Maybe they can double this, who knows. Not all their products are hopeless. How many baguettes has Upper Crust sold? Lots. I just hate the idea that they are OK being really crap at pretty much everything they do, charge crazy prices and offer, mostly, crap products.

There is so much fundamentally flawed with this company. Unless you have stumbled out of the pub at 11PM and need to have some crap food in the mistaken impression that by time you get off the train you will be sober, then its all a terrible value proposition. Food quality is awful, costs are terrible and the company margins are just dire. I don't think many people who work in their sites actually enjoy being there and senior management are very ordinary. The company ethos is centers around lowering supply chain costs and not improving product quality. They survive because they have a large number of historic travel hub sites and rail and air landlords are lazy and also very ordinary. They have never really built any value added credible brands, which tells you all you need to know. If there is an alternative shop then you wouldn't use SSP. Their rents are all % turnover based which is the main driver for exorbitant pricing. Most, but not all, stores look pretty tired. Hats off to SSP for coming through COVID which is not mean achievement, otherwise nothing to admire.

Joining two companies with very low PEs = a bigger company with a low PE. I don't see any synergies.

This one is slightly different given that its in the public domain and there was a temporary share price bump.

If a formal offer and rejection had been made details would now be with the Stick Exchange. All looks pretty lame.

Pump and dump! Anyone looking at buying would been a roadmap to cut costs and or significantly boost earnings.

Peel Hunt are Halfords broker! Have a look at their previous price targets!!

Some good, some not so good. Cycling is 25% of sales but falling rapidly. There is a lot of competition in cycling and if you go into a Halfords store then you can understand why they are doing so badly. If you strip out inflation LFLs are flat. £50m profit on £1.5b of turnover is a very small margin with a downward trend. They are doing the right things in many of their sectors but it's a tough business environment. Can they get this business to £100m of profits? Maybe, but probably not. Falling margins in a declining sector with high fixed costs is a tough spot. They didn't revisit the issue of struggling to recruit so I assume this is still a big problem for them.

Trading Statement and AFG on the 6th. Will see if LO got their timing right.

Halfords needs to show that they can get a grip on selling and servicing bikes, have a better strategy for an EV world and have the right marketing team to grown servicing and retail margins. Growing sales by buying sunset industries has a limited time horizon.

one obvious question is why the big disparity between when analysts forecast and where the stock is? they do so many things really well. in the servicing business they are much better than average in a very fragmented industry, but it's low margin stuff and has labour challenges. one the retail side they are very good in some areas but rapidly going downhill in others, eg bikes. overall their marketing team needs a firm kick up the ****. they have worked hard on esg but don't see any need to promote this to customers. website navigation and functionality is better than is was but very poor. so much potential but so much is very average. if they want to be website driven then they need to improve pronto. their ceo is totally invisible, but a good operator.

Signs that UK food inflation was coming down would be a big boost. They operate on tiny margins that any fall in costs will make a big difference - still struggling to recruit staff and I don't see this improving.

Let's see where they sit one week from now.