General thoughts23 Jun 2014 14:11
These are my personal views only
AEO is no doubt oozing with talent and it's work is second to none, Hale arrived with a vision. My view is that he want AEO to be a seriously big player not some £6m nice little company but one that will be respected worldwide and have the market cap, turnover and profits to match.
Hale has spent the last 2 years stabilising and growing AEO with the great team that was in place and this is evident in Turnover, profits, dividend and most recently a significant long term contract which I hope becomes more frequent as blue clients want to maintain the relationship with AEO who's talents and creativity cannot be questioned.
So Hale has done a grand job and not just Hale the entire team, now they have brought a big hitter within the industry as a whole due to his EVCOM role, this man will know everyone and everything and be seriously connected.
The question is where does AEO go from here ? The staff will be already stretched if not close to it, so how does AEO continue to growth turnover, profit etc.
Well they have a few options in my opinion;
1) recruit more talent.
2) open a new office say Australia Hale is very connected there.
3) use the cash pile and buy nice fitting companies this is where the new CEO comes in ?
4) mergers
I would say through the new CEOs background and contacts AEO is going on a buying spree to enchance it's portfolio offering.
All in my opinion and could be massively wide off the mark.
With regards to the FY I estimated last year £500 to 600k FY and his looks to be pretty accurate and I didn't think about the long term contract if we get cash in from that this year so sticking my neck out I will go for £550k FY
Also a god increase in Cash heading towards £2m
So bottom line AEO is probably one of the most undervalued profit making , dividend paying and growing insanely fast companies in the UK.
I currently hold I've 2% off the stock so a little biased