Coming in @ 40p now. someone is very desperate to get as much of these as they can. I think 80p which is 100% from here will come and go here very quickly. I would say we could see a lot more than that by the summer. All down to acquisitions but at least we know we are funded for them and there will be no dilution. That's the key here.
Now 40p and above
No sooner did I say then it happens. Now up 2.6 % Nice and steady once again.
Now on 40p with only one on 39p. The fact this shows us as down today obvs is not right and will change soon enouogh. 2 v 1 on the buy side too.
Looks like someone could not be bothered trying to buy in drips and drops and took 343k @ 40p. To be fair they have their holding and can rest easy now. Much betetr than going back and forth for 25k a dozen times. Plus 40p will look very cheap soon enough.
3 or 4 acquisitions would be more than enough for me :) I'd be very happy with that kind activity. Yeah, the free float is tiny and its very hard to get a stake but certainly worth doing so. Like you said growing current revs in to £100 mill will give us a very healthy return and it really is a case of sitting tight and enjoying the ride. The growth is all in front of us here.
Morning
Yes, said that earlier mate, been going on since it came back. Not a lot in free float so not sure how long it will take to get what they want but once they've loaded up we will move on from this level. Exciting time with this one as the next acquisition is fully funded here. £££ bags of cash in the Kitty.
"Under [private equity firm] Palatine's watch, Selection had done much of the groundwork in making the transition to a cloud services provider," the analyst said. "On top of its core IT managed services offering, it has acquired cloud services and business comms to round out the service. "However, we believe that work still needs to be done to pull all those strands together into a coherent customer offering. This work can now be completed under the new management team, and potentially within the scope of a larger group. And on that note, the fact that CSI has structured the deal so it still has plenty of fire power on its balance sheet suggests that further acquisitions may not be too far behind."
In order to provide its own autonomous services, Ross said there will be acquisitions, with the first "likely" to come in 2016. A statement released by CSI said the targets will be "assets offering datacentre infrastructure, network connectivity and managed services". He said he is hoping to transform Selection from a £35m-revenue firm to a £100m-player in the next three years through these acquisitions. Following these deals, Ross said it's "likely" that the Selection brand will be changed once other firms are integrated into it. But he said that besides the departing MD, Harrington, and CFO, Mark Woodall, there will be no other changes to personnel at the MSP. A lot of players similar to Selection are constrained by their private equity owners who don't provide them with enough capital to expand, Ross added. But he said the MXC and CSI takeover will provide Selection with the financial backing it needs to grow rapidly. This investment by MXC is not the first buy-and-build MSP venture it has undertaken, with it also investing in Pinnacle and Redcentric. But Ross said he is "confident that there is very little overlap between" these MSPs, as Redcentric is focused on the large end of the market and Pinnacle is focused on the small end, with Selection in the middle. Industry analyst Megabuyte said Selection still has a long way to go to provide a full offering, but it is in the right hands now.
Ross told CRN he has been charged with building up Selection through acquisitions. "What you typically find in the mid-market is that the CIO deals with a number of different suppliers," he said. "There is no one supplier who can deliver everything they need. In the enterprise space, a lot of the larger providers have their own network, datacentres and their own people, but we are going to replicate that in the mid-market." He said that while Selection has a good base as an MSP, it still relies on third parties, such as Telicity, for datacentre hosting facilities and that restricts it over pricing and is not "the most efficient way of doing things". "So our plan is to take a managed services platform – in this case we started with Selection – and deliver around that with our own network and datacentre assets," he said. "So over time we can deliver the full range of services and technology our clients need, but do it on our own assets base. Therefore we have control over the assets and the pricing and that will make us more competitive in the market."
Serial channel investment house MXC Capital has bagged a 25 per cent stake in managed service provider (MSP) Selection Services, as it looks to create a £100m buy-and-build mid-market player. MXC's move is part of Castle Street Investments' (CSI) £34.8m reverse takeover of Selection. To fund the acquisition, CSI, which was previously a dating website but sold its assets to become an investment vehicle, announced the conditional placing of shares to raise £30m. As part of this placing, MXC announced an investment of £12.9m worth of equity, which equates to roughly 25 per cent of the shares of CSI. Selection is a private equity-owned MSP focused on the mid-market with revenues of £34.5m for the year ending June 2015. As part of the deal, MXC partner Andy Ross is becoming CSI's new CEO, with Selection's MD Grahame Harrington due to leave the firm following the deal's completion. Ross told CRN he has been charged with building up Selection through acquisitions. "What you typically find in the mid-market is that the CIO deals with a number of different suppliers," he said. "There is no one supplier who can deliver everything they need. In the enterprise space, a lot of the larger providers have their own network, datacentres and their own people, but we are going to replicate that in the mid-market."
London IT services firm Selection Services is being acquired by Castle Street Investments. Selection Services, which has revenues of around £35 million, is based in Bromley, south-east London. Selection has around 300 employees and over 500 UK clients, mainly SMEs. Cloud services and project management are among the firm’s specialities. Andy Ross, currently a partner at MXC, who was also previously CEO of Northgate Managed Services before Capita acquired it, will become the CEO of Castle Street. MXC said the deal represented a platform acquisition to start a “buy and build” in the IT solutions and cloud services sector, with a focus on the “highly fragmented smaller end of the market”. Castle Street will acquire Selection on a debt free basis and will have £16.5 million of available cash resources and terms agreed on a debt facility of £7 million to support its strategy. Peter Rigg, chairman of MXC, said: “The experience and skills of MXC in the sector will be at the disposal of the board of Castle Street in creating shareholder value. The transaction demonstrates the MXC model at work: identifying the opportunity, advising on the transaction, securing the funding and then adding the operational management experience to drive the buy and build opportunity.”
Still coming in and the trades being made to look like sells.
Left on 39p each then it's 40p the rest. So, we've had the Platform acquisition to start buy and build and that in it's self will generate organic growth but it's only the begining and the next step is to utilise exsiting funds to build an integrated IT solutions and Cloud services business. We will make further acquisitions as well as grow organicaly but more importanlty is the following: The strategic objectives are to grow through: · broadening the current customer base; · cross-selling more services into existing customers; and · investing in strengthening the current portfolio of products and services, and the New Board will target acquisition opportunities offering data centre hosting, network services and Cloud based solutions. This will help to position the Company as a consolidator within the IT services sector, which the Directors and Proposed Directors believe offers ample opportunities for further acquisitive growth. The Directors and Proposed Directors believe, consistent with these objectives, that there is an opportunity to build a highly profitable, coherent IT services group with revenues in excess of £100 million within a timeframe of three years. It all sounds good to me and I think 3 years is them being conservative but then at these prices who cares? They are looking to grow the company by a minumum of 300% and if is achieved in 3 years or under that's a minimum average return of 100% per year. Sign me up!
again and looking nice and steady at this level. Also nice to be here when the threads not hijacked with the herd in for a quick buck. It allows us to move up and hold our gains a lot better.
as expected.
3 v 1 in favour of the buyers. In better market conditions this would have been out the blocks at some rate this week. All the same though when this market volatility subsides we will be in for a treat. Right now though buy what you can now and accumulate more on any dips till things settle. Building a stake in and around these levels is very good business for PI's. Poor market conditons have perks :)
Still being filled here. We will move up shortly as we have only one more MM on 38p.
Not a bad day this. Markets have been down today but CSI ploughing on regardless.