Member Info for TheTrotsky

LTI, We all appreciate how clever you've been in the past but it would appear that you must be getting slower in your dotage and missed the opportunity to sell at 750p+ in the week before before the transaction completed. If you had, you wouldn't now be constantly bleating about being able to buy back the shares you "lost" ;-)

Doesn't change the fact that, as it stands, the special dividend ain't looking quite so "special", especially if the share price ends up falling back to 647p.

The consensus revenue target has increased from c£150m to c155m whilst the consensus PBT target has increased from c£19.5m to c£20.5m.

North American revenues YTD are currently in line with the prior year which, when you factor in the (potential) impact of Trump's trade tariffs and the fact that the commissioning of the second North American, low-pressure vessel was only successfully completed in Q3, is perhaps not a bad result. The second vessel should, going forward, help alleviate some of the increasing tariff pressures on materials being used in the aviation and construction sectors which, one assumes, can now be manufactured in the US to meet US demand. It's entirely feasible that ZTF would have benefited from customers building up their inventories in H1 ahead of Trump's new tarriffs, with a consequential, temporary reduction in Q3 orders as invesntories were being unwound. I think it's far too early to suggest that the decline in Q3 North American sales is the general trend; 2025 YTD has been a far from normal year and we need to see how the dust settles. If future growth in the US has been knocked then I think we need to consider it in the light of Trump's new tariffs making life a lot more difficult for overseas exporters. The two low-pressure vessels will help going forward.

As regards ReZorce, I think it's dead in the water if we rely on large packaging manufacturers to adopt it. They are, more often than not, vertically integrated and have too much money vested in forestry assets to simply walk away. The industry needs a new disruptor to force them to change their ways. Zotefoams hasn't handed away the keys to the kingdom. If ReZorce ever reaches commercialisation, they will earn royalties (says so in the RNS). In the meantime, they are allowing this new venture (or a successor) to try and bring the product to commercialisation. By loosening the IP strings ZTF are giving the new venture the opprotnity to advance the concept and, potentially, sell on to somebody with more financial muscle to ultimately bring it to fruition (it's a matter of risk and reward). In an ideal world, Zotefoams would do all this itself but it lacks the financial resources. The new venture is boom or bust, and neither is certain.

MarkBell, I wrote the original post to which you responded with your "fictitious" comment. If not I, then who? Were you responding to yourself?! I thought the barbed comment was needless and unwarranted.

LTI, "Mugged" in the sense that the original share price reaction appeared to suggest that the market saw the Collect+ deal as adding value to the business whereas now, it appears to be saying not so. Obviously markets do go up and down but the contrast between the pre and post transaction date is lot starker than might normally have been expected after such a transaction and, although the current economic backdrop isn't great, I'm not sure why PAY is paying such a heavy price relative to other companies (its share price performance has been a lot worse in the last couple of weeks than other companies operating in the retail sector).

There's nothing fictitious about my shareholding. I sold before it went ex-div and bought back in after because I thought the share price might be it volatile and there might be an opportunity for a bit of arbitrage but I didn't think the share price would fall this far. My breakeven price was higher and I've been able to buy more shares than I originally held but would have been able to buy even more if I'd waited for the price to fall to its current level (but I never expected the price to fall so far; I originally thought that it might fall below 725p but not much more).

"... that would be a little satisfying ..."

Not really. If the share price falls to c647p then we'll have been mugged! It will basically mean that not only was the share price heavily manipulated prior to the announcement of the strategic investment in Collect+ but that the Market also thinks that the investment is of no long-term value.

I won't go into the maths but if you look at the share prices on 24 Sept (648p) and 29 Sept (674p) then, depending on whether you treat those share prices as being, effectively, either cum-dividend or ex-dividend, you get an adjusted new share price of either c648p or c702p (based on the share price at 24 Sept), or, either c676p or c730p (based on the share price at 24 Sept). I selected 24 Sept on the basis that was when the share price started to move up prior to the RNS.

I see that HIM has now taken a c4.9% stake. If they had a stake previously, it would have had to been below 3% (they're only obliged to notify their previous stake if it was notifiable).So, we can at least say that they've increased their previous stake by c1.9%, if not more. HIM has a very good investment reputation in TMT stocks, so I'd take that as very positive development. Hopefully, Imogen won't let us down this time.

Is LSE's software system really so antiquated that when a company changes in name, TIDM and SEDOL you lose all of the previous bb and RNS history! Surely they could have just duplicated the old record and changed the relevant identfiers ;-)

Not only that, at some point in the near future it's quite possible you'll end up going through exactly the same excercise again once the CEO realises what a faux pas he's made. By the time the salespeople have managed to get the company's name out customers have already put the phone down! They'd have been better off changing the name to "Who?" ;-)

Glowacki, what FTC actually said in the RNS was "... leave Filtronic in a good position to meet market expectations for the full year, DESPITE headwinds from weakness of the US dollar against sterling ...", the inference being that they expect to meet ALL expectations, DESPITE headwinds.

Now, I accept that that might give them some wiggle room to lower profit forecasts if "headwinds" continue to rise but at this juncture, based on their latest internal forecasts (and one would hope that they have built in some contingency costs), they are making good progress and they expect to meet the market's current expectations.

Last year FTC benefited from some "right-field" orders from SpaceX (orders that came in ahead of expectation) as the year progressed and it was able to increase its forecasts accordingly. It would be nice if the same could happen this year but, given that SpaceX did a lot of "one-off" upgrades to their pre-existing ground stations, it seems unlikely. It's quite possible that SpaceX might repeat the exercise in the future as chipset technology evolves but it's unlikely to be a regular yearly occurrence. Allowing for normal technological life cycles in the chip market, I'd suggest we should be looking for them to repeat the exercise, on average, every, say, 3 years (it really depends on the level of user demand and how fast they can expect to get payback).

I said the data set is ARGUABLY unreliable. The rationale for that statement is that the market did not have all of the pertinent information, as and when it arose. Does it make a difference? Only in the context of the computed mean and standard deviation. You are the one who stated that your two sigma was 196. Now you are suggesting that you can choose whatever sigma you like to construct your BBs! It really begs the question what relevance, if any, the figure of 196 has given that the share price is way outside it's previous range and trading at prices it's never traded at in the past 12+ months and if 196 wasn't your buy signal then what relevance does it have and why did you even bother to mention it. It's seems to be a total construct of straw. Either explain why 196 is of any relevance, given that it's a total outlier in the great scheme of things. At this moment your "key" inflexion point looks like a total irrelevance.

Senator1, Where do you get your figures from?

Based on the closing prices for the last 12 months, I'd calculate the mean as c291p and the standard deviation as c52.5p, giving you a ±2𝜎 between c186p and c396p, whereas based on the closing prices for the 12 months immediately prior to the trading update on 20 October, I'd calculate the mean as c298p and the standard deviation as c52p, giving you a ±2𝜎 between c194p and c402p.

Alternatively, if you look at the closing prices for the 12 months immediately prior to the RNS on 07 October, I'd calculate the mean as c304p and the standard deviation as c54p, giving you a ±2𝜎 between c196p and c412p.

As can be seen, the ±2𝜎 range varies based on which data range you choose to pick but it's also a bit specious because, prior to 20 October, the closing share price never actually fell below 217p at any point during the 12 months prior, despite the -2𝜎 being below 200p throughout! Statistical analysis of share price movements may be appropriate if a company trades in line with expectations throughout the period in question (then it's not unreasonable to assume that, even if there are periodic peaks and troughs, the share price will generally revert to its normal line of trajectory over time) but I don't think it should be relied upon once a company starts issuing profit warnings and their ilk. E.g. one could argue that the entire data set from the trading update on 15 July onwards is now invalidated because if the market had been aware of the operational issues before the announcements in October it would have marked the share price down a lot sooner (I'm not suggesting any wrongdoing on BME's part) which in turn would have changed both the mean and the standard deviation.

Even if the share price does pass your 196p criterion I'm not sure that it should be read as a buy signal and I'm not aware of any charting tool that uses ±2𝜎 for that purpose. On the other hand, standard deviation (1𝜎) does form the basis for computing moving averages and Bollinger bands. Given the fact that 100% of the closing share prices for the 12 months immediately prior to 20 October exceeded 217p it does seem somewhat far feteched to suggest that 196p is the critical figure to look out for, simply because it happens to be two standard deviations (2𝜎) from the mean share price over the same period, especially if part of the data set has, arguably, become invalidated because the market was not fully cognisicant of all the relevant facts in real-time. I fully appreciate that it would be both impossible and impractical for BME to update the market in real-time but, nevertheless, the fact remains that if the market had been aware of the operational issues as they arose, rather than when they were disclosed/discovered, the share price during the period from 15 July would have likely been a lot different. It simply means that the data set is unreliable.

I beg to differ. It's 3% for a UK incorporated issuer (such as SWC), regardless of whether or not its non-UK registered holder, and 5% for non-UK incorporated issuer traded on UK markets. Once the 3% threshold has been exceeded, the holder has to notify the market of any 1% incremental changes i.e. if the holder acquires 3% they are obliged to notify if their holding falls below 3% or rises above 4%.

404x, I think I may have been wrong about not notifying if your shareholding has been diluted (but it does rather beg the question why UTXO hasn't notified changes in its holdings caused by previous dilutionss since the IPO) but I'm not aware that the notification requirement for an overseas shareholder is any different to a UK-based shareholder. As far as I'm aware the 5% threshold only applies to holdings in non-UK incorporated companies on UK markets and, the last time I looked, SWC is a UK registered company.

I can't comment on CML or the back history of its dividend cut but I think that the market makers and shakers have been factoring in a dividend cut at RWS for over 12 months now and, although the initial reaction will undoubtedly be negative, I think that it would ultimately be seen as a positive. At the end of the day, it won't be us mere PIs who will be dictating where the share price goes from here.

As an aside, one has to wonder what impact, if any, the current US government shutdown has had, is having, on revenues and cash flow.

They're cash generative and yet the debt has only fallen c£1m over H2. All other factors being equal, I'd expect an adusted H2 EBITDA of c£60m+, which, after allowing for the payment of the c£9m interim dividend, would suggest that that they've expended c£50m on corporate taxes and investments during H2. The RNS in June regarding the acquisition of Papercup's IP failed to disclose (as far as I can see) what was actually paid (unusually) but I suspect that it wouldn't have been cheap. Personally, I don't think they'll be cutting the dividend to pay down debt in the short term. They've increased their revolving credit facilty to $285m and I think they'll be using any spare cash to fund strategic add-ons.

The profit is sufficient to cover the dividend but I suspect that the CEO will take this opportunity to cut the dividend to invest in the business. It will be his last chance to reset the dividend and lay the blame on previous incumbents. If he maintains the dividend then it's on him.

He was asked by an analyst at the last investor meeting why he hadn't cut or foregone the interim dividend and he clearly indicated then that cutting the dividend remained an option on the table and would be considered come the final results. Delivering earnings just at the bottom end of forecasts doesn't help the case to maintain the dividend one iota IMHO..

It remains to be seen whether cutting the dividend will actually be seen as negative in the markets. I think that there has long been an expectation that RWS would have to cut and, if they do so, it could perversely be seen as a positive. Maintaining the dividend may actually prolong the negative share sentiment unless the new business plan is going absolutely gangbusters (unlikely and too soon to know whether it can be maintained).

They must have bought/sold +/- 1% shares because, and I stand to be corrected, under the reporting guidelines they are not required to notify the market if their shareholding has been diluted, only if they've traded AND their holding has changed by +/- 1%.

I sold last week at a weighted average price, after dealing costs, of c752p and bought back yesterday morning at a weighted average price, after dealing costs, of c733p. It would have been nice to have been able to buy a bit lower but, being obliged to deal over the phone with Interactive Investor because they'd set up the new shares incorrectly on their system, meant that I couldn't properly time my market re-entry as I'd have liked and, consequently, probably ended up paying c5p per share over the odds on my various purchases (always assuming that I'd have had the patience to wait; my breakeven price was c748p, so c733p wasnt' a total disaster).

Until I pointed out to Interactive Investor that the new shares could still be traded in an ISA, just like the old ones, they didn't realise that they'd erred setting up the new shares and the dealing team was insistent that the new shares couldn't be traded in an ISA until they referred the matter to their back office to double check. I should charge them commisssion ;-)

Factoring in the consolidation and a "nominal" 2% year-on-year rise, I've penciled in 10.7p.

In theory they could afford to pay a bit more whilst still maintaining their stated dividend policy of "... increasing dividends at a nominal rate and ... growing our cover ratio from the current 1.5 to 2.0 times earnings range to over 2.0 times earnings by FY28 ..." if they apply the nominal rate increase to the previous year's "dividend pot" rather than the dividend per share; i.e. effectively redistributing the dividends that would have otherwise have been paid on the shares bought back into treasury for cancelation. Whether they will do that remains to be seen; the stated dividend policy is ambiguous enough to be interpreted either way.

Obviously the more the better but 10.7p would be my de minimis. Anything less than 10.7p would be disappointing.

Sj74, Sorry but it's naive to think that the third party review would be simply limited to the 'accounting error'.

I'd accept that the review would unlikely cover the "business as a whole" (how the company runs its business and the discounts it negotiates would normally be beyond the third party's remit unless they're specifically instrcuted to undertake such a review) but it would likely cover the accounting function as whole, particularly in light of the fact that the error supposedly arose due to an "operating system update" (they'd want to check that there aren't any similar, lesser, errors). There's absolutely no point in conducting such a review if you are simply looking to try and apportion blame. The fact that the error wasn't spotted immediately (a simple analytical comparison of the margins should have raised an immediate red flag) would suggest that there is a fundamental weakness in the company's accounting function and, as such, where there is one problem there's often more.

Checking the timing of revenue recognition isn't about looking at the nuts and bolts of the operational side; it's simply looking at when it's prudent to book any agreed volume discounts in the financial accounts i.e. whether the discounts are being recognised in full, or in part, before they actually accrue. This can be a particular issue if the supplier agreement doesn't run coterminously with your accounting period and/or if the agreed discount has a minimum volume stipulation and/or increases with additional volumes i.e. should you book the whole discount pro-rata over the period of the supply agreement or only from the point where the various milestones are met (the latter would be the more prudent approach and might be the preferred approach when the discounts are material).

As I say, from the new-CEO's perspective, he would not be too concerned if previously booked profits were shifted from earlier periods to later periods (it's not about the amount of the discounts earned, hopefully, just simply when they ought to be recognised).

What I find slightly surprising is that the pre-div NAV announced was 112.04p whilst yesterday the ex-div NAV announced yesterday was 109.84p, a decline of 0.2p more than the dividend, whereas in the intervening period gilt yields have continued to fall. You'd have thought that would have continued to increase the NAV, not the other way around.