Member Info for TheTrotsky

DLG shareholders wish ;-)

It's a normal regulatory filing confirming how many shares AV currently has in issue and admitted to trading (c2.68bn shares).

In principle, I believe that the merger can still continue without clearance by the CMA but, in that event, I believe that CMA would require the businesses to be run separately until their review has been completed and any appropriate remedial actions have been agreed. It seems unlikely that the CMA would oppose the merger outright basely soley on their combined market share but they might seek some remedial actions to be undertaken where they have competition concerns in certain business lines. We will have to wait and see.

AP has just notified PAY that their share interest has passed 31%. AP previously notified PAY that their share interest passed 30% back in August 2024. AP are apparently deemed an "innocent bystander", at this juncture, by the Takeover Panel because their share interest isn't increasing thru acquisition but thru share buybacks and, as such, they are not currently obligated to make a formal offer for the entire issued share capital of PAY.

Like all of those additional director and Artemis buys that you told us about last week and the week before that never materialised, eh scmdcyp!

I guess if you (and Ilovesushi) repeat the claim often enough eventually you might be right.

At least you've pared down your immediate share price expectations - no longer suggesting that this is going to rebound to £1+ as if nothing's happened.

Provided the new MFI initiative doen't prove to be anunmitigated disaster and in the absence of any further trading updates, I would expect the share price to recover to c90p in the short/medium term.

The main business is sound and has been well managed in the past. Barring any major surprises, it should continue to grow but at a progressively slower rate as it matures (the rate of sales growth in the main business will slow as the business gets larger).

However, I think that here were two (major) surprises in the last trading update that the market is still trying to assimilate. Firstly, the new MFI initiative. It's an unknown factor and the market will want to see some preliminary results before drawing any conclusions. For the time being the market is erring on the side of caution. Secondly, I'm not sure the market expected VIC to continue operating two warehouse operations. All of the previous RNS suggested that the newer, larger warehouse was simply going to replace the older, smaller warehouse. Operating two warehouses will add £ms to VIC's annual operating costs and additional (as opposed to replacement) warehouses can take 2-5 years to reach breakeven (warehouses have various fixed operating costs that you incur regardless of whether they are emplty or full).

Generally new warehouses don't start to breakeven until they reach at least 50-60% capacity and it stands to reason that you never tend to open additional warehouses operating at, or anywhere near, full capacity (if you did you'd have to add yet another warehouse tout suite with all the additional setup costs that would incur). I think the market was expecting VIC to be replacing an old warehouse operating, at say, c80%+ capacity with a new warehouse operating, at say, c50% capacity i.e. already operating at, or near, breakeven with 3-5 years growth capacity. Instead you have an old warehouse still operating at, say, c80%+ capacity and a new warehouse operating at virtuall 0% capacity. Obviously you can rebalance the usage but you still are operating sub-optimally for longer than you might until sales growth can take up the additional slack capacity.

Cortesy of saj3 over on ADVFN:

InPost has confirmed it is switching off some of its over the counter (OTC) parcel service stores as part of an overall network expansion powered by PayPoint's CollectPlus network.While the move will increase the total number of stores operating InPost OTC parcels to 'more than 6,000' sites, it will also lead to some of its existing direct network of stores losing the service. Stores with lockers are unaffected by the move.Better Retailing first broke news of an InPost store switch-off and likely PayPoint partnership in May, though both parties refused to confirm the move at the time.However, on 28 May, a spokesperson for InPost told Better Retailing confirmed it would be 'redesigning' its OTC network 'through our partnership with PayPoint. They said the change would improve its UK coverage and help InPost in 'growing rapidly' to its 6,000 site target and beyond.According to leaked messages from InPost reps to stores, the switch-off of affected stores is to happen 'starting in June'.InPost's spokesperson explained: "As part of the expansion, we are reviewing the location fit and whilst the overall growth in the network is great news for shop owners in general, there will be a very small proportion of individual stores who will be impacted. However, where possible, we will offer the opportunity to host one of our popular locker solutions or join the Paypoint network."Sag Hussain, owner of Premier – The Avenue Convenience Store, in Middlesbrough is one of those affected. He handles 120-140 InPost parcels per day. Hussain said the service from InPost had been 'absolutely exceptional' but said his store is unsuitable for lockers and he is not willing to join PayPoint.He told Better Retailing: "We don't do it for commission, we do it because I've used a notepad and counted how many parcel customers also buy an item in-store, it's 80% of all InPost customers... There is no way a store can achieve the same success if the parcel service user isn't even setting foot through the door."While a loss for the stores affected, the move will benefit PayPoint stores picking up the InPost Volume. For instance, based on Hussain's sales, and PayPoint's standard 25p permission per parcel, a PayPoint store with similar performance would make at least £10,900 per year through commission alone.

Crossley, I haven't got time to trawl through all your figures to check them at the moment but a couple of points.

Net assets is a historical bookkeeping figure (cash in/out, accruals etc). It takes no account of inherent goodwill (accounting rules do not permit companies to recognise the value of their own internally generated goodwill e.g. brands). Only purchased goodwill (when you acquire another business) is permitted to be recognised in a company's accounts. Purchased goodwill is not normally amortised or written off unless it's time limited or the value is deemed to have been premanently reduced. Other intangible assets tend to relate to capitalised costs expended developing brands and such like and are generally required to be amortised over a fixed time period (straight line over 10 years in DLG's instance).

The £2.48bn net assets figure is based on its FY24 DLG's total assets less liabilities. RBS (NatWest) acquired Direct Line (UK Insurance Ltd) and Churchill in 2003 and c£210m of purchased goodwill was recognised at, or around, that time. RBS subsequently disposed of DLG through a public offering in 2012 as a condition of receiving state aid in 2008. No increase in the value of DLG's brands has been recognised since they were acquired by RBS.

The goodwill arising on acquisition will therefore, in part, recognise the increase in the valuation of DLG's brands since they were originally acquired by RBS because AV will be acquiring the shares of DLG rather than the individual brands; it's not just a "dump account".

Back below last Friday's close.

Still waiting for notification of those Artemis and director buys that scmdcyp promised ;-)

I see he's off ramping other shares this week.

I received confirmation from interactive investor yesterday that my AIM shares would, in effect, be transferred to the NASDAQ following the de-listing, so won't be forced to sell by either AJ Bell or Interactive Investor. All we need to to don now is get rid of this BoD and we'll be coining it ;-)

Looking again at the March update, is there potentially a red flag at RED-Rochester? Namely its customer Li-Cycle and its "... fully committed loan from the Department of Energy ..." to fund the construction of a new hub processing centre (which was expected to significantly increase its energy requirements). Haven't all new Department of Energy loans now been put on ice? If so, it may also have thrown a spanner into the works with regard to the mooted offer from Glencore for Li-Cycle.

Both Onyx (potential sale) and RED-Rochester (increasing energy use) may have been caught in Trump's perfect storm. Pure (bad) luck. Some, like GSF, may have just lucked out simply because their projects have come to fuition before Trump could do any real damage (and may now benefit from a reduction of new entrants entering their markets down the road) whereas others, like SEIT, might have been caught betwixt and between.

To my mind, Trump's tariffs may have thwarted Onyx's continued expansion (becuase of likely increased installation costs) and this is likely to have a knock-on effect on any potential sale valuation. Likewise, if Li-Cycle's expansion plans have been thwarted then RED-Rochester may continue to struggle to meet its budgeted EBITDA target going forward.

Nuts to that! Should and will are two very different words and, when it comes to RWS, there's rarely if ever a good time to buy it would seem. I've only held the share for just under a year and have been bamboozled at every turn. The only silver lining is that I haven't held the share for longer!

Not a great fan of recycling debt by taking on increased bank borrowing; if push comes to shove, however unpopular, you can always reduce your dividend payout. On paper it all makes wonderful sense but you can never foresee the future and it can all go very badly wrong. Topps Tiles recycled its debt in 2007 and ran into the credit cruch in 2008. The upshot was that it took over 10 years to repay the debt and their dividends were cancelled in the meantime. The share price still hasn't recovered and is very unlikely to ever reach the same heights again.

I think the burn rate statement in the RNS should probably be ignored (it's a backward looking statement). In accordance with the new customer product launch towards the end of this year, I think the burn rate has since increased and is now running at c£100-£150k per month (which would be consistent with extending its financial runway to at least mind-2026).

Crossley, You've overlooked the fact that sum of the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts; this difference will be recognised as goodwill arising on consolidation. The combination is expected to have a beneficial impact on various regulatory ratios and enable AV to make a one-off mid-sigle digit increase in its annual dividend (this is in addition to the mid-single digit annual increases previously announced). That said, the MMs will probably have thier fun at our expense for a while.

The only fly in the ointment is the recently announced CMA investigation. I would imagine that, in private, Blanc is seething that it has taken the CMA over four months to launch their investigation. If the CMA investigation is still ongoing when the acquisition is completed then it's quite possible that the CMA will issue an enforcement order requiring AV and its subsidiaries to refrain from integrating the DLG Business into the Group and ensure that the DLG Business is carried on separately from the AV Group business until the CMA review process has been concluded.

This is what happened to Topps Tile when it bought CTD Tiles out of administration in August last year. It took the CMA over nine months to complete their review; the result was additional costs, lost customers and management being unable to implement their turnaround strategy in the intervening period. I'm not sure they even had full access to the books of CTD whilst the review was ongoing based on some of the statements they made afterwards - they sounded quite relieved that the business hadn't got materially worse! It could have been a disaster for a business on the verge of collapse when it was bought.

Clearly DLG is not in the same boat as CTD but if the CMA does prevent the buisnesses from being fully integrated whilst their review is ongoing, it could delay many of the expected synergies. QED Blance would have much preferred the CMA to get the ball rolling in January if they were going to review the deal.

The share price went ex-div today; so marginally up on yesterday's cum-div share price when you factor in the dividend payable

Didn't you see the butterfly flap its wings? How odd ;-)

This share has been in the bears' grip for 12 months+

The only thing you can bank on is that the share price will turn on a sixpence and drop like a log for no apparent reason.

The consolidation will take effect from 8am tomorrow

I'm not sure that the consenus sales for FY26 being less than FY25 helps.

I would concur with you Couerdelion but wait to be proven wrong tomorrow ;-)

One must always have regard for Sir Sod ;-)

It's not a hard and fast rule. Eg. the sp fell 4.5p the day the final FY23 dividend was received and rose 4p the day the interim FY24 dividend was received! Most automatic dividend reinvestments are done 1-2 days after receipt of the dividend as I understand (that's certainly the case with AJ Bell). Looking back at the past dividend history the picture is a bit choppy (nothing decisive one way or the other) but I'd say (from experience) it's generally better, if you are going to manually reivest your dividends on the date of receipt, to wait to the late afternoon session rather than reinvest in the morning/early afternoon sessions; albeit that today was an exception! That said regardless of the share price action on the day of receipt and following, the share price does generally trend upwards in the days/weeks before the dividend receipt and fall back thereafter.

Hope that helps.

Mea culpa, that should have read c460p not c420p!

ManU, Just to stir it up (slow day), the Simply Wall Street website reckons that M&G is currently trading at 52.4% below their fair value estimate, which would give it a fair valuation of c420p. On that basis, MD's £3-£4 figure wouldn't be totally ridiculous but, that said, can't say that I'm personally a great fan of SWS.