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And the rest ...

The £3m just seems to cover the "nus and bolts"; the website, the logistics etc.

They make no mention of the money they are going to need to spend on marketing/discounts to bring customers to the new website. Over time these costs would be expected to be covered by revenues but at the outset they are going to be a loss leader. You don't want to overspend on marketing/discounts but, equally, if you underspend you may as well have not have bothered to start the journey. I could easily imagine them spending 50-60% of their MFI revenues on marketing/discounts in the first 24 months.

Assuming a perfect market, if VIC's given P/E ratio before the RNS was based on an expected adjusted PBT for FY25 of c£26m and after the RNS its expected adjusted PBT for FY25 has reduced to c£21.5m then a fall in the share price from c108p to c89p might be expected if the P/E ratio was to remain constant and all other factors were to remain equal. A bit overly simplistic I appreciate (P/E ratios rarely just factor in the current year but VIC hasn't given any guidance on FY26) but it does five a "flavour" of what price fall might, and might not, be justified. Bottom line, you can't cut your earnings forecast and expect your share price not to fall.

Rocket, Have to admit I'm somewhat confused by what they are doing with their distribution centres (DCs). Towards the end of 2023 they announced they'd entered into a 20 year of a new DC and that, whilst it was being fitted out, the running costs of the new DC would be accounted as exceptional expenditure (the "double running costs"). The fit out was expected to be completed by the end of 2024 and they have since announced that the fit out was "more or less" completed by the end of 2024 (ought therefore to have completed in H1 FY25). The use of the term "double running costs" would suggest that they were/are intending to vacate/close their original DC once the new DC was up and running (which ought to give rise to a reduction in future costs and would have been factored in before yesterday's announcement) but I haven't seen any explicit statement to that effect. I'd be very surprised if they were intending to keep the original DC open to just supply MFI given that its annual running costs could be c£3-£5m.

As regards MFI being an experiment, I'd suggest that it's not going to be cheap. I'd hazard that they are probably going to have to spend c£10m on marketing/discounts alone; if you are going to dip your toe in there can't be any half measures. If the experiment fails because you skimped from the outset then you've proven nothing (other than it's easier to spend money than make profits). It would have been a lot cheaper to add a homeware category to their existing site and see whether they could induce their customers to add a few items at the checkout. I don't think that soft furnishings, and perhaps kitchen wares, would be totally out of place on their existing website - would dovetail with the concept of home refurbishment. However, they seem to want MFI to be a standalone website, if I've understood correctly, and that's a bigger mountain to climb. A wider potential audience perhaps but will need additional marketing/discounts to bring customers to a website that is going to be competing head-to-head with the likes of B&Q, Dunelm etc.

KUMS, Where've you been the last two years? FTC is up over 13x in the last two years! That's a year ahead of Rolls Royce and still climbing.

Sheltie, Just because FTC is doing well doesn't mean that it should automatically become a takeover target and I for one would be quite happy for FTC to remain independent. Part of the reason that FTC is doing so well is exactly because it's independent. Would Airbus, or any other satellite manufacturer for that matter, be looking to do business with FTC if it was wholly owned by SpaceX? It would also have a negative impact on FTC's defence business too. Taking FTC out of the market might suit SpaceX but it's highly unlikely that SpaceX would pay anywhere near the premium needed to compensate FTC investors for the lost business opportunities. So stop banging on about a takeover. Is it any wonder the UK stock market is in the state it's in when PIs have your sort of mentality (sell as soon as you see any green shoots)!

I've been invested in FTC since September 2020 and the share price is up over 15-fold in the last c4.5 years (it's actually up over 13-fold in just the last 2 years) and, on its current trajectory, the share price could quite possibly double, or more, again over the next couple of years. If it ain't broken don't fix it!

Doing some digging, in February 2024 Eutelsat announced that by" "... shifting to a progressive approach for improving low Earth orbit satellite capacity and performance ..." their estimated budget for around 300 new Oneweb Gen 2 satellites could be reduced to c$2.7bn (nearly a third less than their original c$4bn budget estimate) and in December 2024 Airbus announced that they had been awarded a contract to build the first 100 new satellites (but no contract value was disclosed). So, if we were to assume that the Airbus contract was for c$1bn then it seems quite possible that FTC's order value could well be in the region of c$10m-$20m (if you consider that communications are anticipated to account for c45% of the global LEO satellite market by 2035) but I'm no expert and stand to be corrected.

"... family drivers of “boring cars” aged between 40 and 50 ..."

Is that a known or is that just a guess?

I would have thought that Motability and postal customers (those who renew through the post rather than online) would have been more relevant (the latter tend to be older and rarely if ever change their insurer).

Every insurer's default setting these days seems to be for customers to auto-renew, unless you tell them otherwise (so the CMA theoretically can't take AV/DLG to task without addressing the whole industry). As for, percentages of different age groups etc. that can flip-flop every year depending on who insurers choose to target (that's as much to do with AV/DLG as other insurers). Also, AV/DLG don't historically tend to be the cheapest. AV used to concentrate on the quality of their service over price; before COVID I used to find AV's customer services to be head and shoulders better than the competition. That didn't make me any less of a "rate tart" but when prices were fairly comparable I would always plumb for AV over the competition.

Apart from (perhaps) divesting Motability a the end of their existing contract with DLG (something I believe AV have already accepted they might be forced to do anyway), I'm not sure that there's anything here for the CMA (apart from perhaps some very minor tweaks). The remaining postal customers are, by their nature, not inclined to shop around and would probably take little or no notice of any advice to do so. Also, I'm not sure they'd take kindly to any initiative to move them wholesale to another insurer at the behest of the CMA without their consent.

But it won't will it. For all of those with an emotional tear in their eye about the "resurrection" of MFI think before you post.

They are relaunching it online and it will be limited to homewares; they'll be queuing up around the hypothetical corner ;-)

Having had a peruse of recent accounts, I am somewhat surprised that VIC is actually going down this route. When they started selling tiles they simply added a new category on their existing website but now they are propoing to set up a separate MFI website to sell homewares. Their customer base may be interested in purchasing homewares but instead of asking them to "pick up" a few additional items as they head to the checkout you're expecting them to go to a new website. VIC may be able to keep a cap on their website spend by using their existing software infrastructure but they are going to have to ratchet up their marketing spend on a totally separate website. They may try to redirect customers to their new MFI website after they've completed their purchases on the VIC website but now it becomes a different proposition. It's no longer a spur of the moment item of expenditure, it becomes a considered purchase, and customers will undoubtedly compare homeware products on different websites and their USPs before buying. MFI is now competing against the likes of, say, Dunelm; it's going to take a lot of marketing and probably discounting to get customers "through the doors" and that's even before you consider what you're going to have to do to keep them coming back for more.

This doesn't mean that a website only MFI can't succeed but it's going to take a lot more than a name of yesteryear and it will be a drain on VIC's financial resources until it reaches breakeven. VIC already spends c29% of its revenues on marketing (that's a lot of moolah) and it remains to be seen how much a new MFI website can piggy-back off VIC's existing spend and/or what additional spend will be required.

VIC are already predicting an impact on adjusted PBT for FY26 (down c5-10%) and it seems likely that there will also be an impact on FY27 too (MFI is unlikely to breakeven in less than 24 months). Not only that, the "real" cost is worse. Before today's RNS, all other factors being equal, VIC might have been expected to grow its adjusted PBT by c10-15% to c£25m-£26.5m. Plus you don't know yet whether some of those additional MFI costs will be expensed as exceptional items in FY25 (some of the initial set-up costs will not be recurring).

Also, it's probably gone unnoticed by some PIs that the closure costs of Vic Plum have increased from £1.1m (expensed in FY24) to £3.3m (a further £2.4m was expensed in H1 FY25). Ouch!

All in all, after that type of profit warning, I'm not sure the sp will be rebounding as quickly as you think.

The (expected) collapse of the Warehouse REIT bid isn't market-related; it relates to the valuation of one particular deveiopment property at Radway Green. The disposal of Phase 1 was supposed to have completed by the end of December 2024 and it appears that Blackrock is now questioning its valuation. Far from being a diamond in the rough, Radway Green is starting to increasingly look like a millstone and, on the basis of development land and property held for resale as at 31 March 2024, accounts for c17p (c15%) of Warehouse REIT's current NAV!

Jeez, Some people are so high and mighty. If Victoria Plum hadn't already owned MFI I very much doubt that VIC would have gone out and bought the brand to launch a new homewares range. Simples. MFI existed; that's about all you can say about it. The new range may be great (for all we know) but he MFI brand name doesn't bring any particular conatations about quality or style (in the homewares department at least) for those who are familiar with the name unlike, say, Conran, Habitat or Laura Ashley. It's just an observation.

One should learn to read before criticising; they are resurrecting MFI as a homewares brand, not a kicthens supplier. MFI is a defunct brand. They bought the MFI brand with Victoria Plum, which itself collapsed. Two collapsed brands (MFI and Victoria Plum) is hardly a recipe for success. Questions. Who remembers MFI as a homewares brand? Who cares?

As I say, MFI as a brand name in the homewares sector of the market has little or no cachet amongst those who actually remember its heyday and absolutely zero cachet amongst those 30-35 and below.

MFI as a homewares brand may succeed but I doubt that it will have anything much to do with its previous brand awareness.

Why bother to resurrect the MFI brand? It went out of business over 15 years ago. I'm of an age group that remembers MFI but it hardly resonates with me, let alone anbody under 30-35. Laura Ashley was iconic. Can hardly say the same about MFI. Cheap and nasty?

I ****** well hope not!

If 68-70 is the long term target then the CEO ought to walk now; talk about value destruction.

I expect to see this back above £1 or want to know why.

Detector, I think you're trying to have your cake and eat it. You are trying to apply your "old fashioned" metric to "new fashioned" IFRS17 accounts. The two aren't really compatible or comparable. IFRS17 was supposedly intended to make accounts easier for the layman to understand but I (and I think most other PIs) would beg to differ. The old fashioned method was to "smooth" the acounting results (by the judicial use of provisioning) and only recognise losses that were more likely than not to crystallise.

The IASB didn't like this (they thought it could be misleading) and, as a result, insurers are now required to mark-to-market their investments and recognise all price fluctuations, whether they are likely to crystallise or not. Not only that, the IASB also made changes to the accounting for CSM (basically unearned furture profits are now recognised over time rather than predominantly booked upfront like they used to be).

QED the IFRS metrics tend to be jibberish and cannot be relied upon to give an indication as to whether or not LGEN can continue to sustain its dividend. As a result, the statutory accounts will generally reference additional, unaudited*, adjusted non-GAAP metrics, i.e. "old fashioned" metrics, for better comparison year on year. However, because the adjusted non-GAAP metrics aren't normally audited, the metrics published in papers, like the FT, or on websites generally tend to be the less helpful IFRS metrics.

* Auditors will check the computational accuracy of the alternative non-GAAP metrics but they are not genearlly covered by their audit opinion because they are outside the scope of GAAP.

The RNS on 14 April stated "... the sale of the Big Rock ITCs continues to progress well, and the Company will provide a further update in the near term ...".

At the time, I read the phrase "near term" to imply weeks rather than months. I would suggest that we should expect to hear more before the end of June, if not earlier.

Because it's their best guess based on the transaction value and the bid/offer spread at the time.

LSE don't actually get any information about the transaction apart from the number of shares and the price transacted.

The transaction in question had a transaction value above the mid bid/offer price that suggested that it might be a buy.

Clearly you know otherwise.

Not necessarily. It depends on who your broker is and how your shares are held. E.g. I've spoken to AJ Bell and they've confirmed that the shares I hold will not be cancelled when MXCT deslists from AIM (when MXCT listed on NASDAQ they, effectively, "swappped" my AIM shares for NASDAQ shares and I've only been able to trade on NASDAQ since). The position with Interactive Investor is less clear (I've spoken to them and they are still awaiting clarification before advising).

Meanwhile, back in the real world, MXCT finished c11.5% down at tonight's close on the NASDAQ following the most recent trading update (issued after the close of business on Wednesday). The directors continue to "feast" whilst the shareholders "starve" (their remuneration is excessive IMHO). Despite now having 28 SPL's they still haven't been able to generate any meaningful income.

If the directors are so keen to reduce unneccessary running costs, I'd suggest that they sack themselves rather than de-list from AIM ;-)

Davey, In principle you're right. All other thing being equal, the share price after the equity subscription has been completed should theoretically be:

(MV before the equity subscription + Equity subscription) / Number of shares after the equity subcription has been completed

That is:

(c£7.32m +£2.5m) / c237.6m = c4.1pps

However, the key phrase to bear in mind is "... all other things being equal ...".

Quantum Leap Capital (QLC) is subscribing at a signifiicant premium to last night's closing price. QLC is not a charity. They are subscribing with a view to making a (substantial) profit at some point int the future (one would assume that if they are a long-term investor they would be looking for a return on their money in the next 3-5 years if not before).

The problem with your premise is that SYM was fair valued by the market before the announcement and we know that the LSE/AIM is currently pretty woeful at valuing UK companies (of late we are often seeing companies being taken private/bought out for 50/100% premium to their market price). Clearly the BoD and QLC consider that the market is considerably undervaluing SYM.

I'm not a current holder but am intrigued to see how this will play out.

Yes we are. The final quarter dividend was declared on 14 April.

They are just re-iterating the dividend payable; they aren't declaring a new dividend.

Given the final quarter EPRA earnings of 1.6p per share there's a good chance that they will declare a special dividend at the end of FY26. I'm conservatively pencilling in a special dividend of at least 0.2p, which would take the total FY26 dividends to 6.2p, and an expectation that they will declare a minimum dividend of 6.2p for FY27 with the prosepect of a further special dividend of 0.2p at the end of FY27, taking the FY27 dividends to 6.4p.

Trump's best friends have a habit of becoming his worst enemies.

From what I've been able to ascertain, most, if not all, of his business relationships have eventually gone sour and people who were once happy to work with him (whether they made money or not) are loathe to work with him again (they just end up having a guts full of his braggadacio if nothing else).

Normally delayed trades are reported with the time that they occurred, even if reported later. The trades in question all appear to have occurred at the times reported, not earlier.