Member Info for WiganWarriors

Thanks Ben, are you actually on a Wimps site or the major.

Jammy. Sounds like Labour have hit a raw nerve. I wouldn't read too much into politicians spouting populist rhetoric. If you invest in the house builders it goes with the territory that every one has a go at them; media, politicians, disgruntled purchasers. They are pretty much the whipping boys for all of societies ills.

You just have to swallow it, and accept there's never a dull moment ...

It’s pretty much the norm now that you need to show evidence that you are in a position buy, before you are able to view.

As for £2, it’s been a long time since Wimps saw £2.

CestBon. What are those "assets" that you think are worthy of stripping ? Building an expensive IT platform which has no special value, just costs hundreds of millions to run each year, with even with nothing running on it. Most of that IT infrastructure will be written down between three and five years, so huge refresh costs thrown in as well as non cash accounting write downs.

Is THG able show revenue growth fast enough to out run these write downs, that is what you consider.

Hosai. Well, my point is that building a large proprietary platform , initially for their own products, then deciding to try and sell the spare capacity to others and then try and brand this as something unique is not really a compelling business proposition. All those potential customers have many other choices from established cloud platform providers. For example, AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle etc. These guys live and breath management of large data centres, and have unlimited resources to ensure global presence, security, service level etc. This is their business.

What is THG's business, trying to compete with these guys, or sell beauty, health care products etc. Trying to do both is a risk too far. Of course, IMHO.

Cantona. I was slightly over egging the basic facts re last years cash outflow, just to try and get a few posters to stop and think . A high level of M & A might be construed as countering lack of organic growth, and with M & A comes goodwill right downs in a year or two, as sure as night follows day.

As for pouring cash into building an IT infrastructure, one really must ask why. Most small and mid size operations deploy into the cloud these days, as it cheaper, safer and generally will provide better service levels. If you want to build a large proprietary platform in house, you must have some unique business process propositions, as most standard e-commerce processes are well understood and can be implemented by all the major cloud providers. Its a huger risk, and will require shedloads of cash just to try and refresh that platform every couple of years to maintain currency and service levels. As for the software platform, again "picking and despatch" is now well understood and is available from either the standard IT providers or if you want something a little different you can contract use of Ocado's platform software and warehouse integration software.

This will end in tears, if it has not already done so .

£700m liquidity. Well, given last years burn rate of £1bn, that should last until autumn. As for people continuing to buy beauty products, that may be the case, but maybt not from THG.

Personally, I would prefer a share buyback as receiving cash means a heavy tax bill. Better to just sell a few shares instead and get 12k CGT free, or rest at only 20% tax.

Also, the market generally prefers buy backs as it provides a more stable share price will more support

Be interesting to know if Elliott has had a change of heart and decided to get out.

Interesting that Goldman are book running for a reported sale of 85M Wimps shares. Last report suggests that the book is covered. Good, or bad news ? Bad that a large institutional investor wants out, but good that all 85m shares have found a new home. Expect more news overnight (or before tomorrows opening), see how the market takes it.

Hi Fred, happy new year ??

Trading update tomorrow, let’s see if there are any positive surprises. Should be a decent update given the last update guiding above consensus.

Monday 17th, according to Wimps website

I don’t think the timing of Gove’s announcement was arbitrary, with provisional numbers to be reported by some of the bigger listed builders imminently. Builders expected to announce strong sales and forward bookings, strong cash flow and balances, they won’t get any sympathy from the general public.

Be interesting to see how the legal recovery of monies from suppliers, architects, sub contractors etc. works out, as I’m sure Wimps will have already explored their own recovery positions.

Seems to me Elliott are making a hash of either putting Wimps into play, or agitating for executive changes. All their communications so far would rank as amateurish , and I’m sure Wimps execs are just ignoring them.

Re the UT closing auction trade. The closing auction is a mechanism for "settling" bids and offers within minutes of the official close. The UT price is real in so much that shares actually change hands, as many investors who want to trade in Wimps without risking moving the price too much during the normal day.

Dealers who have access to the auction can offer / bid at prices they wish to deal at, and a matching algorithm crosses those offers / bids were possible. It also sets the official closing price, which is normally used in the morning, unless the morning auction produces a different price, which is unusual unless events happen overnight.

The reference to £6bn, is clearly a reference to an approximation of current market capitalisation. Any bid, if any transpires, will need to be above the current market capitalisation by a reasonable amount.

I would suggest 20% to 25% or so. Having said that, Elliott do have a track record as an activist investor, and not necessarily looking to acquire Wimps for themselves. They like to put a company into play.

This could be a long drawn out affair, but at least it should help draw a line under Wimps share price if it opens at a premium tomorrow, which I am sure it will.

https://thismon.ee/a/10274679

I thought that we had some unusual buying recently, especially Wednesday and Thursday. Thought something might be up. :-)

Interesting SP movements again. Between 1616 hrs and 1619 hrs Wimps moved from 159.7 to 166.3, driven by algo buying. Seems that someone is supporting the SP. Dropped immediately after at 1620 hrs and the SP fell back to 162.38 in that minute on low algo volume. 6.7 M went through final auction at 161.8.

Interesting heavy buying by algo started at 1600.Continued to drive the SP upwards. Closing auction sold 16M at a penny cheaper that last trades before closing. Unusual, at least someone is supporting Wimps ...