Member Info for Zanab

Okay, inflation-neutral, and saturation has almost certainly occured, but let's see.

I don't know why it's rising so much but I have a feeling Dwam is poorer today ;)

Doing what works works until it doesn't. Higher valuations lead to diminishing returns.

With Trump's actions, you can expect foreign capital flows to strongly diminish. Europe will demand more domestic increases in investment-- they will need to facilitate it-- Asia needs domestic investment in infrastructure for energy now it has been shown to be vulnerable to shocks. The gulf needs to invest domestically. A weakening dollar will diminish their returns, feeding back into negative sentiment.

I don't know but I am with Mr Bogle: higher valuations equals lower returns in the next 10 years.

The s&p has outperformed over 20-30 years, but the FTSE100 has outperformed the s & p 500 recently, Dwam. I've told you this before.

You can't just strip out dividends. That's like looking at the offers I receive for my farm but not the money I've received for the crops I grow.

Tbh, if it were 2023 or 2024, I'd have more willingness to trust them, but they've shown nothing to show they can make a go of it.

Barring an economic uptick, the management does not inspire me to believe they can perform exceptionally. If you put your money here, don't bank on anything but the stores is my opinion. Hopefully they'll stop playing Build an Empire with shareholders money.

Yeah, just don't trust a management who haven't done anything with the money to make it a success.

There's no precedent, so if it happens, it's more faith. GP binned, eventually, CF online in reverse, FP? FP was stagnant before. That's why it was sold.

The thing is that the profit warning etc wouldn't have bothered me half as much as I know what the business it is. It's the wasted money that has annoyed people and the abuse of the money made by the stores.

Also, note average net debt is probably over 100m or there about.

Yeah, but there's 60m of debt that is largely because management wasted the money. That's money that has to be paid back that wouldn't have had to have been.

Nice!

The ironic thing is that if management had listened to the wailing nut-jobs like myself then they'd probably be richer on account of their options. 🤷‍♂️

I would say so, unfortunately. It is a shame because the high-street execution has been largely competent, and he clearly knows how to do that. It is a strong business, and that helps, but they didn't listen to investors encouraging stronger distribution and buyback policies.

They managed the cost pressures very well, but the online stuff has been a mess. They should have gone out and got someone strong and competent on that front to lead it.

He could survive and thrive, but it depends on his willingness to see the mistakes made. There has been very little innovative growth, but noone bought this investment for innovative growth!

NT, basically a good summary. As people have said, as expected. The consumer backdrop is not encouraging for anyone atm, and the synergies seem to be coming quite late.

As we all know, too much money on acquisitions. So much wasted by the management in recent years.

A kind of nothing-to-see update imo.

It can be seen from the accounts, so net debt is basically starting 100m. They put a 200m range on net debt, cash, so that should be included.

It seems fine atm, but it definitely needs to be watched at year-end in case they do it again.

CJ, what do you mean? Can they refinance the debt? Sure, but the bond holders will want structured equity partially: big dilution.

When you've borrowed so much, you don't get options you'd like.

Given the debt is basically the company, it depends on whether the acquirer wants to pay that to clear it.

Shareholders don't own this.

Ah, went about my life for 5 minutes independent of this circus and just tuned in: the direction has changed once more!

Did someone say volatility! Like I said, markets have been too pessimistic and too optimistic in their assessments! I expect this to continue

Yeah, the trouble is that noone can reliably predict commodity price movements.

I had a biggie on paper over 6 figures last year, but it was still a very profitable investment.

It's nothing to brag about! Just got to analyse what you could of done differently. For me, I used to concentrate heavily, and it made me a lot, but it is utterly awful for your sleep. I think if you bought at anything at or below £5, you will do well herein the year ahead.

Markets are so stupid though. Honestly, this whipsawing has been absurd. We still haven't reached sensible valuations when all is considered. If only I was brave enough to short,or foolish enough, I'd fact my chances in the next 12 months to make a decent amount.

Ouch, so much for efficient markets! I've seen drops and rises across the market that are so wide from a rational movement.

A elevated average will yield better profits here, as I always believed. There are other, highly-leveraged businesses that are rallying foolishly imo in the market. The inflation won't hit good, well-run businesses tragically, but there's going to be liquidity issues in some of the names spiking on this news regardless.

Nice!