Member Info for Zanab

Yeah, this is what I've been telling people for a long time. Once they have they market, they'll jack up the prices.

Amazon is convenient but it's not cheap anymore. Their often more expensive

Agreed, we know there are some businesses that re struggling to compete against online, but having an unfair tax system that punishes them does not help and a government that has bootlicked china over low-value imports doesn't help. Why do the Chinese get tax breaks for creating basically 0 jobs?

BST, you are right in that fewer cards are sold, but for major events where the basket value potential is larger, cards are still given. I think postage costs killed the 100 Xmas cards a year habit years ago. I don't think WhatsApp had a massive impact. It's been around for over a decade, and go and read Moonpig's research, digital Comms and eCards just simply aren't a significant part of things. The CEO laughed at a question about eCards on one of their presentations, and they offer these things.

They do an awful lot of business around main events, but the profitability profile has changed significantly. The massive wage inflation has caused this. They did better sales yoy in H1, which is what makes H2 so surprising. The other costs you mention are important, but just to clarify that without the NI increase, profits would have been up or level marginally this year.

Glowacki, I'd be interested if you noted the prices? I do comparisons myself and CARD usually comes up on top and with better quality than those that may be around similar price-levels, but that was on last year's.

Yep, unfortunately, I can't see any major movement for at least a year or two due to the acquisition increasing debt.

It's good to see that people are fully-behind the fact that large dividends should have been prioritised, but they'll have circa 60m of net debt now so won't happen for a year at least. It's one to put away in the drawer. I'm not sure I believe these high-street retail shares are due the quick-and-easy bounce anticipated. I hope I'm wrong, but it's best with these things to switch off and focus on the long-term.

Anecdotally, both the shops in my high-street were very busy, but AI was a little disappointed with the offering. Maybe they'd just sold out or I had seen the last few years' so perhaps I'm just used to the range. As people who've been here or in and out over the last few years, CF is one of the few high-street shops that seems to get regularly rammed.

Also, this is not an all-time low...

Cards are actually hugely profitable and we're always. Research the market before you laugh or you'll look uninformed.

I advise people to write into IR and ask for some head's on spikes. I'm glad I got out earlier after the eoy but I've always been disappointed that this investment didn't give the potential returns it could have. It gave great returns for me, but this should be north of £1, and it's struggled to do that consistently because of management decisions.

Bhaveen, net debt is going up because of the acquisition. I wasn't thrilled about it, but it cannot be managed by the people currently there. It needs an expert leader. They've shown no evidence they can grow online. The only way to grow online significantly is to take share because the online market isn't growing at an electric pace.

Bhaveen, the payout is so low that the dividend will be fine. It won't even be 50% of profits, barely 40 tbh likely.

They've shown contempt for shareholders with the payouts to build an empire: a business in America, in South Africa, in ROI, stores in the middle east and now Funky Pigeon. What the hell is the strategy? Spend as much of shareholders money so you can manage a bigger business.

I will say that the economic situation is to blame for a significant part of this, but retail sales go up and down, and that's okay. That it's some kind of terminal illness is an exaggeration. The problem is everyone knows this a good, cash-generative business with limited growth prospects. It should be paying a fat dividend, not making it rain for others.

Management out and a return to a 60%+ payout ratio: 8.4p roughly on last year's profit. No way this is below £1 if management had done that even on the update...

*nearly double

One of my old flames, CARD, has had a brutal drop today. I think it is overdone and so have taken a small position again, but it does highlight something that makes Topps attractive. Topps prioritise shareholder returns with a good payout ratio. CARD should be nearly what it is selling on today if they had a 60-75% pay out ratio and then the profit drop doesn't matter so much.

The high yield is sustainable and going to grow here considerably in comparison. CARD went out and spent all the money on big acquisitions.

I do feel good about ditching it to take a major position here, but it's now a good opportunity again at 70p. Somewhat extraneous so apologies, but I like to treat all experiences as an education. Not all cash flows will get returned to you!

Identifying cost savings is great, but if you just go out and buy other businesses that aren't materially beneficial to profits then you've destroyed value. That's what management have done. 60m and that's without the money they wasted online. Eyes need to open to this fact.

I'm not happy with over 60m of acquisitions and about 30m of dividends. Do the maths and add 2/3 of that to the the dividend, and the price isn't anywhere near as low as this.

They need to go.

We need new managers though to make sure the cash isn't spent on more acquisitions. Once that is fixed, then the rerate comes.

Management out.

Exactly, as long as the business manages costs, takes advantage of sensible market opportunities and pays out it's cash then it will be fine. It just hasn't done the last and management should go for that.

Does anyone think if they paid a dividend of 9p, which they can still afford to do, that they would be trading below 90p or a pound? Management have spent 60m on acquisitions instead. I criticised these at the time but got out after the Funky Pigeon one because it's not what I wanted. It's empire building, but now it's time to kick the emperor and his second-in-command out.

E-cards have practically no market share whatsoever. Go and read Moonpig's studies, and watch their presentations: Moonpig's CEO actually laughed at eCards ever having been a thing, so I don't know why people keep bringing them up. The market is still almost all a physical market and it's not moving online quickly. 0.5-1.5% a year and slowing.

The research is out there so I suggest you read it.

Glowacki, the vast majority of cards are given in-person and with a gift that's why. The Christmas card market went a decade ago.