Petards Share Discussion Threads

[rivaldo] 23/4/2024 10:30

New appointment - interesting detail about the new AI-enabled safety tech:



"Petards Rail bolsters team with new appointment
April 22, 2024

Leading provider of intelligent train technology, Petards Rail has appointed Calvin Fahey to the role of procurement manager.

Calvin is Level 3 Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) certified and brings with him near a decade’s worth of experience within procurement-related roles.

In his role at Petards Rail, Calvin will spearhead the company’s procurement team and processes, ensuring the timely and cost-effective acquisition of materials and services.

Petards Rail designs and delivers train technology to help companies within the rail industry maximise passenger safety, optimise train performance and meet ever increasing passenger and industry demands. Its technology includes forward facing and rear facing cameras, track debris cameras, an on-train camera/monitor system, Automatic Selective Door Operation, interior cameras and pantograph surveillance cameras. In addition, the company offers supporting services and a back-office software, eyeTrain Connect.

In the latter half of 2023, the company launched its PTeye solution which, incorporating the latest in AI-ready technology, was developed to prevent trap and drag incidents before train dispatch and, as a secondary safety measure, to detect drag.

At this time, the company also strengthened its team with the appointment of Jack Teichman to the role of rail engineer. An experienced mechanical design engineer, Jack joined Petards Rail having held a breadth of engineering roles such as product engineer, configuration engineer and outfit engineer, across a variety of industries including defence and electricals.

Speaking of his appointment, Calvin said: “I am thrilled to join Petards Rail as procurement manager. The company’s commitment to customer service and developing high-calibre intelligent rail solutions, made it an easy decision.

“I enjoy using data to inform continuous improvement, be it cost reductions, optimising supplier relationships or implementing more efficient procurement processes. I am looking forward to applying this in my role at Petards Rail and contributing to the success of a dynamic company.”

Victoria Hodge, general manager of Petards Rail, said: “I am delighted to announce the addition of Calvin to the Petards Rail team. His wealth of expertise and dedication to quality and continuous improvement align perfectly with our company values.

“It is an exciting time for Petards Rail marked by our recent win at the SPOTLIGHT awards and the launch of our new lifesaving technology. It is great to have Calvin on this journey with us.”

With decades of experience in the rail industry, Petards Rail has worked with organisations throughout the sector, from rolling stock companies to train operators and builders. From its base in Gateshead, UK the company operates globally and has over 60,000 LRUs (line-replaceable units) in service and more than 30,000 cameras in service."

[smithie6] 20/4/2024 22:24

thanks for your text/post

[pldazzle] 19/4/2024 15:41

The loss-making subsidiary, PJL, is the principal company in the group; the others (QRO and RTS) are relatively recent add-ons. QRO's business is ANPR and it has been very successful, growth appears to be continuing and long may it do so. RTS is meh, certainly nothing special considering they paid £1.8 million for it, but not a complete disaster. PJL has been very profitable in the past, but more recently has been hiding its light under a bushel. I don't think this is mainly because of the defence division, which I believe has been downsized anyway, but because of recent turmoil in the rail industry which has translated to an order famine. With CR7 (the new five-year financial control period for the rail industry) having started just three weeks ago, that should lead to fresh orders from train builders in due course: historically, each such order has typically been well into seven figures.
So I am looking for a recovery in the rail division, which should eliminate the losses in PJL. Hopefully within the next 1-2 years. The group should then be highly profitable. I don't see much point in selling the defence division, and don't think it would fetch much anyway.
To answer your question more specifically, for the reasons given above I emphatically don't regard the losses in PSL as an ongoing situation long-term, although if push comes to shove I can live with maybe 1 more year. Even after the recent price rise the market cap. is now just £4.3m. That looks very cheap, given the potential which I see as well over £1m pretax.

[smithie6] 19/4/2024 13:22

not sure if your post replies to my post

or what point you are trying to make )& perhaps haven't made very clear)

from post 1801
"Petards has three active subsidiaries: QRO (ANPR), RTS (rail software) and Petards Joyce Loebl (rail systems and defence).

Per Companies House, in 2023 the results were (turnover/pretax/post-tax):
QRO - £4.422m, £588k, £535k
RTS - £611k, £2k, £22k (so it's relatively minor)
PJL - £6.09m, loss (£725k), loss (£329k)
Group, no doubt reflecting intra-group turnover, head office charges and other adjustments - £10.872m, £178k, £524k."

my question was what did people think about the loss making subsidiary & whether one option might be to sell it so that its recent losses would not be a drag on the group, if that loss is an on-going situation.

What is your opinion ?

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I am new'ish to PEG, (but sitting on a nice profit. :-) ), happy to see any opinions.

[pldazzle] 19/4/2024 09:12

smithie6, I wonder with respect if you may have got the wrong end of the stick.

I have been following Petards for nearly 15 years.

The main rail subsidiary has always been Petards Joyce Loebl (PJL), which also - albeit as a poor second - handles the defence activities. Meanwhile RTS Solutions, acquired only in 2018, is a smallish subsidiary dealing with "rail asset management, logistics, planning and business workflow applications" (as distinct from installations on actual trains etc) and serving the rail infrastructure industry, whereas PJL's customers are typically train builders such as Alstom, Siemens or Bombardier. While RTS has not performed outstandingly since acquisition, it has kept its head consistently above water, but it's minor in the greater scheme of things.

In the past PJL has had substantial contracts from train builders. A few random examples:




Note that the history of these chunky train contracts goes back many years before the RTS acquisition. For the time being they have dried up (again, I don't think that is so much the case for RTS), but in my view there are good reasons for optimism that this will prove temporary.






To repeat: both the main rail activities, and the defence activities, are within PJL: however, rail is a great deal larger than defence, quite apart from having greater potential.

[smithie6] 18/4/2024 22:06

see post 1801

[pldazzle] 18/4/2024 17:34

Smithie6 - what evidence do you have that there is a separate subsidiary dealing with the defence/MOD activities? I don't see any. More importantly: As I understand it, the defence division - at one time quite large, though on low margins - has been shrunk and is no longer as significant as it used to be. The main lossmaker appears to be the rail activities: that has to be down to an order vacuum for new trains, due to the political turmoil in the rail industry coupled with the end of Control Period 6 (CP6) which governed capital purchases up to the end of last month. I would expect orders to recover relatively quickly now that the new CP7 has started . See my post #1801.

[smithie6] 18/4/2024 15:24

the subsidiary doing products/services for the UK MoD, loss making in last accounts.

What do people think of this subsidiary ?
Could it change its losses to profits ?
Would it be a good idea to try to sell it ?
(& then concentrate on growing the most succesful subsidiary, the ANPR subsidiary ?)

[smithie6] 17/4/2024 13:08

Someone keeps hitting the buy button.
Including last 3 trades, 10k shares, then 5k, then 5k.
(As I understand it one is not officially allowed to do that, so the MM might get a bit riled. But I guess the MM(s) can just move it to "no trades" if they want & force orders to be submitted as limited price requested trade orders, & just ignore the buy orders, until some sell trades go thru.

I assume that the buyer is certain that those Alsthom trains/wagons will order the CCTV from PEG and that every wagon will have CCTV. (Pretty std nowadays I think for new train wagons).

[smithie6] 17/4/2024 12:41

Btw
...the drag on past performance has been the defence sector part of PEG.

What do people think that might happen with that subsidiary in '24 ?

Might it pick up some work from the conflicts in Ukraine or the middle east ?
Or might PEG sell the subsidiary?

(As far as I can see it is doing one offs & support tasks for the UK military but very small quantity. And very difficult to make money from that imo once you deduct office costs, secretaries, accounts, directors, advertising, travel, pensions, etc. And surely virtually impossible for this subsidiary to create a product that could be sold in large numbers to the military since the R&D cost would be too high to afford.
I applaud the subsidiary for the range of skills they have, including TEMPEST, EMC, UHF, VHF, microwave, displays etc etc).

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The subsidiary doing automatic number plate recognition (& other similar stuff) is the subsidiary doing well.

[rivaldo] 17/4/2024 11:57

Perhaps a little buying has been coming in on the back of the overnight news that the UK's largest train factory owned by Alstom (a PEG customer) has been saved with a government order of ten commuter trains...

[packman8] 15/4/2024 16:10

Anybody else had a call from the Meridian Group(USA) offering to buy your shares. The women mentioned I think £18/share Obviously a scam as this would be valued at 1 billion plus.

[rivaldo] 23/2/2024 07:11

This morning's RNS shows yet another new major shareholder who's been buying and now has over 3% - John Peter Lobbenberg has 3.2%, or 1.82m shares:

[the oak tree] 21/2/2024 19:27

Thanks pldazzle for that analysis.

[pldazzle] 21/2/2024 16:19

One worthwhile fact has been overlooked, I think, both by Hybridan and in this interesting discussion.

Petards has three active subsidiaries: QRO (ANPR), RTS (rail software) and Petards Joyce Loebl (rail systems and defence).

Per Companies House, in 2023 the results were (turnover/pretax/post-tax):
QRO - £4.422m, £588k, £535k
RTS - £611k, £2k, £22k (so it's relatively minor)
PJL - £6.09m, loss (£725k), loss (£329k)
Group, no doubt reflecting intra-group turnover, head office charges and other adjustments - £10.872m, £178k, £524k.

Thus the entirety of trading losses is down to PJL, which in turn must be mainly down to the absence of major rail contracts following reorganisation of the industry. In the past these have been chunky, often several £m at a time. I hadn't realised before to what extent QRO was now carrying the rest of the group.

It seems clear that, once rail orders return, there will be a rapid and potentially dramatic turnround. Naturally there is no guarantee when this will happen - if at all! - but it 'smells' encouraging and I, for my part, have added to my holding.

[rivaldo] 20/2/2024 12:22

Hybridan have a new note out today.

They forecast a £0.3m operating profit this year, or 0.9p EPS, with a £2m cash pile against the current £4.4m m/cap.

They have an interesting paragraph in particular re QRO:

"We believe that QRO Solutions will pursue growth opportunities in ULEZ (ultra low emission zone) charges and car parks in the UK and perhaps expand its footprint to overseas markets."

[smithie6] 19/2/2024 12:34

Here is a copy & paste from the interim results

Which is very positive imo, including the part about "launch of exciting new products...many of which incorporate artificial intelligence.....increased functionality"

"The Group's businesses have good management teams with strategic plans in place, to achieve growth in 2024 and 2025 with an ungeared balance sheet and the financial resources to support. These include plans for the launch of exciting new products over the coming months, many of which incorporate artificial intelligence and data solutions with increased functionality. The successful deployment of these new products and the improved prospects for acquisitions mean the board remains confident for the future."
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Cap. value is now up to ~£4m but it is around half of turnover so not expensive.

[smithie6] 19/2/2024 12:15

...I agree ..

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Interesting that a number of buy trades have gone through "after" rising ~20% (3 buys of 20k shares each time) ,
so despite the big % rise someone has kept hitting the buy button.
Interesting.

[rivaldo] 19/2/2024 11:33

The rise is more a reaction to the current stream of contract wins/extensions - three in three weeks - and the crazy undervaluation relative to the cash pile and prospects, likely caused by forced institutional selling, with the share overhang having been cleared by the two Jons etc.

[glavey] 19/2/2024 10:13

And a just few percent of annual t/o, so a bit of an over reaction perhaps.

[smithie6] 19/2/2024 09:20

.."silly cheap"

I agree.

[the oak tree] 19/2/2024 09:06

350k contract doesnt sound much but it is 10% of the market cap. The stats from this company are silly cheap. Its always about being patient with these companies.

[the oak tree] 19/2/2024 09:02

The part that stands out for me is, this could be sold to many other police forces.

The hard part is getting through the door with org like the police or any other tax payer funded org. So could be quite some roll out.

Not a bad start with 20% up so far.

[rivaldo] 19/2/2024 09:02

WH Ireland's update note this morning talks about the positive start to this year, and rehashes today's contract win news, until this decent summary in the last paragraph given the mere £3.4m m/cap:

"With a range of fundamentally competitive products in their respective markets, we see real potential for improvement as the rail market recovers and highlight the group’s robust net cash position (FY2024E WHI est: £2.7m). Trading on low single digit P/Es for FY2024E and with net cash making up over 50% of the market cap at the year ended FY2023E, we view the shares as undervalued at current levels"

[smithie6] 19/2/2024 08:06

The RNS includes this text
"... for two lanes of ANPR and manages wireless/4G/5G communications for onward transmission of data to the police force back office systems. The DVR option"

Can someone post what ANPR & DVR are ?!

(Sounds like clever stuff....& needed by the police to bring their technology more up to date; surely a lot more potential police orders out there, must be a lot of police traffic vehicles out there)

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Update
ANPR- automatic number plate recognition

DVR - digital video recording