Alexandra Share Discussion Threads

[cockneyrebel] 27/4/2004 10:51

Well Freddy, you seem to get into enough sandpits of your own like TRN. FSA, SHM, MLIN, SUS so perhaps you'd like to answer that yourself.

Divi hunters will buy the 6% return I'm sure, especially as it was raised too.

Yep, you can only buy 10K or so with ease - one of the joys of not having all your wedge I guess Freddy.

CR

[ydderf] 27/4/2004 10:39

But you can hardly deal in them, market size is 5k and a market size deal moves the price - wast of time for a serious investor, how can you make serious dosh playing around in the sand-pit crookney? At Last night's close they were cheap and at 97.5 they are fairly priced on an historic pe/ of 11 and maybe forward one of 9-10..........

[cockneyrebel] 27/4/2004 10:24

Nice response in the share price anyway :-)

Very chunky yield too.

CR

[penpont] 27/4/2004 07:52

Pretty satisfied with these results. Earnings slightly ahead of forecasts, costs very tightly controlled, significant debt reduction and board sounding confident for the future.

Raising turnover is key now but I get the feeling from the outlook statement they feel they can do this.

IMO must be one of the best quality 6% yields you can get at present.

[eithin] 25/4/2004 19:07

Results Tuesday !!!!!!!

[penpont] 25/4/2004 18:54

May get results this week based on last years date (29/4), but no advance notice given yet.

You could do a lot worse than BBC ChrisG - I've had them myself since buying in at 140-odd a couple of years back and while I've been in and out of them a couple of times, have always come back as the doom 'n gloomsters are proved wrong about the housing market yet again.

[hendrixgoo] 21/4/2004 22:33

Dropping fast, sellers dumping the stock IMHO.

[penpont] 10/4/2004 09:53

Just had a look at those digitalook forecasts - they only feature one broker, Rowan Dartington, who is not the housebroker, and IMO shouldn't therefore be considered accurate in themselves.

Forecasts from HS are as below (and these are usually about as up to date as you can get in my experience) showing that the most recent estimate is from housebroker EBG and remains unchanged.

Of course this dosen't necessarily mean this forecast will prove accurate either, but I'm usually happier with a forecast coming from a source close to the company.

Don't disagree that this is a challenging market to operate in but I think AXD have made a pretty good job of it recently. I'm therefore prepared to stick around and see what results bring. I think the slippage has just been general within the small cap arena and isn't specifically related to forecasts coming from a single source.

Evolution Beeson Gregory Ltd 08-03-04 ADD 4.30 9.00 5.00 5.30 11.20 5.40
Rowan Dartington 05-03-04 HOLD 4.10 8.62 5.00 4.50 9.46 5.25

[cockneyrebel] 09/4/2004 21:52

Okay Chris, we'll compare. I'll probably lose but I just want to se the results before I make any decision.

Let me know on here what you go for, I'll be interested. Have you looked at BOS?

CR

[chrisg] 09/4/2004 21:09

I'll call you CRazy as you asked me to, but I don't think you are. It is after all horses for courses, and I imagine they'll say nothing adverse at all in the results because the year just gone will show a (small) increase in eps and the current year (to Jan '05) will be higher again. It is just that expectations for the current year are being progressively scaled back, and on current forecasts a forward p/e of 9 for a company which is basically in the rag trade, and a very competitive sector of it at that, doesn't appeal.

Anyway, if you like, I'll let you know on Tuesday (or Wednesday 'coz I've got to go out to clients on Tuesday) what I've bought instead and we'll compare notes at the end of the year. What do you think?

BTW, I've already got my excuses ready as to why HRN are still as high as they are......

:-)

[cockneyrebel] 09/4/2004 18:24

You may be right, but I'd have thought a director doubling hid holding two months from the year end would be a guide that thinks were going good, if not great.

I don't know why they have had a broker downgrade - wouldn't be the first time I've seen one ahead of results that beat, these brokers work in mysterious ways imo.


I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to go with my intial hunch for the same reason as I bought them. Call me crazy :-)

CR

[cockneyrebel] 09/4/2004 12:02

not sure why they should have received a broker downgrade, currency wise they should have benefitted and they are now paying a superb yield of 5.3%.

There was director buying near their year end at 84p too.

I'll hold - they seem to have budgeted for much higher sales and I can't see why they would have a director buying at this level if they were going to miss, but we'll see at the results at the end of the month.

CR

[chrisg] 09/4/2004 11:22

The recent fall in the share price would appear to be linked to the second broker downgrade in three months. Three months ago, expectation for the current year (to Jan '05) was turnover £80m and eps of 11.2p. That got downgraded to turnover of £76m and eps of 10.33p, and then just in in this last week that got downgraded again to turnover of £72m and eps of 9.46p.

Hence the fall in the shares to their present level. I baled yesterday, although having bought at 46p in October '02 it was a very good result.

It is well known that their business is very competitive and price sensitive, with all the pressure on outsourcing from cheap countries. Alexandra has unquestionably done a masters job at cutting costs faster than its selling prices, but to "lose" 10% of your anticipated turnover for the current year in the space of three months rather suggests something else has gone wrong in addition to just price deflation.

I do not think that a current year p/e of 9, in the context of the industry that AXD operates in is attractive. Much better value elsewhere, imo, which I shall be buying on Tuesday morning!

[penpont] 07/4/2004 21:54

On housebrokers estimates for year to Jan 05 now on a yield of over 6% - this feels more like what you could expect to get from a growth company a year ago in the depths of the bear market rather than today.

Know that many small caps have fallen lately but seems very overdone in this case.

[cockneyrebel] 31/3/2004 13:55

ticking up - results not far off now.

CR

[cockneyrebel] 05/3/2004 11:20

I agree penpont.

If they are benefitting from currency gains in the places where they produce in dollar denominated currencies then results could surprise imo.

CR

[penpont] 05/3/2004 08:27

Went back in today and assume my 8k buy has pushed the price up 1.5p!

Spent the best part of yesterday evening trawling the market for a fully listed Co. with a decent yield and reasonable growth prospects to put into my ISA and must say was a bit disheartened at how few candidates emerged (excepting those I'm already stuffed to the gunnels with).

AXD looks one of these few - prospective yld of 5.6% very hard to match currently.

[penpont] 17/2/2004 19:39

Been looking at these again having come out a while back since they seemed fully valued at the time.

Like a lot of the fundamentals and agree the 9p for last year could be beaten.

Not absolutely sure they can increase t/o significantly from here as this has been static for around 5 years now. Believe they have 23% of UK workwear market and am not quite sure what the strategy is to enlarge this.

Recent improved performance seems to have been on the back of sourcing from abroad and increased internal systems efficiency but this can only go so far with out top line growth.

Even without any substantial turnover growth can see 120p on 12 month view but would like to think there's a longer term growth story here.

Any views?