Amstrad Share Discussion Threads

[darrin1471] 24/7/2007 13:52

1CH: Not sure this is the right place to discuss Pace, but value comparisons have been made to Amstrad and both companies share Sky and Sky Italia as customers.
Pace have delivered around one million MPEG4 HD-DVRs(HR20)to DirecTV in the US between August 06 and May 07 resulting in revenue of around £200m. Unfortunately cost/design problems have reduced gross margins on this product to around 12%. Pace now have order visibility with DirecTV through to mid-2008 with an updated model called the HR21 which should achieve gross margins of over 19%. Thomson is the other supplier to DirecTV of the HR20. The HR20 is very similar to the HDSky+ stb.
Pace's turnover was £69m in the UK, which is probably 100% Sky. This is up £5m from last year. Combined UK and European sales show the average selling price has fallen by 20% over the last year, although volumes were up 37%.
Pace's mkt cap reflects the future prospects of increasing gross margins (no where near AMTs level) and rising worldwide sales.

[1ch] 24/7/2007 10:45

If one compares PACE we have a capitalisation of £281.5m, but one has to ask if the turnover goes up one would think cause of ecomonies of scales the ratio of increase in sales £385.5m from £178.1m ( 117% up ) a really good performance, is knocked out by a similar ratio in the ratio of increase in the cost of sales from
£324.9m from £146m ( up 122% ) so have margins suffered.

Alba has a capitalisation of £92.3m with turnover of continued ops of £453.6m

AMT has a capitalisation of £98m with a turnover for this year of poss. £81m

But of all the companies above AMT has margins - control of costs.

One has to wonder if on any good news whether Amstrad share price could reverse back up. PIC share price has done quite well in holding up, and Alba has recovered a bit from the recent continued fall.

Is Amstrad competing directly against PACE for turnover, and why has PACE nearly 4 times the sales of Amstrad. Is Amstrad keeping up with technology to supply Sky. And are these boxes now being produced? News is a bit lacking is it not? A trading update is required possibly.

[spiros ellinigou] 24/7/2007 10:31

Good morning [grumpy] Sir Alan!

[1ch] 24/7/2007 10:31

darrin1471 - apologises - have amended above.

[darrin1471] 24/7/2007 10:27

1CH: I said Pace had a market capitalisation of £300m.

[1ch] 24/7/2007 10:15

SE - Alan Sugar is hardly posting as darrin1471 - misread a bit of his posting - apologies - amended - although he is quite factual in his postings.

Question - Is 118p the bottom and could this now follow Alba (ABA) of late in which the share price has now bottomed out and recovered from memory 150p to 180p. All AMT now needs is some reasonably favoured news!.

[cwa1] 23/7/2007 09:19

I'd certainly be interested to see that comment as well tiger20. A link or precis would be appreciated. Cheers.

[darrin1471] 23/7/2007 09:03

tiger20. What did it say? I can not find it on the web.

[tiger20] 22/7/2007 22:10

Amstrad should go up tomorrow on Allan Sugars comments in daily telegraph re new product via B.T.

[darrin1471] 20/7/2007 18:46

Look back at this and the other ADVFN thread and you will see that I said early this year that there was a risk of a fall and I have been a little surprised it has taken so long. I suggested a short a while ago but have never take one out before. To short now would be brave and the risk/reward is not worth it.
As I do not hold AMT but would like to in the future it is fair to say that lower the better for me. If bad news on the HK business, e-mailer and Sky delays are factored in then when I do buy, I should make a bigger profit.
Hold for 18-24 months and we should all make a nice profit

[spiros ellinigou] 20/7/2007 17:38

"The subtle de-ramper"

[darrin1471] 20/7/2007 17:03

From Pace's interim report in Feb 07
"The Group finished the period with net debt of #14.1m (3 June 2006: #6.1m), due to the working capital impact of the Group's significant increase in US production and with the large volumes shipped towards the end of the half year.
The Board is confident that the Group will be cash generative in the second half of the year."
£14.1m is hardly a "debt mountain" or "massive debt" on a Mkt Cap of £300m. I hope Pace may have cleared that blip by the year end results on Tuesday.
I would love PIC to generate cash in the future like AMT has over recent years.

[pierre oreilly] 20/7/2007 16:37

Darrin, interesting in your analysis you didn't mention debt vs cash - something everyone should seriously consider in companies such as this. On a downturn, a company with very high cash reserves can ride out the storm, a company in massive debt (like PIC) exists purely at the mercy of their bankers.

As to ignoring the past - well to a certain extent that's true, but nevertyheless, AMTs past has produced a cash pile, and PICs past has produced a debt mountain.

If there are any sort of problems at amt (and ther may or may not be, certainly you can't tell just by looking at the share price), then the old growler will soon take to the helm again, whoever happens to be the MD.

[darrin1471] 20/7/2007 14:52

Spiros: No

I have spoken to low level staff in the Sky warehouses and they say they have yet to see them. They may turn up tomorrow or be in storage somewhere else, although this seams unlikely.
These contacts are not strong and only rate 5/10 for reliability.

[spiros ellinigou] 20/7/2007 14:33

Do you work for Sir Alan per chance darrin1471?

[weatherman] 20/7/2007 14:32

How do we know? AMT were adamant they would ship before year end, if not surely a RNS would have been due.

[darrin1471] 20/7/2007 14:26

"Has shipment started of these boxes"

No, unless they are sitting in storage somewhere.

[netcurtains] 20/7/2007 13:52

Is this still true - re HDTV PVR box:

"
But he was adamant they will start by the end of June.
"

Its now near the end of July. Has shipment started of these boxes

[netcurtains] 19/7/2007 11:20

studhaves,
how much less will AMTs profits be than PICs?
The market expects PICs profits to be OVER DOUBLE AMTs.
Is this likely to be true?

[studhaves] 19/7/2007 09:21

I'm so tempted to buy some of these, but I'm worried about the market reaction when the figures are announced. The expected drop in turnover & profit should be factored in to the price already, but I can just see it dropping more when the results are announced.

Decisions, decisions...

[he that knows] 18/7/2007 20:43

Guru11,this share has been as low as 19p and had all this talk of going private,never happened

[brando69] 18/7/2007 20:08

Eastbourne1982 - 17 Jul'07 - 22:22 - 270 of 272


Its a sick world,

this company is one of the cheapest on the LSE and I for one will be holding these for a long time,

my average price is £1.1825 so very happy indeed


I could have done the same as you. But instead I can now buy at an average price of 117p or less even. If I do it is fair to say that I will be happier than you are