Churchill China Share Discussion Threads

[martylangan] 23/3/2005 10:45

Just read the results! Great news. Looking good for the future. Bought in some more. Does anyone have any info on any property churchill owns?

[charles henderson] 01/1/2005 18:49

CHH is rising suspicously steadily - is the MM moving the price to some target?
see for other steady risers

[skyracer] 06/12/2004 17:47

" Skyracer - 30 Aug'02 - 09:56 - 14 of 25 edit

These results are just awful. Thank goodness I sold out. The board say they "intend to accelerate the long term rate of change in the business".... Long term? Do they have a crystal ball? They need change now and its going to cost money; restructuring costs, stock write-offs, increased capex. Churchill China is fundamentally flawed because the market seems able to change faster than CHH can respond or anticipate, leaving them flat-footed. They could spend a lot of money changing and it could just happen again. The business environment has altered dramatically over the last couple of years and what Churchill really need now is a management team with the ability to implement change rapidly and appropriately rather than just the ability to implement change. Churchill deserve to go below 100p. SELL "

And now it has happened again, complete with stock write-off.

[beaufort1] 15/11/2004 16:41

Well this has been a pretty dull share, but has woken up all of a sudden. Out of the blue up 6p at 4pm

[johnnew2001] 13/6/2004 03:52

Directors selling, and quite a lot of them, means only one thing, bad news to come later in the year - its a certain thing - they sell what they can now - people forget and the bad news hits in a few months time.

Time to reduce the holding in these, they sold at 205 - so if that level is nearing, then get out.

[verynervy] 08/5/2004 22:38

They may have equally sold as many as they could without spooking the market?

And if the results are not good Mr. Ropers judgement`s not too hot?

Portmeiron have a different niche within the market so this should not have affected CHH shares!

As the hotel industry has picked up that side of CHH`s business is likely to have grown and together with improved efficiency - the outlook should be be satisfactory!

[gengulphus] 07/5/2004 18:31

Mr Roper's sale is about 1/75th of the shares he held before the sale. That's a tiny proportion, and anyone who was seriously trying to reduce their holding in the company would almost certainly have tried to sell quite a lot more. He probably just has a need for 33k for some other purpose and selling some of his shares was the most convenient way to raise it.

Mr Taylor's and Mr Grundy's sales have come shortly after they exercised options under the company's Unapproved Executive Share Option Scheme. The fact that the scheme is "unapproved" means that an income tax liability arises immediately on the difference between the option price and the price on the day that the options were exercised. Furthermore, the company becomes liable to extra employer's National Insurance contributions at the same time, and if it follows normal practice, it will be a condition of exercising the share options that it can pass that liability on to the director.

The net result is that you should normally expect directors to sell shares following the exercise of unapproved share options in order to raise cash to pay the tax, especially if the shares have risen quite a lot compared with the option price. Mr Taylor and Mr Grundy sold very substantial fractions of their holdings, however - quite a lot more than was needed to fund the tax, so this isn't a complete explanation.

Mr O'Connor's exercise was under the company's Executive Share Option Scheme and is presumably "approved" - meaning no tax is payable until the shares are sold (and then it is CGT rather than income tax, and can be reduced very substantially by holding for a year or two after acquiring the shares). It was also a very significant fraction of his holding. That makes his sale rather more surprising and worrying.

The other noticable feature is that they all sold on the same day and at the same price. I'd be surprised if they all picked the same day to sell purely by chance. So my guess (and it is only a guess) is that once they knew some directors' sales were going to happen, they discussed it and decided to get the "directors sell" news out all in one go, with each selling as many as they wanted to from the point of view of raising cash.

Overall, it's not the most welcome news. But it certainly doesn't look very bad to me: in particular, I would see Mr Roper's retention of such a high proportion of his very large holding as basically being a vote of confidence in the company - though coupled with some personal financial prudence.

Gengulphus

[verynervy] 07/5/2004 09:24

Unfortunately the directors decided to sell shares yesterday, this does not look a good sign for a continued recovery in their business. What do they know that we dont?

[miknikb] 19/2/2004 22:12

I'm also holding a few and pleased to see some upward movement at last! Shares magazine tipped them a week or so ago, but that wouldn't explain the movement over the last couple of days. I reckon the results due in March are pretty good, and as Flagon suggests - the news is leaking out. Hope so.

miknik

[flagon] 18/2/2004 08:45

balcony - Who knows ?

Last year final results were issued on 20th March.

News leaking perhaps ?

I am holding a few.


Good luck,


Flagon

[balcony] 18/2/2004 08:31

up yesterday,and 10% this morning,anyone know if a bid is coming.

[mega-bite] 15/9/2003 17:28

Oh dear ..... director selling ... share price near a year high ... Potteries industry in Stoke is on its knees ... it does not bode well .... but DYOR

[cjohn] 18/9/2002 10:49

Land finance sold out.

[cjohn] 31/8/2002 00:39

You're not going to buy back in then?

The results aren't quite as apocalyptic as you claim, and I'm far from convinced by your elegant diagnosis of the problem.

CHH has a strong balance sheet, dividends are maintained. There's a hint that trading is picking up, and there may be some sort of corporate action brewing, in view of the recent Land finance purchase, which would make sense given the very low PTBV.

Unless you have inside knowledge of this, I'd strongly doubt the need for stock write-offs. The results would have to be a lot poorer in the Dining In division to suggest that. Your comments on the management may be fair, but again where's your evidence?

An Equally probable explanation is a very difficult retail market in the US impacting temporarily on the dining in division.

I'd hold these rather than sell, simply because from experience profit making shares rarely trade at huge discounts to PTBV: for this reason a plunge below 100 seems unlikely. Though I admit I'm not good on short term trading patterns and reactions.

[skyracer] 30/8/2002 09:56

These results are just awful. Thank goodness I sold out. The board say they "intend to accelerate the long term rate of change in the business".... Long term! Do they have a crystal ball ? They need change now and its going to cost money; restructuring costs, stock write-offs, increased capex. Churchill China is fundamentally flawed because the market seems able to change faster than CHH can respond or anticipate, leaving them flat-footed. They could spend a lot of money changing and it could just happen again. The business environment has altered dramatically over the last couple of years and what Churchill really need now is a management team with the ability to implement change rapidly and appropriately rather than just the ability to implement change. Churchill deserve to go below 100p. SELL

[coco] 27/8/2002 15:52

Is CHH to sell off land to Landfinance LTD and return cash to shareholders and then just outsource it products? MMMMMMMM ? worth thinking about.

[cjohn] 22/7/2002 15:31

This bounceback is happening much more quickly than I expected. Normally shares like this tread water for 6 weeks to 2 months before showing any sign of life. Unfortunateley, my streaming is down and I can't get the trades facility. Does anyone have any clues based on trades that have gone through over the past week?

[danny murphy] 15/7/2002 18:06

Hi CJohn

I agree with your comment that with value shares after a profits warning a
correction upwards will be a long time coming. Equally with the net tangible asset value the share price is not going to disappear in the way that for instance Marconi did.

The only upside to the shares is a takeover and if that is not considered likely then you will have a long wait to see any progress particularly
as the credibility of the management has all but gone bearing in mind the troubles of a few years ago.

All in all quite gloomy for the shareholders.

[azalea] 14/7/2002 16:16

As an observer, I wonder what the general thoughts are regarding Steelite's 17% stake. Any moves on the latter might also be an indicator of what a major share holder's thinking might be for CCH future prospects.

[cjohn] 14/7/2002 10:10

At the current price, CHH is trading at 50% of its net tangible assets. With cash flow and profitability remaining positive, this discount will be even more marked by half year and year end.

At some point, this anomaly will resolve. However, my experience with value shares suggests a price correction (upwards) may be a long time coming. Downwards corrections have gravity to help them along, so tend to be more abrupt.

On a cautious note, I personally tend to discount stocks when judging the effective net tangible asset value. Even on this very conservative view, CHH is still markedly undervalued on asset grounds. (Though not of course on profitability grounds.)

[cjohn] 10/7/2002 09:36

DMurphy: Yes, nasty, ouch. Sod's law: I was travelling Monday and yesterday when the news of this came out. Not sure now whether to sell or hold.

The share price should be underpinned by the NAV and the maintained dividend: not tempted to buy more however, though if I didn't have any already, I might go in at some point. I'm glad you remained cautious: the right strategy currently.

Bungling the news release is pretty unimpressive too.

I'll probably hold for recovery on a year's view. Currently sitting on a 20% loss.

[skyracer] 10/7/2002 07:09

Seems to me Churchill need to get their act together otherwise they will lose all credibility. Whats next? Yet another trading statement in a few months saying actually we didnt really mean it we ARE going to meet market expectations after all?

[danny murphy] 09/7/2002 13:31

CJohn

Ouch

[cjohn] 24/6/2002 19:42

Forward broker prediction is for 27p this year, albeit I take this with a pinch of salt,as the company is expecting a significant pick up in the 2nd half, with first half figures slightly down on last years.

My feeling is the downside risk is limited by the P/TBV of about 0.65: back of envelope calculation, plus the well-covered dividend, and net cash position which is likely to improve further this year,as the company says their capex requirements will be significantly lower this year.

If the price slips back to 150p for example, I'll pick up a wad of these.