Ensor Share Discussion Threads

[carcosa] 22/7/2016 16:00

Unfortunately davidosh I am +7 hours ahead of you and its a Friday night, the wine has flowed... Tried to read the prelims but too co,mplicated for my small brain. Misread it and sold the lot... taking about a 10% loss. Did I do wrong?

[davidosh] 22/7/2016 15:54

carcos....it says

Our remaining businesses are being actively marketed, and we are speaking to a
number of interested potential buyers. It is NOT our intention, however, to
sacrifice shareholder value for the sake of an early sale.


That is positive for shareholders NOT negative

[carcosa] 22/7/2016 15:41

Deleted. Wrong info

[3800] 22/7/2016 15:26

Well the results arrived before the market close. However anyone hoping for an early resolution will be dissapointed this could well strech into next year.
3800

[carcosa] 22/7/2016 11:06

I got the same email from them ;-) "We expect to post our announcement later today." Unusual... bury bad news on a Friday afternoon

and I agree with meijiman

[tiswas] 22/7/2016 11:01

Results still some time today apparently. Sadly, I agree with the above comment.

[meijiman] 22/7/2016 09:05

The Board is coming over as amateurish.........

[cockerhoop] 22/7/2016 08:06

Their last 2 disposal announcements were during market hours so there is still a possibility of something today but I would have hoped for a 7am results statement.

[pavey ark] 22/7/2016 08:02

This from only a week ago: "Further announcements will be made in due course including the reporting of preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2016, expected to be during the week commencing 18 July 2016."

I can only assume that the results were ready when this announcement was made so my conclusion is that if we don't get the results as planned then there are other factors holding things up.

It looks to me that further disposal news is to be included but I would have thought that if you say the results are expected during a specific period and you miss this time slot then you have to say something.

[tiswas] 21/7/2016 20:43

David

You are normally on the ball. We were relying on someone with your influence to have suggested this to the Board 12 months ago! 8:)

[davidosh] 21/7/2016 19:21

Indeed....unlike most companies HILS is actually up 30% since Brexit too. It is also nearly forty times bigger than Ensor in market cap.

I think we should have asked for a somewhat better valuation and allowed them to pay with HILS stock. They could have swallowed the whole of ESR for £30m in paper and it would have been very earnings enhancing for them and we just sell our shares in HILS as and when we please lol. We would already have been 30% better off if that deal had been struck a month ago....

Surely the results must be available tomorrow.

[tiswas] 21/7/2016 17:37

Good point rhomboid. If you look at HILS ratios on Stocko it seems as though they are probably rated three to four times as high as ESR on most metrics so shame ESR did not achieve those sorts of multiples on company sales.

Price to Book Value 4.12
Price to Tang. Book 11.3
Price to Free Cashflow 24.0
Price to Sales 1.75
EV to EBITDA 16.4

Price to Book Value 1.73
Price to Tang. Book 2.18
Price to Free Cashflow n/a
Price to Sales 0.59
EV to EBITDA 4.32

[rhomboid] 21/7/2016 17:26

Hi carcosa

You could always buy shares in HILS to preserve your exposure to the property..they're setting new highs at the moment.

Cheers!

[carcosa] 21/7/2016 17:08

Taking a closer look at Technocover's last annual report; I think I have to agree with you, sadly!

[rhomboid] 21/7/2016 15:06

Hi Carocosa

The later satisfaction of charge docs suggest to me they needed the property unencumbered prior to the sale, if the property had been stripped away there is no easy way to see how Hill and Smith could have acquired £3.7m of operating assets and they'd also have had to restate the p&l of the acquired co. not only for Ensor group charges that fall away but to account for new leasehold costs.

Looks like I've got the property to me ...

[carcosa] 21/7/2016 14:19

Rhomboid (and all)

I see from that there are references to property charges specifically the entry dated 18 Feb 2016 says that the Freehold porperty for Technocover "No Longer Forms Part of The Company's Property Or Undertaking"

Can someone explain? To me it sounds as though Technocover was not sold with the Freehold land. Implying that at Ensor Group level they still have the property(?)

[rhomboid] 21/7/2016 13:53

Hi tiswas

I believe the freehold passed with Technocover, together with plant and inventory. I hold Hill and Smith and pulled the Technocover accounts and could see roughly what the £3.7m assets were referred to in the RNS

"Based in the UK, Technocover was a subsidiary of Ensor Holdings PLC and specialises in the development, manufacture, installation and maintenance of high security access products for the utilities markets. In the year to 31 March 2016, Technocover recorded turnover of £14.7m, operating profit of £1.5m (before Ensor Holdings PLC group charges), and had net operating assets, on a debt and cash free basis of £3.7m. The Acquisition is expected to be earnings enhancing to the Group in the first full financial year following the Acquisition."

[cockerhoop] 21/7/2016 11:25

With the recent sales I think they would have mentioned that they had kept hold of the Freeholds if they had done. They certainly mentioned the cash that they extracted from the companies outside of the sale price. Whilst I can't be certain I believe only the surplus freeholds can be safely added to any valuation.

[dangersimpson2] 21/7/2016 09:36

I agree that £1.25 seems unlikely now unless the remaining freehold land has significant value that has previously been obscured. I would personally like to see a statement from the company that confirms what we think, that the freeholds have not been sold with operating businesses, and what their plan is to release the value of those. Without that confirmation or plan we are all in the dark as to the real value that will be returned.

The good news is that the large director holdings mean that their interests are very much aligned to getting the maximum they can. Given some of the valuations they have achieved though and the need to buy the pension annuity they may feel they were better off as a combined listed company.

[cockerhoop] 21/7/2016 08:26

Tiswas,

Agree it appears a botched effort at realising maximum shareholder value, a business with T/O of £38m and Operating Margin of over 10% should be able to command a price to sales ratio of 1. ie £38m with the advantage that the annuity would not have been needed, maybe just a price adjustment.

The above implies a sale price of £1.25 for the business with further +ve adjustments for the freeholds and a -ve adjustment for the pension.

It's clear from the piece meal sales so far that we're not going to get close to that.

[carcosa] 18/7/2016 15:47

Maybe worth reminding that the company will be issuing its Prelims this week.

[pavey ark] 18/7/2016 14:03

Time to get the calculators out here chaps.
Obviously current holders may not be impressed with the way things are going but for new investors things look rather good on a risk/reward basis.
At current price the 90p figure (mentioned above) gives a 25% gain and as things look to be coming to a close this could be a 25% gain over a short period of time.
It should be remembered that the balance sheet was in very good shape before the disposals and even with the pension liability the current share price looks pretty well covered with the two units still to be sold.

In my opinion this is worth a punt at these levels but this is just my opinion and I did say "punt"

[tiswas] 15/7/2016 17:19

Looks like some people feel the same!

I am in around 70p average so not looking too clever and no idea how it peaked at 120p odd. Must have been ST talking it up!