Fishing Rep. Share Discussion Threads

[norbert colon] 13/4/2016 10:56

PJ - hxxp://www.nottinghampiscatorialsociety.co.uk/fisheries/

I assume this is your local area - 6 lakes as well as the trent - I would assume all lakes will open as normal during the closed season.

With the Spring weather now in the air it must be time for you to buy some new gear and get on down there..!

[pj 1] 13/4/2016 09:10

Ah, thanks NC. Its all changed since I was a lad. At week ends you could never get in a peg on the Trent due to match fishing, still waters have taken over then. Drabbles tackle shop in Mansfield used to shut down for 2 months during the close season. Its a 12 month sport now . More research required!

[dlku] 13/4/2016 07:47

Results y/e 31 Dec 2015 - this is a small chain (7 shops in N.England) selling fishing tackle & equipment (55% of turnover), and a website (45% of turnover). It floated in Jun 2015, and this is given as a reason why profits barely increased - up from £295k in 2014 to £305k in 2015 on a pre-exceptional basis. £299k of exceptional costs took it down to a whisker above breakeven for calendar 2015.

As a retail roll-out, with online growth too, it looks superficially interesting. However, the glaring anomaly in the accounts is the extremely slow stock turn. In my retail days, we tried to turn (i.e. sell all, and replace with new) stock about every 6 weeks. In the case of FISH, its stock turn is more than a year!

So the P&L shows revenue of £4.1m, with a cost of sales of £2.2m. So the £2.2m figure is the stock (at cost) which was sold in the year. This figure is comparable with the stock at cost figure on the balance sheet, which should be no more than a quarter of that - i.e. c.£550k or below.

Stock on the balance sheet is actually a gigantic (in this context) £2.4m. That's bonkers! Basically this company is just buying warehouses & shops full of stock, which then sits there gathering…

- See more at: hxxp://www.stockopedia.com/content/small-cap-value-report-12-apr-2016-fish-ung-srt-lake-sal-127328/#comments

[norbert colon] 13/4/2016 07:45

Some press coverage:

hxxp://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/fishing-republic-reeling-in-the-customers-as-popularity-grows-1-7848270

And some discussion on the stockopedia site:

hxxp://www.stockopedia.com/content/small-cap-value-report-12-apr-2016-fish-ung-srt-lake-sal-127328/#comments

Scroll down for reader comments.

[battlebus2] 12/4/2016 23:00

Diku if I could find a bait boat big enough We could drop you way out so you can carry on carping :))

[brownie69] 12/4/2016 14:51

Thanks battlebus, good article.

Dlku, I think your info is somewhat dated. New stores do not have the CEO as landlord. Plus the rents on the stoes where he is landlord are set independently to market value when revisions are due.

I guess your short in which case you must be hurting? Anything in the current trading you don't like?

[dlku] 12/4/2016 12:47

did they mention they are gonna start paying rent ifup to £100,000 over the next few years to the ceo

[thomasthetank1] 12/4/2016 11:39

Read Northland's note on Fishing Republic (FISH), out this morning, by visiting www.research-tree.com …
“Fishing Republic, a specialist retail and online fishing tackle business sells branded and own branded products and equipment. The business looks to scale through a mixture of a ‘Buy & Build’ strategy in a highly fragmented market place and organic growth with ten stores operational. Trading in the first few month of FY16 is inline with expectations. No changes to our current forecasts for FY16 where we look for revenue of £6.5m and EBITDA of c. £0.7m. The share price has performed well in recent months and trades on c. 16.5x FY16E earnings…̶1;

[norbert colon] 12/4/2016 09:16

To firstly satisfy diku lets get the negatives out in the open:

- Group generated an after tax loss of GBP 31k (0.16p)
- Various exceptional costs
- A reminder of how they got ripped off at IPO....
- Known legacy issues such as leases and brand name registration not mentioned
- No mention of sales growth for own brand gear
- Rental costs kicking in
- Swelling inventories although this is attributable to stocking the new stores incl. own brand gear.

The positives:

- Net assets now GBP 3m
- Decent balance sheet
- Revenue up 22% with H2 sales up 45% YoY
- Excellent GP margin of 46%
- New stores integrated and open for business
- Online sales growth of 30% (significant as 45% of Group sales are online).
- Importantly their own website sales are up 100% in H2 - no 3rd party transactional costs here compared to Ebay and Amazon
- Full time FD now on board
- Economies of scale will kick in as they grow further.
- Very optimistic outlook statement

In summary, I am satisfied with these results although the current valuation now looks full.

I would encourage investors to attend the AGM in May.

[dlku] 12/4/2016 07:10

reported basic loss per share of 0.16p

[norbert colon] 11/4/2016 12:04

Hi BB. Yes the Big Fish Off was very good - I didn't see the previous series so all new to me but a good mix of entertainment and general fishing know-how. Bait boat for serious carpers eh!

I have recently bought a few bits of kit from Fishing Republic and used the process to try and find the same goods cheaper elsewhere which I was pleased to say that I couldn't. Their Magento system sends you a notification of order which is then followed up by an email from the courier confirming an approx. time of delivery. Certainly a pleasing experience as a customer and shareholder.

Looking forward to their results which I expect will be released this week. There will be lots to look out for including:

- LFL sales growth in store
- Own website sales growth which I expect to be very good
- 3rd Party sales (EBay / Amazon) growth (or decline...) as they try and move sales onto their own website
- Own brand (Klobba etc) sales growth
- Visibility of costs such as salaries, rent and roll out of new stores.
- Chairmans statement incl. the outlook and any insights into their ongoing buy-and-build strategy.

[battlebus2] 08/4/2016 14:33

Moving up today, after last nights big fish off which was brilliant by the way i'd guess a few more like myself will be buying some new equipment, loved that bait boat by the way :))

[norbert colon] 01/4/2016 13:04

Some press coverage of the new Birmingham Storehttp://www.commercialnewsmedia.com/archives/46733

[battlebus2] 01/4/2016 12:37

I thought yesterday the market had realised these are running ahead of themselves but todays buying has us nearly back to highs....

[battlebus2] 29/3/2016 09:50

Something's fishy lol.

[norbert colon] 29/3/2016 09:38

So FISH has now doubled since IPO.

Is Mr Market on the happy pills or will the maiden FY results show that the company is trading its socks off with the new Birmingham store etc now open and online sales growing at a lick along with the summer fishing season approaching?

[norbert colon] 14/3/2016 22:14

I have been taking a look tonight at the accounts of Glasgow Angling Centre (GAC) who are one of the main (larger) competitors of FISH and are a well established business from whom I have purchased equipment in the past. It is interesting to see that GAC have grown from T/O of circa GBP 5.8m in 2009 (around the current size of FISH) to T/O of GBP 11.2m 6 years later (2015). Earnings for 2015 were GBP 726k (6.5% margin). Gross margins are the same as FISH in the high 40% area.

They have consistently been profitable with ROCE in the double digits (23.4% in 2015) although net margins are typically less than 5%. The business also continually throws off cash allowing them to expand.

Northland forecast earnings at FISH of GBP 530k for FY2016 (on T/O of GBP 6.5m) which is entirely plausible given the increase in sales of higher margin (own brand) goods that FISH intend to leverage.

At a current share price of 23.5p, the forecast EPS of 1.9p puts FISH on a PE of around 12 for the current year (Dec 2016). With the CEO's confident outlook in the trading statement and determination to grow the company 10-fold from IPO to a circa GBP 30m T/O business (both organic growth and acquisitions) such a PE is not at all demanding.

They need a carefully measured approach to their execution going forward but all looks good so far and the April results will help investors get a better picture of their costs / inventory as well as growth in online sales (main websites rather than Ebay site).

[dlku] 14/3/2016 08:31

moving up for a placing being run by the MM imho

[battlebus2] 14/3/2016 08:24

Off to the races this morning!! Up another 10% on what appears to be no trading:))

[norbert colon] 11/3/2016 19:55

Well a very strong re-rating this week. The results next month will be pivotal in cementing investor confidence going forward. If they can meet market expeditions and show they are managing their costs and the ongoing buy-and-build strategy then they should attract more investor interest.I maintain my thoughts that there is nothing preventing the company from replicating what Dignity and CVS have done before them and consolidate a hugely fragmented market.