Johnston Press Share Discussion Threads

[nick rubens] 21/10/2016 12:41

VLK doubled in value in 24 hours on news of asset sale. It's mkt value now exceeds JPR. lol

Imagine JPR when news lands of asset sales and bond re-purchase/restructure or any other news of significance.

[mister md] 21/10/2016 12:38

good timing, Jackbal. The shareprice had retreated way too far

[jackbal] 21/10/2016 12:10

Just bought again today. Feel this is a very good entry level from short term trading perspective.

[stdyeddy] 21/10/2016 09:16

Indeed dazz. The research indicates that newspaper readers also look online but that the vast bulk of the revenue is derived from print. jpr makes useful revenue from digital but arguably at the expense of its print operations; a determined shift in focus away from print resulting in a drop in quality and an acceleration in print decline. The thrust of the report is that the local news industry in the US has found digital to be a dead-end with meagre revenue growth over the last decade. A similar thing has happened with ebooks I believe; initial high growth and then slow growth followed by a resurgence in print.

[dazzaa] 21/10/2016 01:03

Then eddy we must have mercurial mixture of digprint an amalgam where on relies on the other forever or at least for profit until that formula can be improved like maybe putting icing on a cadburys egg or not.

[stdyeddy] 21/10/2016 00:22

Apparently it doesn't dazz. This is from last year:
hxxp://adage.com/article/media/huffington-post-broke-146-million-revenue/299293/

From the article:
Mr. Narisetti (VP at NewsCorp) said of digital-only publishers:
"The entire business model is based on advertising -- just because you're born in the digital era and you don't have legacy print costs doesn't mean you're going to go against the larger ad trends: CPMs continue to fall because supply is infinite and becoming more and more infinite. So I worry about models that are simply following legacy media and saying we're nimbler and cost less but we'll make money in the same way you guys make money, when it seems like the ad model is constantly going away from us."

My favourite line here is about 'supply being infinite and becoming more and more infinite...' The meaning of common words just seems to be a mystery to media people.

[dazzaa] 20/10/2016 23:49

Just a quick general question how does the Huffington post make a profit ?

[stdyeddy] 20/10/2016 23:12

One way or another there's light at the end of the tunnel for AH. Regarding the i's profitability; am not too surprised at the random hat number accounting method dazz, but I think we can take some comfort from overall profitability for news which seems to show that the cover price broadly covers distribution and the profit comes from the advertising. Please step forward anyone with a more precise formula which might give us an insight on the i's profits. My finger in the air guess (I'm not wearing a hat just at the moment) is around £7m-£8m annually. Hopefully we'll get a steer on this in a fortnight.

[dazzaa] 20/10/2016 22:42

Eddy some i nput there, like it too, will respond soon.

On a different matter the profit the i independently made prior to it's sell off to JPR was literately picked from a hat with no real accounting to verify.

They have (Accountants) a special formula and a special name for (determining the unaccountable) perhaps some Accountant might might like to respond, for plucking figures out of a hat.

That said it seems presciently a real good buy, Ok AH reconsider leaving us !

[stdyeddy] 20/10/2016 21:27

Insomnia dazz, that's all it is. Good evening to both of you. Was trying to use the message section of this site earlier but it was making my browser crash repeatedly so I gave up.

Anyway, a few things to discuss; I'm seeing the circulation figures story in the grauniad and bloomberg but it's a bit vague on figures for the i. Where have you seen it reported with more detail?

mrsx; btw brilliant intelligence i have to say - dazz, I hope you're keeping up with her latest.

CA was probably buying last time from around 10p through to perhaps 20p although there are new names on the major shareholders listing who may have added to the momentum so not entirely sure of CA's cost; my guess is that their holding is now averaging somewhere between 27-30p. Am waiting for the new PI buyers here to get bored and sell; expecting the price to drift down a touch until either something newsworthy happens or CA decides to add. I don't think we'll get to 8p again though. We should be seeing an interim statement within a fortnight which might create direction.

dazz/mrsx, please take a look at roy greenslade's latest summary of someone else's news story:



It's an interesting assessment of the news industry's universal failure to achieve online revenue growth, based on an academic study. If you want the actual research report it's here:

hxxp://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17512786.2016.1208056

The central conclusion as far as I can see is that online will NEVER generate sufficient revenue to justify the resources currently being committed and that print is very much alive despite the consistent decline and that print has proven to be the BEST sustainable revenue generator despite exhaustive online efforts.

Unfortunately this last paragraph from me is almost certain to rouse Lord C from his coffin, to assail us with apoplectic splutterings on how he's been telling us this for years on this forum. The study makes him right.

The i is a case in point - keeping its readership while almost all others are declining, through a unique format. The Times might have benefited from the independent's print closure but it's also a great paper and I imagine that's what keeps people buying.

So if we accept this as right; it seems that jpr was right to buy the i and we should be paying more attention to what AH's team is doing and achieving with print - the online tipping point for revenue is NOT COMING ANYTIME SOON. There seem to be a lot of jpr vacancies for advertising sales staff - am assuming this is a good sign.

[dazzaa] 20/10/2016 18:52

He'll be on night shift I'll check at 3 am

[mrx9000] 20/10/2016 18:41

Stdeddy may know CA's average... at a rough guess 30p.

[dazzaa] 20/10/2016 18:18

Yes a good year mrx, oh to achieve 500000 (sales) next year but isn't it surprising the amount negative sales on major titles there are. Pleasing !

What may be less so will be the markets reaction to the never ending loss of regional sales and no statement on asset sales.

C.A it seems are idling in neutral, I may have asked before do we know their average buying price?

[mrx9000] 20/10/2016 14:04

Another month of year on year growth for i paper, up 4.6% in September.

[stdyeddy] 17/10/2016 10:53

Looks to me like a buy worth about £17,400 Simon; no downward movement on the price.

[simonparker5] 17/10/2016 09:09

Looks like someone is desperate to dump some stock this morning 142K just gone through at 12.25p. Hopefully whoever it is will come to regret it.

[dazzaa] 15/10/2016 19:05

Do you know their averaged price?Certainly around 12 ish is good to buy for CA, I can't remember seeing the share price much below that recently and if I were them I'd buy shed loads but will they?

[stdyeddy] 15/10/2016 09:39

No news is the default position from jpr dazz, punctuated by occasional bad news. Am looking at the price and wondering what level it needs to get to for CA to pounce again.

[dazzaa] 15/10/2016 00:43

Well eddy another average week adverts holding up reasonably so no news is good ?...........

[stdyeddy] 13/10/2016 04:31

EasyJet priced the issue of €500m bonds maturing in October 2023 at a coupon of 1.125%. Cantor Fitzgerald said the low coupon rate was attractive.

Ok i appreciate jpr isn't rated as highly as easyjet, but what a difference; 8.625% for the jpr bond coupon. I would really like to hear Rich Bernstein's plan for reducing the interest payouts for jpr.

Whenever jpr gets cash dazz, I'd like to see it spent on buying back the bonds, especially if they can get them at the 38.5% discount quoted today.

[dazzaa] 12/10/2016 22:40

About seven pages ish today so too bad not for mid week any way. I would dearly like to contemplate the thought of Jpr resurrecting itself to godly heights without the intervention, distraction of a t/o which though stimulating the price would never allow the main holders to achieve the HolyGrail of a dividend, why sell at 60p or thereabouts to chrystalise their substantial losses. If anyone purports a higher take out price feel free to offer.If Jpr has turned the corner then we will start to see the results as said starting after the next trading update or ....... not!But oh to have an RNS stating they have sold all unloved titles and want shareholders to write in with their ideas on how to spend.

[mrx9000] 12/10/2016 12:42

Interesting re the bonds and sterling stdyeddy, interesting indeed, that is some drop. In regard Gannett/Newsquest these kind of things seem to happen when you least expect them to... my opinion has not changed in this regard, it would make an almost perfect fit and be considerably EPS earnings enhancing to fit.

Going back to sterling though that you brought up... we are already starting to see takeover targets by foreign investors due to sterling... take for example ARM and Bond International Software, Poundland, etc etc... and then there are the other ones that were rejected initially such as William Hill.

Foreign M&A deals are at a record high...

[mister md] 12/10/2016 12:26

People are getting bored into selling their shares here, but I feel there is more upside to be had. After the strong buying from 15p to 22p+ I dont think we will stay at 14p for long - hopefully we get progress on all fronts reported soon

[stdyeddy] 12/10/2016 12:11

They released an interim statement towards the end of October last yr so we might see something in about a fortnight. Fingers crossed, this is the year it all turns around.

The i felt less than brilliant yesterday - only 5 pages of ads by my count and Sunday's trump/clinton debate felt a bit old to have so much coverage but maybe all the papers were like that on Tuesday. Unfortunate timing i suppose, having the debate late on Sunday - too late for Monday's papers in the UK.

But where o where is newsquest mrsx? Pound at $1.22 and 10% of our favourite publisher can be had for a mere £1.4m today. My money is on the i coming good; I don't think we need a buyout anymore.

The bondholders must be feeling really sick right now; I'm seeing a bid/ask of 55p to 62.5p and the drop in sterling has effectively wiped out the value of the interest payments for any foreign holders. I wonder if CA will put fwd debt restructuring proposals for the interim statement. Now would be a great time to buy up all the bond debt.

[dazzaa] 12/10/2016 11:07

Yes mrx totally agree with you as eddy says next update by Jpr will be an important milestone.