Ncipher Share Discussion Threads

[outsider] 18/3/2008 07:19

link to results too much to copy & paste!

[rivaldo] 14/3/2008 09:56

There's a simple explanation. Robbie Frequenttrader Burns sold his NCH shares a couple of days ago as they weren't performing as well as he expected, and his followers have sold a few in his wake at silly prices, with the MMs taking full advantage given NCH's well-known volatility and the lack of interest in the current market. Look at the volumes - they're tiny.

NCH probably have over £12m or so of cash now, representing around half the current m/cap!

A preview of next Tuesday's results here - incidentally, Panmure's 2008 forecast is by far the lowest of all of the four broker forecasts, with the other three all going for 15p-16.7p EPS:



"Software company nCipher PLC had a solid end to the year. Revenue for the year to December 2007 is likely to be around 24.4 mln stg (slightly lower than Panmure Gordon's estimate), but stronger than expected margins should bring profitability close to its estimate.

The margin strength is positive, demonstrating an ability to maintain stable -- or even improved -- pricing in the core business, says Panmure's Nick James. The analyst has nudged up his forecasts for 2007, and now looks for EBIT of 3.39 mln stg instead of 3.37 mln. At this point, James continues to model significantly lower gross margins -- 77 pct versus 85 pct -- in 2008.

Part of this is driven by a growing contribution from lower margin Professional Services revenue, but he is also modelling lower product margins. Meanwhile, his EBIT forecast for 2008 has been trimmed to 3.35 mln from 3.39 mln.

Over at KBC Peel Hunt, Simon Strong predicts nCipher will produce year to December 2007 pretax profits of 3.6 mln, producing EPS of 9.8 pence.

He points out that the year will only partly reflect the financial impact of the tender offer that occurred in July 207.

The analyst believes that newly appointed CEO Geoffrey Finlay will soon outline his plans for bulking up the scale of the company, expanding in the US and raising the proportion of revenues derived from software activities."

[jonnyno1] 14/3/2008 09:52

this is not good, i dearly hope its not an insider.

[wjccghcc] 14/3/2008 08:56

I wonder if the new CEO is going to do a shakeup. The HSM business is a gem but the other aquisitions seem a bit of a ragbag.

[sheik yerbouti] 14/3/2008 08:38

Hopefully it's just a forced seller. Or it could be the SCSW curse!
They must be a tempting takeover target at these prices?

[outsider] 14/3/2008 08:35

No idea. I think fear breeds fear, We know results are inline, the directors are in closed period, so just gotta wait til tuesday.

[nurdin] 14/3/2008 08:31

Hmmm...wonder why NCH are being sold off...any ideas guys?

[outsider] 13/3/2008 05:44

I think another reason these have slipped or remain unloved is people have failed to notice that there is a hidden real growth in profits here, if forecasts are met...ie interest rc'd was running at 2.1m per year ....75%-80% of that is now gone.....so the increase from 3.4m profit in 2007, to 4m in 2008 (assuming brokers f/c are met) looks just ok, but is actually hiding a further 1.5m increase, replacing lost interest.....having said that some interest was lost in half 2 2007, but it illustrates my point, that in real terms profits are booming.


Put another way take out *750k of 2007 profits due to interest rcd first half, and you have the real increase in profits in percentage terms, so you would have pre-tx of 2.65m in 2007 and 4m in 2008....a REAL increase in profits of circa 50%...all being equal....allowing for reduced cash pile.


*This beng the approx amount NCH benefitted by having a extra 34m cash at the time.


So while the pre-tax looks to be increasing a respectable 17% or so the underlying growth adjusting for interest payments on cash is a very healthy 50%.


Thats one major reason I bought, coupled with the fact NCH hasn't been this low sincec early 2004.

[a.fewbob] 12/3/2008 16:41

Wow, now I see why they have been sold off, they have already sold their products to just about every blue chip and now only have the small fry to chase!

[outsider] 12/3/2008 16:07

As well as financial clients...other non-financial we know about are:

ISP/ASPs

XO Communications
MSN Hotmail
Exostar

Telcoms/Wireless/Mobile

Commerce
AT&T
GTE
Lucent
Smart Trust
Verizon

Government Departments

Irish Department of Defence
UK Department of Work.and Pensions
U.S. Department of Defense

Certificate Authorities

eCertify
GlobalSign
GTE
Identrus
Interclear
Microsoft
Netscape/AOL
PricewaterhouseCoopers
VeriSign

Others:

Antioch
ECEBS
E.ON Energie
Exostar
GigaTrust
iPIN
MonsterCommerce
Petsmart.com
Royal Mail
Securify
Sporting Index
Volvo

[outsider] 12/3/2008 11:53

Yes I think a little finance related, but well overdone, security has to be priority no if's or buts. I also think the acqiusition could prove very worthwhile, furthermore their is a determination to solve the financial crisis, and the drop seems mostly on small sells, an ideal opportunity to buy in my opinion, especailly as there must be an excellent chance, the worst of the financial crisis is over......not sure if I bought my 7500 at the bottom, but I hope I'm notfar off!

Also hoping the price should at least stabilize if not have a small run up to the results.


Worth remembering too Governments and British Library and ahost of other non-financial related organiations are also clients, many of who NCH can't name.

[a.fewbob] 12/3/2008 11:26

Not that I'm to worried considering just how under valued NCH is currently. Just how much bad news do they feel needs to be priced in!

[a.fewbob] 12/3/2008 11:25

Thanks for the new thread.

"We can count many of the largest and best known companies as our customers, including all of the world's ten largest financial institutions."

Do you think that this is what is making the market nervous with regard to NCH? After all the finacial stocks are not doing to well at the moment.

[outsider] 12/3/2008 11:10

PLUS trades so far:

12/03/2008 08:21:40 165.90 7,500 O 12,442.50
12/03/2008 08:15:20 158.00 759 O 1,199.22
11/03/2008 13:28:17 158.00 500 O 790.00
11/03/2008 12:18:38 162.50 1,500 O 2,437.50
11/03/2008 11:52:44 158.00 1,500 O 2,370.00

[happywanderer] 12/3/2008 10:30

MMs had to push the bid up to 162p to drag in those 24 shares. LOL!
Hoping for more action after results.

[outsider] 12/3/2008 09:26

Results are this coming Tuesday, NCH have already told us they will meet expectations, I think a p/e of 11 going forward is far too cheap, with the mountain of cash still, in relation to mkt cap, and the Neoscale acquisition which could turn out to be a very very shrewd piece of business, also remembering there will be far less shares in issue next year, due to the previous cash payback.

[outsider] 12/3/2008 08:36

new thread here:

[outsider] 12/3/2008 08:31

WARNING Please note I have not verified the information contained in this thread so PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH


About nCipher

nCipher protects critical enterprise data for many of the world's most security-conscious organisations. Delivering solutions in the fields of identity management, data protection, enterprise key management and cryptographic hardware, nCipher enables businesses to identify who can access data, to protect data in transit and at rest, and to comply with the growing number of privacy-driven regulations. It recently had a bid of 300p/share blocked by the Competition Commission, after which it returned 34 million pounds to shareholders, for a circa 41% reduction in shares. In December 2007 it bought the assets of Neoscale for just 1 million pounds, despite Neoscale spending a fortune on R&D and acheiving sales of USD18m in 2006. Neoscale, brings 350 end users to nCipher. nCipher currently has over 7m in cash.






"Our customers range from the world's top three pharmaceutical companies, four out of five of the world's largest energy companies, more than half of the world's ten major aerospace and defence companies as well as nine out of ten of the world's largest banks, demonstrating the breadth of the security solutions in which nCipher is involved."





2002 (3.35m) loss
2003 (0.68m) loss
2004 2.36m profit
2005 3.01m profit
2006 (5.49m) loss (inc. excptnl of 8.47m & bid distraction)
2007 3.40m profit

[outsider] 12/3/2008 08:23

Bought in myself today,,,,,,solid niche company,,,,,cracking acquistion at a snip last time, will start a new thread as this one seems dated.

Looking forward to results next tuesday.

[outsider] 12/3/2008 08:12

possibly corporate outlook not so strong


From IndigoVision today:

"We are seeing some signs of slower spending by corporate end users and it is
clear that some economies are at risk of recession."

[a.fewbob] 11/3/2008 22:05

Thanks outsider.

Do you have any idea for the current weakness? Last trading statement said that they were trading in line with expectations but the stock price would indicate otherwise. Techinvest may have been mistaken to make these their 2008 nap tip.

[outsider] 11/3/2008 12:09

online can sell 1000 @ 158p

& buy 25 x that (25,000) at 165.5p

[outsider] 11/3/2008 09:08

yes
11/03/2008 09:03:13 160.00 800 O 1,280.00
11/03/2008 09:03:12 160.00 823 O 1,316.80
11/03/2008 09:02:44 160.00 565 O 904.00
11/03/2008 09:02:10 162.00 5,150 O 8,343.00
11/03/2008 08:28:38 162.00 918 O 1,487.16
10/03/2008 15:18:55 163.00 3,000 O 4,890.00
10/03/2008 15:13:13 169.30 1,755 O 2,971.22
10/03/2008 15:12:58 163.00 368 O 599.84
10/03/2008 15:12:44 163.00 267 O 435.21
10/03/2008 15:06:01 165.00 248 O 409.20
10/03/2008 15:06:00 165.00 536 O 884.40
10/03/2008 08:51:40 170.00 2,001 O 3,401.70
10/03/2008 08:39:04 170.00 606 O 1,030.20
10/03/2008 08:02:55 173.90 287 O 499.09

[a.fewbob] 11/3/2008 08:45

Do they have a dual listing?