Research Now Share Discussion Threads

[typo56] 06/7/2007 10:11

Surely the company should have made an announcement regarding the death of their Finance Manager on 13th Jan and consequent major business disruption long before their trading statement on 4th May?

And how come director Charles Fairbairn was permitted to sell his entire holding, presumably shortly after this incident but before the shareholders had been notified of the major disruption. The RNS of 12 Feb states that the company was informed of his sale on 9 Feb, but no mention of the actual date he sold, or the price he received. Surely that information is normally made transparent? I wonder why it wasn't in this case.

[cr4zyness] 06/7/2007 09:53

Pre,

Did they like the results??? or are the mm's making profit off the dumped shares on Tuesday!

7% bid/offer is not the usually spread would like to see the mm's increase bid to £2.75 to see strong order book, 42,000 trades hardly a stampede

Good luck whatever your stance

[pre] 06/7/2007 09:42

Agree with your views barrybaker...this company looks very strong and excellent outlook going forward bodes well...the market certainly liked results imo:-)

[barrybaker] 06/7/2007 09:40

One aspect of this stock that does annoy me however, is the huge spread - nearly 10%. It hardly encourages trading.

[barrybaker] 06/7/2007 09:39

I think RNOW is a good stock, I was with them from £4 to £4.50 in January (obviously selling out far too early). I bought some at £2.40 after the big fall a couple of days ago.

I think, unless something sinister is underfoot with the errors in accounting, that the drop was massively overdone. I see no reason why it shouldn't get upto £3.50 - £4.00 in the fairly short term.

[nurdin] 06/7/2007 09:30

I hope it does :o)

[cr4zyness] 06/7/2007 09:20

Still short see £2 being hit soon ;)

[pre] 06/7/2007 09:08

Strong H2 growth expected...wouldn't surprise me if the directors snap stock up cheaply at current price:-)

[hew] 06/7/2007 09:08

WJCC, fair point, my loose phrasing. I was concentrating on the numbers!

[nurdin] 06/7/2007 08:47

Well I managed to get some at 268p and well pleased with that.Would have been better buying a couple of days ago but wanted to make sure the interims didnt have any more surprises on the downside.Margins which will take a a bit of a hit this year should normalise over time imo.

[wjccghcc] 06/7/2007 08:37

Not sure you can call the 0.6mm cost of buying in research as exceptional. It is part of their ongoing business requirements, although hopefully will decrease over time.

[pre] 06/7/2007 08:27

Cracking set of results...way too cheap imo....very strong start already and outlook is very bouyant....

[hew] 06/7/2007 08:22

Seems that Pbt less goodwill for RNOW (ex Openvenue) would have been £0.92m if not for the two exceptional losses. Compared with previous 1st half £0.46m that is a 100% improvement. Need a proper look, but glad that share price rise of 10% agrees that underlying picture is still bright.

[jojaken] 06/7/2007 07:44

The biggest disappointment was that they had to buyin panels from other companies as they were selling multi-country surveys for which they hadn't established panels. However this was well flagged. However for which ever company/companies they are using, RNOW must be an interesting target to lock in the use of their own panels rather than let RNOW establish their own panels over the next 6-12 months. Will be interesting to see if the huge discount to the likes of YOU and TOL is reduced now no new worms have appeared from the woodwork.

[darcon] 06/7/2007 07:21

PBT for 2007 will depend on results of second half because according to interims in first half: "Profit before tax and goodwill amortisation for the six months was #0.16m (2006:#0.46m) after taking account of the events referred to"

[darcon] 04/7/2007 12:28

Yes, I think that's right. So PBT of approx 2m for 2007. Of course, if sales continue growing at current phenomenal rate then may be more than that notwithstanding the lower margin

[wjccghcc] 04/7/2007 11:12

Agreed, I'd factor in maybe 0.9mm reduction for the full year since they've been building the US panel and won't have to subcontract so much in H2.

[darcon] 04/7/2007 10:19

WJCCGHCC the trading statement says that the 0.6mm of costs is for first 6months and may continue for a while. So the reduction to the forecast PBT for the year may be greater than 0.6m. So assuming it is same for second six months and total extra costs of 1.2m then that would reduce PBT to 1.7m.

[dosullivan] 04/7/2007 00:11

What has happened to all of this? Will it recover?
Friday, November 24, 2006


Tripled earnings as Research Now expands internationally
The explosive progress of Google, now over $500 against my initial recommendation price of $100, highlights the rate at which advertising is moving on-line.

Equally striking, although less widely reported, is the rate at which research is also moving on to the Internet. This is a sector in which I can hardly recommend shares fast enough. I have already tipped Datamonitor, Thomson Intermedia, YouGov and Toluna and they are all showing gains, some spectacular, on my recommendation prices.


Research Now
Business Summary
Research Now is an independent European provider of online fieldwork to the market research industry.



Now I have another red-hot stock to recommend in Research Now, a company, which operates online panels in the UK, continental Europe, the US and Australia and which is growing at a meteoric pace.

Superb set of results expected
Research Now is due to report its full year results for the year to 31 October on 10 January. On 8 November the company electrified investors by saying that it expected those results to show profits exceeding £1.6m, more than three times the £520,000 reported for the previous year. Sales also have increased strongly with over £9.6m expected versus £3.64m the year before.

Research Now is a leading European online fieldwork provider to the market research industry. "Fieldwork" is the collection of survey data via personal interviews – a process that Research Now undertakes online from its panel, which was already over 600,000 potential respondents as at August 2005 and bigger now (see below) – making Research Now the owner of the largest online research panels in Europe.

Typically market research fieldwork surveys have been undertaken on either a 'face to face' basis or via the telephone. Research Now believes that a structural shift in the research industry is underway towards undertaking fieldwork online – largely a result of it often being cheaper, faster and better than traditional survey methods.

Click here to see latest charts and prices for Research Now

Market Data
EPIC Company Share Price Market Cap £m PER Dividend Yield% 12-Month hi-lo Company Report
RNOW Research Now 337.5 43.5 61.4 nil 337.5-162 --



Online surveys are where the growth is fastest
In the US, online survey research has grown from constituting only approximately nine per cent of the total US survey research market in 2000 to being an estimated 29 per cent of the market in August 2005 when Research Now shares were floated at 130p. The company believes that the European online market lags the US at only four per cent market share, but it is rapidly increasing and is showing a similar growth rate to that experienced in the US.

Research Now derives around 90 per cent of revenues from work subcontracted from market research agencies including projects for six out of 10 of the world's top agencies. The majority of revenue comes from repeat clients split between one-off, 'Custom' and ongoing projects, 'Trackers'.

Although founded in 2000 the current business activity of performing online fieldwork was not established until 2003 when the business was relaunched as Research Now.

In September 2006 the group announced the formation of its latest online national panel taking its coverage to 20 countries. The latest panel is in Hungary with its population of 10m of whom more than 3m are internet users and where consumer expenditure has nearly doubled in the last five years leading to increasing demand for consumer research.

Click here to see latest charts and prices for Research Now

Financial Data
Fiscal Year Proj Turnover £m Pretax Profit Change % EPS Change % DPS Change
%
2005 3.64 0.52 NA 5.22 NA NA
2006 * 12.5 NA NA NA
2007 * 14.7 NA NA NA

EPS - Earnings per Share
DPS - Dividend per Share


A million panellists help company gauge what 600m consumers are thinking
The launch of the Hungarian panel brings the company's total panel size to almost one million enabling clients to access a snapshot of the opinions of nearly 600m consumers in the largest markets of Europe.

In the US the company recently opened its second office in San Francisco, adding to its existing office in New York. The company is addressing strong demand from North American clients for the group's European panel and fieldwork services. In addition to opening the new office the company also announced a string of high-level appointments.

Investors are often wary of very fast-growing companies wondering if the pace of growth can be sustained. But Research Now has already achieved considerable scale in its operations and looks like a business capable of generating sales and profits at a multiple even of the newly forecast levels. The shares look exciting and reasonably priced on a multiple of around 24 times the upgraded earnings expected for 2006-07.

[dosullivan] 04/7/2007 00:04

Friday, February 02, 2007


Research Now buys OpenVenue to expand in North America
By Kewill Ludens.

Online panel provider, Research Now, is on fire. The shares, in which I have a holding, have rocketed from my November recommendation price of 337.5p to 525p helped by November's news that last year's earnings had at least tripled.

A further boost has been given by last Wednesday's announcement that the company was to buy OpenVenue, a Canadian equivalent of Research Now, based in Toronto and making one third of its sales into the US, OpenVenue is Canada's largest specialist online fieldwork company.

The initial consideration is £9.7m split equally between cash and shares with additional payments up to £10.8m subject to the achievement of performance targets. In the 12 months to 30 June 2006 OpenVenue's turnover was C$15.3m (£6.6m) with earnings before interest, tax and non-recurring items of C$2.8m (£1.2m).


Expanding into the global marketplace
The acquisition will extend Research Now's market leading position in Europe to the Canadian market and fits with its strategy to be a leading player in the global market place. It also strengthens the group's hand in addressing the US market where it already has sales and client service offices in New York, Chicago and San Francisco providing European opinion into the US market.

It entered the US market last year and had already achieved more than £1m of profitable sales from a standing start by the end of October 2006. It is easy to see huge demand for the group's panels from multinational companies eager to sample opinion on their products and plans.

On this basis a company capitalised at around £68m (pre completion of the OpenVenue deal) looks tiny in relation to where it could be going. I am also impressed that they have settled half the consideration in cash despite their rocketing share price. I can see these shares hitting £10 in no time.


I wish i never listened to him!! Where r they going?? One profit warning is often followed by 2 more!

[yf23_1] 03/7/2007 22:35

If the 0.6m costs they found are normal business costs, then that would be 30% plus of the 1.6m profits.

Still too highly rated IMO

[qs9] 03/7/2007 21:11

FOrecasts I can see, pre-warning, show c.£2m PBT, is this right? If so then being capitalised at over £30m to me is still wrong given uncertainty, no FD, cash likely to be an issue, price competition etc etc etc. Also one warning like this can often lead to another one as new management team (in this case FD?) takes kitchen sink to figures to ensure they carry no blame going forward and can blame predecessor, therefore often a 2nd one appears.....DYOR, but fact it dipped again by 20p+ towards end of day suggests it will test £2 again tomorrow.

Cheers for now,

[diogenesj] 03/7/2007 21:10

May just be a blip, but bad news tends to come out over a period, and there's a risk we haven't heard it all yet. I think I'll stay on the sidelines a bit longer.

[hew] 03/7/2007 19:56

Darcon,

I see the positives too and although today's news shows a real foul-up, and managerially inexcusable, I add to your list that, for the forseeable, RNOW will have one of the most closely monitored internal financial systems on AIM!

I missed out on buying 12 months ago and, whatever the bouncing around in price over the next days and weeks, I'm happy to have now joined the shareholders. As one of the 100% losers on Torex Retail recently I can fully sympathise with those who took today's hit, but I have strong expectations of a major recovery over the next 12 months.

There are blatently bear comments in some posts above and there is bound to be some shorting, but I think shorters from here are on dodgy ground for significant further falls. In these circumstances I would have "spelt out the problem" today, taken the full hit, and "started the recovery" with the positives in the Interims on Friday.

By the way, in my experience, the IC jargon for "likely to fall" is "High Enough", not "Fairly Priced", which just means what it says.

No advice of course, but I'm pleased to now be in.