Supporta Share Discussion Threads

[gausie] 19/7/2005 16:50

Am I alone in this one?

[the claw] 14/7/2005 08:01

It shows how far they have come that they can raise £5.5m at 60p.The future order books are impressive. Sticking with my 48,500 shares.

nb Can anyone make sense of the Board structure? Lots of comings and goings and they appear to have 2 Finance Directors.

[deehill] 13/7/2005 11:22

Your comment noted. I will, also investigate but I suspect that there is small cause for doubt in that the companies concerned are now being run as a very tight ship.

[wiganer] 12/7/2005 13:43

I'm a bit bearish on this as I had reason to do some due diligence on the Parys Snowdon group about 12 months before SOR took them over. I have to say that based on that, i think SOR paid hugely over the odds for Parys Snowdon, which was a raggle taggle group of companies, none of which were doing particularly well.

I'd be much more bullish if SOR sold off the underperforming bits it bought, and concentrated on the juicy bits. That combined with the other SOR core business might make it a more appealing prospect than it is right now.

[deehill] 12/7/2005 13:37

Whoever IS selling is getting out at the wrong, very wrong, time. Possible a Trust with a new Inv Manager and a change of emphasis. Poor lad, he will find out how wrong he id, in due course.

[phillis] 21/6/2005 13:21

Inthe sticks - Unicorn disposal I think

[inthesticks] 17/6/2005 18:00

Interesting to see Unicorn topped up again yesterday!!

[phillis] 10/6/2005 12:47

Who is selling and what do they know?

[the claw] 02/6/2005 08:13

I thought that you had looked at the website given your Mears experience, but you never know. (Sorry if it looked patronising!)

I guess that quality is in the eye of the beholder. My understanding is that Parys Snowden is the leader in its sector, and its a sector which still seems to be growing owing to this Government's committment to make every person in the Country a Government employee by the time of the next election.

The provision of social care is also something of a protected species. However, there is plenty of competition and I would concede that I am not so confident about the quality appellation on this business as the other.

One of the problems with assessing Supporta, in my opinion, is that every trading period has contained significant corporate and reorganisation activity. It would be good to see the results of a more normal trading year, in order to see whether it is generating cash. I trust this more than profit, and I know that Bob Holt sets great store by cash generation.

I should declare that I have 47,500 shares in this company so am obviously more bullish than bearish regarding its prospects.

[phillis] 01/6/2005 16:32

Claw - From where do derive the word quality? I know all about what's on the website etc

[the claw] 28/5/2005 12:39

Phillis

The 2 businesses are as follows.

1. Provision of payroll and ancilliary services to the Public Sector.

2. Provision of Social Care workers, again to the Public sector.

The first business was underpinned by the acquisition of Parys Snowden Ltd, thus recognising that growing the "Supporta" business organically was going to take too long, and giving scale to the enterprise.

The second business has seen Wrencare which was acquired in 2002, merged with Quality Care under the stewardship of the QualCare management team. The other "non core" generalist recruitment businesses bought at the same time as Wrencare have been sold. Very sensible, as they did not fit the strategy.

If you have'nt done so I would recommend going to the Supporta website and reviewing the most recent acquisition documents (You need acrobat)which give useful background.

I imagine that Peter Webb is in for the long term.

[phillis] 25/5/2005 16:03

Claw -I'm a lng term Mears holder and bought in low 50s. Waiting for some newsflow and watching closely what Peter Webb does at Unicorn.
Where do you get the evidence that ther are " 2 distinct quality businesses"?

[deehill] 24/5/2005 10:17

Another tick up this fine morning.

[the claw] 19/5/2005 21:36

Bob Holt's style is to keep Institutional shareholders fully informed of progress without puffing up the shares. That is one reason why the share price is remaining so stable.Also most funds are in for the longer term and trust Holt to deliver. ie Unicorn have made fantastic returns on Mears and expect to do the same on Supporta, which now has two distinct quality businesses. (Payroll services etc and provision of social care staff). It is good news that BH remained on the Board after the management changes, because he clearly remains committed to the cause.He does'nt bother with businesses which stand still.

[gausie] 16/5/2005 14:36

Another Bob Holt company (cf Mears).

They've brought in a new board each of whom looks more than competant in the role.

Liquidity is low, and the spread can be evil at times but ...

Public Sector Support Services
Public Sector Payroll
Recruitment and Staffing Agency for Government
Established footprint in healthcare computing
Expertise in NHS auditing ...

New board presumably looking to do new deals.

[deehill] 16/5/2005 11:38

I do apologise, Gentlemen. I started a new strand for Supporta but would gladly relinquish it in favor of this one.
Sir J is right....and this suprises me with all the other Mears Investors in that they seem content to follow Mears but s/b following Holt. If they do, they will find two other companies - Supporta being one of them and Sir J is right when he says that Holt has taken a back seat on this one BUT purely because the current folk running it are more than competent. As I have indicated on the other strand, the firmness of price in SOR is some indication that summats brewing. The other is Wyatt and this one could be even more interesting in that NO LESS THAN THREE Mears Directors appear on its Board. It just has put the drug detection deal under its belt there are indications of other fish to fry. None of the 'smaller Holt's' have really shown their paces, yet but at Mears there is a new CEO in place and, seemningly, he has fitted in right well. Which should leave Mr Holt with some time to devote the other parts of the 'stable'

[sirjasper] 13/5/2005 17:02

Lack of interest on BB for `supporta` is surprising. I am heavily into this one as I am wth Bob Holt`s `Mears Group`.
He knows how to run successful companies and whilst he is now going to take a back seat on this one I have no doubt he will still have input.
With the money pouring into the NHS and this now being directed more to clinical need there is a lot of scope for this company with computerisation of payrolls.
I expect it to perform as good as `Mears` over the short/middle term 1/4 years.

[deehill] 10/5/2005 16:10

I would say there is one major thing to talk about ...and that is how incredibly firm the price is for a stock where there is....nothing to talk about.

[phillis] 10/5/2005 12:14

Nothing to talk about yet

[deehill] 08/5/2005 11:35

No tittle tattling employee's?

[deehill] 30/4/2005 12:19

The price of this little baby has been firm of late and it is, maybe, time there were some overdue announcements. Anyone know anything ?

[deehill] 21/12/2004 11:16

A 'new broom' is supposed to sweep clean...but, in this case is polishing SOR to be the little gem that it always should have been. There is a LOT of steam in this one.

[phillis] 08/12/2004 18:15

None whatsoever!

[marathonmike] 08/12/2004 08:10

Lots happening at SOR today new advisor, interims, disposal:
In addition, we have announced today the sale of four of our general recruitment
businesses, Sarah Harvey (Birmingham), Sarah Harvey (Leamington), Transcend
Recruitment and Rovira Personnel, to Venturestaff UK Limited for a total
consideration of #640,000 plus an earn-out payable in respect of their results
for the year ended 31 March 2006. Full details of the disposals are included in
a separate Announcement issued today. Operating profits of #22,000 on turnover
of #1.7m in respect of these businesses are included in the six months results.

Any chance company is lining itself up as a bid target?