ADVFN Logo

We could not find any results for:
Make sure your spelling is correct or try broadening your search.

Trending Now

Toplists

It looks like you aren't logged in.
Click the button below to log in and view your recent history.

Hot Features

Registration Strip Icon for alerts Register for real-time alerts, custom portfolio, and market movers

ATCG AT Commun.

3.875
0.00 (0.00%)
28 Mar 2024 - Closed
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Type Share ISIN Share Description
AT Commun. LSE:ATCG London Ordinary Share GB00B0C8K346 ORD 1P
  Price Change % Change Share Price Shares Traded Last Trade
  0.00 0.00% 3.875 0.00 00:00:00
Bid Price Offer Price High Price Low Price Open Price
Industry Sector Turnover Profit EPS - Basic PE Ratio Market Cap
  -
Last Trade Time Trade Type Trade Size Trade Price Currency
- O 0 3.875 GBX

AT Communications (ATCG) Latest News

Real-Time news about AT Commun. (London Stock Exchange): 0 recent articles

AT Communications (ATCG) Discussions and Chat

AT Communications Forums and Chat

Date Time Title Posts
09/9/200909:04AT COMMUNICATIONS: A real ICT value play !1,597
04/8/200907:22AT - high debts and finance director leaves on 18 July35
04/8/200900:20BUY ATCG7
03/11/200807:23ATCG , an undervalued company.81
04/9/200812:14AT COMMUNICATIONS1,093

Add a New Thread

AT Communications (ATCG) Most Recent Trades

No Trades
Trade Time Trade Price Trade Size Trade Value Trade Type

AT Communications (ATCG) Top Chat Posts

Top Posts
Posted at 24/6/2009 20:35 by cocker
should have smelt the rat with no director buys over the last few months, whilst the share price drifted to what seemed a bargain.
Posted at 05/6/2009 09:57 by staymour
The recent announcement said that sales were a bit behind the curve, so to speak, but new business still being won.

They also said that they were beginning the process of better matching staff levels to anticipated revenues, that is slimming the business down to a more appropiate level.

Perhaps this slimming down has been somewhat overdue?

However what has scared investors into such dumping over the last few days is the worry that because of the project delay they will need to secure an increased level of bank financing and that the banks might be unwilling to accomodate this.

Now the banks have been supportive of ATCG for some time and at quite high levels of debt.

So has ATCG's business collapsed to the extent that their bankers would view it as an unjustifiable risk?

Well according to the recent announcement ATCG's directors feel that the cost reductions together with current trading will help to mitigate the project delay. This being the case the banks should remain supportive.
Posted at 01/6/2009 13:34 by tiltonboy
Share price has been saying there is a problem for some time.
Posted at 22/5/2009 09:49 by masurenguy
Hi jwe - fair point. AT has around 13m or nearly 17% of the shares. Don't know what his average price is since he had around 11.7m at the time of the IPO so one might imagine that he might not be much underwater here. Scott Kean also had circa 2.5m at the IPO compared to 2.7m now so he is probably at a similar cost price.

Other directors and former directors are not so fortunate since in most cases they acquired their shares post IPO. The most obvious example is former FD Ian Crawley who holds 2.46m at an average price of around 40p. He is down almost £750k at the current share price !

I suspect that AT may wait if he thinks that the company fortunes will now be on the up following the Rocom sale. Eventually I think that he will dispose of his holding in one or more blocks to an institution since there is insufficient liquidity to sell them in the open market - it could take years.

The other possibility of course is that ATC could be taken over by a larger Telecoms outfit who might now view them as good value at say 25p/30p or £20m/£23m now that Rocom has gone. Debt is at much more managable levels and the remaining core business is forecasted to achieve an eps of 4.3p this year and 5.8p next year with debt also reducing to £4m/£5m by then.

I think that the takeover option is the most likely scenario but we can only wait and see what the happens !
Posted at 17/5/2009 19:34 by masurenguy
The most recent Cenkos Note for those who have mot seen it.
...........................................................

15 April 2009
AT Communications
Price Target 34p
52-week range 9.75p - 35p

AT Communications (ATC) announced preliminary results for the year to December
2009 today. The figures are over-shadowed by the recent disposal of Rocom
(announced in March 2009), which has strengthened the group s balance sheet and
prospects. That said, the numbers were in line with our expectations - EBITDA was up 4% at £8.7m on sales of £98.4m (£88.4m). This organic revenue growth of 11% was driven by a particularly strong performance from Servassure which delivered a 58% increase in sales on the back of c£2m of investment in H1 2008. PBT was down 4% at £6.0m, due to higher interest expenses in 2008, but net debt of £18.1m was well down on the interim level (£22m). The sale of Rocom for £12.45m has improved the groups financial strength further, but net proceeds were only c£8m after the payment of fees, and a working capital investment in the two months before sale.

The Rocom disposal has improved ATC s financial position and the continuing
operations, which generated sales growth of 22% in 2008, are well positioned to
deliver further growth in profitability and cash flow in 2009 and beyond.
However, the rating (EV/EBITDA of 3.9 and PE of 3.3 to December 2009) is
unlikely to improve until the group can give clear evidence of cash generation.

Forecasts
We are forecasting revenue and EBITDA for 2009 of £54.4m & £5.1m respectively.
These figures exclude the two months of contribution from Rocom in 2009, which we estimate to amount to revenue of £7m and EBITDA of £0.4m, and assume that sales increase by only 3% in 2009. Given organic sales growth in 2008 of 22% and a number of encouraging contract wins in recent months, we consider this assumption to be conservative.

Cash Flow and Balance Sheet
ATC has had to invest a significant amount of capital to fund the growth of the last two years. In 2008, there was a £7.6m working capital outflow, primarily to finance the 58% sales growth at Servassure and additional product lines at Rocom (c1.6m). We are forecasting net debt to fall to c£9m by the end of 2009 given the proceeds of the Rocom disposal and the reduction in working capital investment required as growth slows.

Graeme Kemp
Research Analyst
+44 (0)20 7397 8915
gkemp@cenkos.com
Stuart Lunn
Research Analyst
+44 (0)131 9771
slunn@cenkos.com
Share Price Performance

Significant Share Holders
Timothy Alexander Tupman 16.8%
Rathbone Investment Mgt 9.2%
New Star Asset Mgt 4.1%
Scott Charles Kean 3.4%
Ian Crawley 3.1%
Other Directors/Officers 0.2%
Cenkos Securities plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority and is a member of the London Stock Exchange.
Posted at 18/1/2009 12:44 by tundertre
My thoughts? If I was AT I would be looking to get the banks off my back a bit right now. We are in a period where 'cash is king' and although ATCG is a cash-generative business they are mostly using it to service debts right now.

We have seen a modest upward drift in the share price on small to zero volume recently. What's that about? Nobody in the City likes Tupman, so it's not his fan-base doing that.

So, my GUESS is that AT would be looking kindly on anything that would generate cash right now, and would even consider selling off parts of their business (ones they do not care for) to do so. Just backing a hunch I think they might really do it. Wether it will be good or bad for the share price i cannot say. And don't overmuch care since I have a zero holding currently, but keep this on my screen for old times sake.

T123.
Posted at 13/8/2008 17:16 by masurenguy
Hmm....well the share price is down circa 13% since you last posted on June 8th and over the same period the AIM All Share Index is down 22% so on that basis the ATCG share price has fallen considearbly less than the overall AIM market. The Daily Mail and Independent have both speculated about an MBO and both reports have been completely without any foundation. The company issued an RNS to refute the last newspaper story and there continues to be no substance whatsoever in speculation about any potential MBO !

The last placing was at 47p in July 2007. Since then the shares have fallen by 45% and there are very many other small caps - both FTSE 350 and AIM - that have fallen more than that over the same timescale. Neither commonsense, gut instinct or even prior discussions with the company gives me any reason to believe than anything is 'amiss'. They continue to increase both sales and profits and the depressed price is more a reflection of the amount of debt (£15m at the last year end) that they are carrying as a legacy of the Rocom acquisition some 2 years ago plus the fact that we are also in a bear market which tends to hit small cap share prices far more than larger companies.

I don't think that you are even a shareholder here so I'm not sure either of your agenda or the point you are trying to make !
Posted at 19/7/2008 09:01 by masurenguy
Perplexed by the sudden departure of Ian Crawley after just a year as FD, I had a quick look to see what third party information I could find on ATCG to see if it might provide any insight into this latest development. The most recent comments I could find were a brief GCI comment on a new small cap fund planning to invest in ATCG almost 3 weeks ago and AiW's coverage of the AGM back in April.

Both pieces are quite positive although one can never be sure of unforseen events that can subsequently emerge, particularly in this current climate. Anyway, they are reproduced below - I'm sure that there will be some further insight into this sudden and rather unexpected FD change in due course.

.........................................................................................

GCI 30/06/2008: Judith MacKenzie, partner and manager of the forthcoming Acuity Capital Real Active Management (RAM) Fund, is confident that the UK smaller company sector offers attractive investment opportunities. Set for launch at the end of July, the fund will invest in around 25-30 companies, mostly sub-£50 million market cap concerns, with a focus on those that have either fallen from grace or have turnaround potential.

MacKenzie believes the fund will take advantage of a 'tipping point' in a cycle now opening up in favour of smaller companies. She points out, 'The situations that we were looking at that were good value and cash-generative about 12 months ago were sitting on price/earnings (p/e) ratios of less than ten times – these are now three to four times. 'We are seeing companies with all the right attributes trading at very low valuations.
We think it's a good tipping point in the cycle to get involved with these companies.'

Having previously been employed as Aberdeen Asset Management's senior investment manager, MacKenzie has a wealth of small-cap experience, which, she argues, sets this fund apart. "Using past experience of private equity means we can look at things in a slightly different way and because we are a petite fund management house, we are more capable of moving quickly. It's also quite difficult to get exposure to small caps in the way that we're doing it, through applying this private equity due-diligence process."

Time to call on AT
MacKenzie has her eye on £21.6 million telecoms company AT Communications. 'This company has tripped up a couple of times, but has always hit profit forecasts. It was unfortunately caught up in the Torex case a few years back and although it wasn't directly involved, the share price was affected, but it is more or less back on track now. 'This is a company we have known for some time and have done some work on. It is sitting on a p/e of about three times, which is pretty cheap for a company of this size. AT also has a consistent track record, which is very important.'

........................................................................................

The AiW April 10th AGM report on TMF:

Extracts:

1. The presentation was made by Alex Tupman, CEO, and Ian Crawley. AT was in a very colourful shirt. Both Alex and Ian were very welcoming (Ian has a very firm handshake). Ian had to stifle a few yawns, its tough being a FD these days given all the changes to accounting standards, but Alex was very lively, very positive about ATCG's prospects. Ian was also in a very relaxed mood, the atmosphere was friendly, both Alex and Ian were confident and excited about the future prospects of the group.

2. ATCG was a considerably riskier proposition last year compared to the ATCG of today. The message of yesterday is that the three divisions are firing on all cylinders, the business model is the right one. As a result of maintenance and network services being typically three-year contracts, there is good visibility of earnings going forward – over 70% of revenues are contracted and recurring. (as in 70% of last year's revenue.)

3. From the presentation:

- New bank facilities in place
- Net debt reduced by £3.1m in Q4 to £15.4m at year-end
- Net debt focus to fall further to c£12m by December 2008
- Restructured business capable of securing global, multi-sited clients: high-margin business
- Contracted and recurring revenues over 70%
- Board confident of continued growth and future prospects.

A few more words on the bank debt:

- ATCG very pleased with their relationship with HBOS
- The new facility will reduce interest costs going forward
- Five-year amortising facility, although there is a significant bullet component.

4. I have seen Alex show signs of extreme frustration in the past when the share price was mentioned, and this was when the share price was above 40p. Yesterday, he just shrugged and smiled. The signs yesterday were positive with regard to the actual business. The dynamics between the CEO and the FD were good, they clearly believe they have done the difficult work, and there was a lot of difficult work to do in 2007. They now can concentrate on the day-to-day issues of driving the company forward. They also very clearly believe that ATCG is one or two steps ahead of the competition, there was quite a lot of discussion about this at the meeting.

5. Today, ATCG seems to be in the position they want to be in. If the smiles on the faces of the CEO & FD are now translated into new contracts, high margins and tight working capital management, we should see a re-rating when the interim results are announced.

Complete Post:
Posted at 11/2/2008 17:51 by masurenguy
Fair comment - companies that are comparatively highly geared in this climate are being heavily penalised by the market and that is really the main reason why the ATCG share price has suffered over the past 6 months.
Posted at 11/2/2008 17:38 by stemis
Instead this is virtually being priced to go bust !

I don't have visibility of the detailed brokers forecast but the expected PBT of £6.2m (see trading statement) must equate to an EBIT of £7.6m or so.

On a fully taxed basis that makes enterprise value about 7.3 x earnings. That's pretty cheap but its not hard to find stocks trading on lower ratings than that. There's usually something the market doesn't like about them and in ATCG's case I'd suggest it is their cashflow.

The problem with high debt is the leverage effect on value. ATCG share price could drop 10% but it would only reduce the enterprise rating to 6.8 x
AT Communications share price data is direct from the London Stock Exchange

Your Recent History

Delayed Upgrade Clock