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MCRB Mcb Fin Grp.

122.50
0.00 (0.00%)
18 Mar 2024 - Closed
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Type Share ISIN Share Description
Mcb Fin Grp. LSE:MCRB London Ordinary Share GB00B1LD2G45 ORD 10P
  Price Change % Change Share Price Shares Traded Last Trade
  0.00 0.00% 122.50 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 0 122.50 GBX

MCB Finance (MCRB) Latest News

Real-Time news about Mcb Fin Grp. (London Stock Exchange): 0 recent articles

MCB Finance (MCRB) Discussions and Chat

MCB Finance Forums and Chat

Date Time Title Posts
09/2/201517:47Mobile Credit with Charts & News149

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MCB Finance (MCRB) Most Recent Trades

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MCB Finance (MCRB) Top Chat Posts

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Posted at 21/12/2014 10:54 by xenawarriorprincess
Disappointed with the agreed bid of 125p - but no choice but to run with the big boys.

MCRB is potentially worth much more than that, so I would conclude that either -

1. The recapitalization, refinancing of MCRB by the beginning of March 2015 was proving much more problematic than the company has ever admitted, or

2. IPF have just got an absolute bargain, or

3. Possibly both

IPF should be able to extract a profit of around £4M-£5m per annum out of this, and they're paying about £22M for it, and getting all the new digital products, sving, creditline, and 10 years management experience in running the digital offerings, and a credit book in 5 new countries which has a level of defaults 40% lower than their own offerings into the bargain - all chucked in for free - an absolute steal.

From the RNS it looks like management will be looked after - I don't hold much truck with the Boards recommendation, but if Dermot has agreed to it (and he has) then this will be the best thing going from his point of view as a shareholder - and that is good enough (albeit a little disappointing) for me.

But MCRB listed around 8 years ago at 135p, (180p on first days dealings) so although they survived the 2008 crash, despite the loan book being much larger, all that investment in new digital products, innovation, territories, a low rate of defaults etc., they have over 8 years actually managed to destroy shareholder value.

Over the years the company made a number of major strategic errors - the attempt to go private, losing the support of the major shareholders, the launch in Australia (I thought it a bold move at the time - it now appears to have been simply bonkers), spending loads on new digital platforms and technology and then not having the money to roll them out properly (or at all), paying high interest on the bonds, while everyone else was paying much less, which then sucked out much of the company's profits.

Indeed it is only in the last two years - really since the arrival of Paul Aylieff as Finance Director, that the company really seems to have made strides forward and been run properly on a day to day basis. So that has resulted in a highly profitable day to day business albeit crippled by the previous strategic errors.

And IPF, through their well timed low ball offer which will benefit from all the hard work over the last several years.

I suppose there is an outside chance of a counter bid from somewhere (anywhere), but the market doesn't appear to expect one and so I'll simply hold out to extract my full 125p from these.

So I'll come out with a significant profit, having been buying on and off for over 3 years, but I think the company could have done so much better if it had its act together much earlier, and operated as a company actually listed on the stock market rather than as a private entity.
Posted at 16/12/2014 15:06 by xenawarriorprincess
Surprised at the lack of activity here - almost no one is interested in this share.

The market appears to be pricing in a bid at 85p-100p, or even no bid at all. I can't imagine it would be that low - or if it was that the major shareholders would vote in favour.

But a bid appears pretty certain - reasons given for the delay -

"in order to allow time for completion of the procedures for obtaining a conditional waiver of certain change of control and similar provisions under the asset backed fixed rate notes and the subordinated fixed rate notes issued by MCB Treasury AB (a wholly-owned subsidiary of MCB) and MCB, respectively, and in order to allow IPF to complete its remaining due diligence."

Bondholders and remaining due diligence. I can't imagine MCRB would fail due diligence, and I assume that MCRB wish to change the terms of the bonds to allow them to continue in effect until 7th March, rather than be redeemed on the takeover (I'm guessing of course).

So IPF would at present on any takeover only have to pay for MCRB itself, they've got £80M cash, and could then make arrangements to raise finance to redeem the bonds in March 2015 - from memory something like £30M is owed on the bonds at present.

It appears to be a serious approach, and almost done apart from tying up a few loose ends.

Hence my surprise at lack of market reaction.

As you say, we'll know by Friday.
Posted at 15/12/2014 18:06 by xenawarriorprincess
Presumably IPF can't reach agreement with the main shareholders on the value of MCRB - so the shareholders may be holding out for more than IPF are willingly ready to pay; or they may be prepared to accept IPF shares (one for one would be very good), which aren't presently on offer.

We will know within 24 hours, but of course there will be an incentive for IPF to take out a more agile and lower cost rival, and thus do a deal.

And if the takeover doesn't take place MCRB may then do a decent refinancing deal, which could boost profits significantly and enable expansion to take place.

No doubt IPF have been trying to find out as much as they can about MCRB, although I suspect one or two shareholders may not have been entirely cooperative, unless there was big money on the table.
Posted at 29/11/2014 12:48 by xenawarriorprincess
MCRB's finance costs for the first 9 months of the year were €5.196M. for a full year this equates to €6.928M or £5.542M.

As net borrowings are €42.781M this is equivalent to a net borrowing cost of 16.19%, close to the 18% they pay on the bonds.

IPF have borrowed on their bonds at 5.75%.

If MCRB could borrow at the same rates then they could save roughly €4.469M per year in interest charges or £3.57M.

If all this money simply fell to the bottom line then PBT would increase from €2.367M to €6.836M or £5.468M.

Net income attributable to shareholders for the 9 months was €1.545M or 8.7c per share.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if they could refinance the bonds at around 6% then this would be a ridiculously profitable company. They would pay more tax but income attributable to shareholders would increase to something like €5M or £4M, putting them on a p/e of 3.

MCRB, of course, are considering a more complicated arrangement for financing the bonds, involving debt, new investors and equity from existing shareholders. Obviously as yet no agreement has been reached between the big players.

At 481p IPF is on a p/e of 13.5. Brokers are generally favourable with price targets between 530p to 640p, although PG and Liberum are negative.

MCRB, if it were able to borrow at the same rates as IPF were to be valued on the same basis as IPF then the share price would be 308p, or thereabouts.

Of course IPF is sitting on £80m cash, equivalent to 8% of the share price, and is a much bigger company, valued at £1Bn.

But MCRB has the technology, making its operations super efficient, and cutting out some of the agencies and door to door collectors would in time make IPF more profitable, and enable them to graduate to a more "sophisticated" type operation.

I'm not sure IPF would go as high as 300p, although it could be worth more to IPF as IPF not only get their hands on proven technology, but also new markets, an operation with much lower delinquencies and see off a potentially much more efficient operator.

IPF would want to get in as cheap as possible, I'd be disappointed if it was anything less than 150p (notwithstanding the shares are only 80p now and 53p when the potential bid was announced).

But they have to balance the possibility of MCRB having difficulty refinancing, thereby getting the company cheaply, with the problems it could cause if MCRB did refinance and they then have a super profitable, well financed, high tech competitor in their main markets, and being a number of years away from rolling out an efficient and sophisticated internet based system themselves.

Only MCRB management and possibly major shareholders know how the debt negotiations are going. No doubt IPF are trying to find out prior to pitching their formal offer, if indeed it comes, and are probably in direct negotiations with major shareholders in any event.

Dermot Desmond a major (28%) holder can drive a mean bargain - he bought City of London Airport for £23M around 1995 and sold it 10 years later for a rumoured £750M! So I think we are probably in safe hands so far as any negotiations are concerned.

The potential bid, and actual bid itself, if it comes, may in itself jazz things up quite a bit, so if debt negotiations had stalled the parties may now suddenly see matters in a different light.

Looking forward to the next couple of weeks.
Posted at 29/11/2014 08:18 by xenawarriorprincess
I agree the MM's probably have very little stock.

In the 6 months leading up to the 18th November RNS the stock had only been traded 19 times, and 4 of those were me!

We should get some more RNS's next week showing the present shareholder interests in MCRB - 2nd December should be that deadline - although I don't expect much change from the previously announced positions, it will be interesting to see if there are any holders between 1% and 3%.

Then we have the two trades last week - 125K and 133K at 15.04 on 24th November. The price at that time was 70p-77p, the price having ticked up 1p during the day, the 125K was at 72p, the 133K was at 75p. The 3p difference on 133k shares is just £10 short of £4,000, so it could have been some sort of matched bargain transaction, via a broker - and the fee was £4K, nice work if you can get it.

Maybe both were sells, or more likely one buy and one sell. If one buy and one sell then they are below the 176,901 (1%) threshold where disclosure needs to be made - and there has been no such disclosure. If both were buys (or sells) then a position should have been disclosed. But interesting that such a large trade, for MCRB, doesn't move the price, when a trade of a couple of thousand shares usually is enough to move it up or down by a couple of pence.

A move into the high 80p's would see us at a 3 year high.

Anyway I've got two dates in my diary, 2nd December and 16th December, which is the deadline for the formal offer - if it comes.
Posted at 25/11/2014 18:45 by xenawarriorprincess
Yes, interesting price action yesterday and today, a couple of small sells, and a small buy and the price is up 6%.

I suspect that the MM's hold hardly any stock, as this is an infrequently traded share.

I'd rather not correspond privately, if it is all the same to you. I'm just a small pi, with no inside track on anything, and anything I do post is open for anybody to view. Indeed much of what I post is for my own use, so I can go back and see what I was thinking at any one time. Certainly my various posts on MCRB have singularly failed to stir any interest in the share.

I've been looking at the RNS issued by IPF on 18th November. It was positively gushing about the abilities of MCRB -

"The proposed acquisition of MCB would enable IPF to use the rich experience MCB has gained since it began operating in 2006 to accelerate the development of IPF's digital lending business and it would also expand IPF's range of new digital products and distribution channels. In addition, it would increase IPF's geographical footprint with a proven business model in a manner that is consistent with IPF's declared strategy."

This certainly suggests that IPF is very keen on snaffling MRCB. As yet IPF has no digital offering.

IPF has also been buying back its own shares on a regular almost weekly basis over the last 12 months plus - often up to 100k per day. They currently hold around 7M in Treasury which is worth a cool £33M. The company appears to be generating loads of cash and they don't appear to know quite what to do with it, so they've mounted a share buy back to improve their capital ratio.

Cash at the half year was £80m.

MCRB's credit quality also appears to be significantly better than IPF's. In the last quarter 28.1% of IPF's loans were impaired compared to 19.2% for MCRB's loans.

It is also noteworthy that IPF has recently refinanced its own borrowings with bonds at 5.75%, illustrating what could be potentially available to MCRB if they also were to refinance on favourable terms (they are at present paying 18% and still making a decent profit!) - and which at that price would lead a very significant increase in profits for MCRB.

Presently MCRB are valued at less than £14M - and I'm sure they are worth much more than that to IPF.
Posted at 23/11/2014 10:02 by xenawarriorprincess
Certainly overlooked - but in recent years MCRB has acted almost as if it was a private company - with RNS's few and far between, and has not courted publicity.

Indeed in 2014, until the latest set of announcements there had only been 7 RNS's all year - all dealing with such "dry" matters as accounts, the AGM and annual report.

I know that RNS's cost money, and that some companies seem to issue them for almost no reason (and they're not necessarily the best companies), but MCRB do seem almost to avoid publicity.

For example they launched a mobile app in Finland in June 2014, and Creditline was launched in Latvia in October 2014. Creditline has proved to be a money spinner in Finland and has outperformed expectations, but you wouldn't know it had launched in Latvia unless you trawled through the latest quarterly update. And to find out about the mobile app you would have to translate the Finnish website. Mobile apps seem to be a bit of a buzzword at the moment - but MCRB seem to want to keep their progress in this area fairly quiet.

The latest investor presentation detailed exciting expansion plans - for mobile apps, the extension of Creditline and Sving into new markets, plans for deposits etc. Those plans may have been somewhat delayed due to funding issues, but there has been no update to the presentation in over a year.

So they've been acting a bit shy. Which hasn't done much for the share price.

Anyway - enough of that.

It would certainly make sense from an IPF point of view for IPF to take them over, I guess it is all a question of what Smec and Dermot are prepared to accept, and whether they can all agree a deal.

I've always had the impression that there is some rivalry and disagreement between Smec and Dermot, and that neither of them are too happy with the Board, but that maybe neither can agree on replacements for the Board either - so they've ended up continuing with the same management team.

So maybe now IPF have come in, even if they don't end up taking MCRB over, the end result could be that things will get stirred up quite a bit, and that sleepy MCRB will never be quite the same again.

In fact if IPF do make an offer I wouldn't be at all surprised to see at least one further offeror entering as well, once it becomes known that MCRB is in play.

Certainly there must be sizable local financial institutions would want to get access to the products and technology which MCRB have developed over the last few years.

So I await the next few weeks with interest - as you say its almost Xmas!
Posted at 22/11/2014 21:08 by geraldton1
Xena- this one has definitely been an overlooked/neglected share over the last few years. The last set of results actually looked pretty good. As you say they do need to refinance but they've developed a robust online product which surely has to be the future compared to old school knocks on the door for payment. I doubt Sanlam have put any numbers out for mcrb for ages and the last Edison note is pretty dated. If I was a betting man (which I guess we all are!) I'd say a bid looks pretty likely as it does suit both parties. Ipf want bolt on growth and mcrb is sub scale in plc terms so has little following from private investors/institutions. I hope they can thrash a meaningful price out. Good luck xena...after all these years of loyalty you deserve a good outcome..oh and it's almost Xmas :)
Posted at 20/11/2014 15:35 by xenawarriorprincess
Yes, I certainly agree that MCRB has, overall been a disappointment.

And I also agree that I would expect it to go for somewhere north of 100p.

The actual potential figure, I not sure about.

I think to IPF MCRB is worth well north of 100p, possibly up to 300p with the profit potential, new markets, access to working proven technology, and Sving. IPF appear to do most of its business through agencies and door to door, so the cost saving to be achieved by moving some business to an internet type operation would be very considerable indeed.

However MCRB are under pressure finance wise, and need to repay the bonds by early March, or refinance in some way.

So what they actually get is a different matter. Maybe I should be happy with 150p or thereabouts.

Obviously at the IPO Smec sold a large part of their holding at 130pish (can't remember the exact figure), and Dermot bought about half of his holding at 85p or thereabouts. So 85p I'd certainly say would be a floor, and maybe even 130p.

The "going concern" bit of the last set of accounts was actually qualified, with the accountants saying, if they couldn't refinance, they would be bust, so there is certainly some pressure on MCRB to agree a deal, and maybe for less than they think it might otherwise be worth.

Maybe I am being a bit sentimental, as I've been in MCRB something like 3+ years, and have built up (for me) a fairly substantial holding. A sale would give me an exit, at quite likely a decent price, whereas selling my holding in the market, given the lack of trading in the shares would probably be difficult, unless I took a big hit pricewise, or the volume of trades picked up markedly.

The business now appears very well run, but over the years the share price has been hit by the 2008 crash, the attempt to delist in 2010 (which the major shareholder blocked - something of a breakdown in communication there), and the expensive and fairly disastrous foray into Australia in 2012, which still hits the profits today, and what appear to be the overpriced bonds, which suck up much of the spare cash generated by the well run day to day business.

Anyway with Smec holding 32% and Dermot 28%, as you say, it is really up to them. And something like 90% of the shares are held by the other 3%+ holders.

So the remaining shareholders are small beer, but I await further developments with interest.

Xena

All IMHO, DYOR.

PS. Pleased to be no longer alone over here.
Posted at 18/11/2014 19:28 by xenawarriorprincess
In fact looking at todays figures and taking a very broad brush -

Profit for the 9 months was €1.545M.

Financing costs (18%) were €5.196M. So if the financing costs were cut to 9% that would free up €2.598M of cash. If they were cut to 6% then that would free up €3.464M.

At 9% financing profits would more than double to €4.1M, at 6% they could go to €5M and that is just the last 9 months. Full year would be higher.

MCRB have said they are trying to refinance using debt, bonds and equity, but for IPF this is a steal, as once the debt is dealt with, they get a highly profitable, massively cash generating company, with up to date technology on which € millions has been spent.

All this presently valued at around £11M.

Hopefully MCRB can pull a rabbit out of the hat and not let all the hard work over the last couple of years go kerchinging, straight into IPF's coffers.

C'mon MCRB show us what you're made of!
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