Mears Share Discussion Threads

[joshalexander] 19/7/2007 20:14

Mears have diversified from Social Housing as competition is increasing in that sector and will continue to do so. Domicilary Care provides huge opportunities for growth and the Market remains highly fragramented. If anyone has any questions about the growth opportunites in the Home Care Market, they only need to look at the Claimar share price (CCGP). This will become an increasingly important part of Mear's future and I see the Company aggressively expannding this part of the Business.
The Domicilary Care Market is estimated to be worth over £4 Billion annually, some of which is accounted for by Local Authority "in house" services, which are increasingly being contracted out.

[zoobie] 16/7/2007 22:13

Can anybody tell me why the buttons to download recent articles are not present at the bottom of any of the pages.. thanks if you can!

[alexjames] 10/7/2007 13:02

Bob's a little bit of an enigma as far as i'm concerned. He's had great successes, the kind that you hear about time & again, but combined with MITIE & MEARS there's the less talked-about, unfortunate escapades like the US on-line gaming disaster which i believe he lost a few quid in.
Housing Maintenance is a lucrative business until it comes to dealing with an objectionable tenant; one that is rarely gainfully employed, devotes the majority of his/her time to undermining the work of the contractor & the local authority/housing association & generally trashes his/her gaff to get 'new' of everything on a frequent basis. So i can understand Mears' fears of that kind of tenant rubbishing them in a customer satisfaction survey.
What a commercial housing maintenance company is great at is identifying clients systems that are vulnerable to being circumvented, usually for financial gain. If tradesmens'/managers' bonuses are built around the throughput of work & jobs completed, it's doesn't take a genius to work out some jobs will be booked as complete when in fact they've not been completed. If the client fails to inspect that jobs have been done, you can see the picture emerging. If the client has access to more funds as a result of high satisfaction survey levels & jobs successfully completed, you can understand why Mears & their client are singing from the same proverbial hymmn sheet.
I suspect this will eventually blow over & things get back to normality, but the halo has definitely slipped
IMHO, Stuart Black left because he was nothing more than a glorified tea-boy who wasn't in charge of the tea biscuits & disagreed too loudly with the Careforce acquisition. His departure may prove to be a positive career move in the fullness of time, having learned wearing the badge does not guarantee the seat of power.

[diogenesj] 09/7/2007 11:57

Bob Holt was fomerly with Mitie Group, another huge long-term winner, so I think we have to assume he knows what he is doing, unless it turns out that there is substance to the BBC allegations. The fact that he fired his CEO Stuart Black suddenly and without explanation in January this year does suggest that all may not be entirely well. There have also been questions about the recent acquisition Careforce ('an odd choice' according to Altium, who downgraded the shares to Hold on the news).

Haven't come across WYT before, I'm afraid.

[currypasty] 09/7/2007 11:49

any of you Mears fans got any of Bobs other Company Wyatt group (WYT)? Do you rate him, has he run mears well ?

[diogenesj] 08/7/2007 13:07

Very true, ppmman, but on the other hand discretion is the better part of valour, especially now with the market so jittery.

[ppmman] 08/7/2007 02:29

He who hesitates is lost

[diogenesj] 07/7/2007 17:50

Lol, Beery, no, haven't got the guts for shorting, especially one of the all-time greats like Mears. I was just looking in to see if they had fallen far enough to be worth buying again. I'm not quite sure that they have yet.

[hazelton] 06/7/2007 20:28

Mears Group PLC
06 July 2007


6 July 2007

Mears Group PLC ('Mears' or the 'Company')

Hackney and Islington Contract - BBC Report

Certain allegations have been made in a BBC 5 Live report regarding the
Company's conduct relating to works carried out for the Family Mosaic Housing
Association in Hackney and Islington ('Family Mosaic').

The Company is taking the allegations seriously. Its own initial investigations
on the matter have shown there to be no substance to the claims made but Mears
welcomes an independent investigation by The Housing Corporation, the sector's
regulator. Mears expects this to be completed in the next few weeks and the
Board is confident of a satisfactory outcome.

Mears conducts over 20,000 jobs per annum on behalf of Family Mosaic, a contract
which began in October 2004. Family Mosaic independently measures Mears'
performance and these measures support Mears' own information showing around 90%
customer satisfaction levels, significantly exceeding sector norms.
Mears' processes for managing jobs through to post inspection are fully audited
both internally and externally.


Enquiries

Mears Group PLC

[beerbandit] 06/7/2007 19:42

Dodgyknees I hope your not caught short on these after todays announcement (:

[diogenesj] 06/7/2007 16:30

Still not cheap on current forecasts, polopolo, and there's a whiff of scandal which may be expensive to sort out and will not be easy to live down.

[polopolo2] 06/7/2007 13:42

This is now surely well and truly overdone.
It is an absolute gem of a company who's results compound every time, the figures have a habit of always exceding analysts expectations so why on earth is the share price continuing to drop. Remarkably it is a crazy 275 as I write down a futher 4% today.

Just wish I had some spare funds to mop up.

[mistertibbs] 04/7/2007 13:56

Hello GI if your still with us. I sold 25% when Capn Bob sold his holding and other directors appear to have done similar over time. That has concerned me and my main reason for reducing my interest here.

Whistleblowers are hard to call and the BBC investigations not always 100% as they now compete in a world of much poorer journalistic standards. Mer has, in the past been very reliable in my view and the market will indeed take a dim view of this. However, been interested elsewhere and not overly concerned by this, although I watch with interest.

My average price is 57p so a lot of room between me and the poorhouse.

It does howewver, put the sudden resignation of Stuart Black in the picture again for me.

Been busy doing other things these days. Started my very own wee share club. Hard work in this market environment.

[diogenesj] 03/7/2007 21:40

Sound pretty serious. If you can't trust good old Mears, who can you trust?

[lpf] 02/7/2007 16:34

A break of the trendline and a bad smell. These things have a way of escalating, and I suspect that their other clients will be scrutinising Mears' delivery now. So I'm out.

Good luck to all remaining holders.

[rogerjc] 02/7/2007 13:17

Listened to most of the radio program last night. Mears spokesman claimed that at least one of the 'whistleblowers' had been sacked and implied they therefore held a grudge.

[simon gordon] 01/7/2007 12:30

'The Housing Corporation has launched a probe into Britain's top social housing repairs firm after a BBC investigation.
This uncovered evidence that falsified performance figures were supplied to a housing association which had millions in public funding from the watchdog.

Evidence obtained by the BBC's 5 Live Report suggests the firm's flagship branch in London is falsely signing off some repairs when they were incomplete.

Mears Group denies all the allegations, saying the process was fully audited.'

[cambium] 14/6/2007 10:57

Hi, GI, I still pop in to see everyone, but I sold out when Bob sold his massive holding back about £3 maybe as far as a year ago.

All the best and happy investing

[greek islander] 14/6/2007 09:36

The recent announcement seems to have received a very neutral response from the market. I would have thought that hearing about a record contract win, albeit spread out over five thousand years, would generate some interest from those solid typical Mears investors. Isn't that exactly why one invests in this company? Steady if unspectacular growth, the notorious full order book and a proven management in a solid sector.
I would have expected a price surge well at least a small one.

Yawn.

[greek islander] 07/6/2007 16:45

Hello all
Glad to see some respected familiar AIM faces here such as Cambium and mistertibbs.
My shares club has had these for years and done brilliantly but they were not my sort of company as I tend to look for longer term small caps quicker growth almost inevitably on AIM.
Was attracted - as others will have been - by the new contract win announcement and that I was certain a 10-20% share price rise would follow and when it didn't quite do that well, I thought "opportunity!!!!!" Today especially in a strong market.
Has anyone who knows this stock better than I do, worked out the approximate forward eps and pe for 2008 onwards based on the new contract win? I've worked my way through the last few posts but can't find what I was looking for.

Seeing the share price price drop today I went in at 327p and feel I have a real bargain.
Having noted that latterly the trading seems to have been between a low point of 310p and a high before the announcement of 370p. Looks strong for 400-450p to me but then, as I say, I don't know this too well yet.

[lpf] 07/6/2007 13:42

taking breath after its climb of the last few days?

market uncertainty after today's announcement of the new acqusition?

or just market noise - it is less than 2%, and on what, about 0.1% of market cap traded? Pretty inconsequential stuff.

[5dally] 07/6/2007 11:01

Why on earth has the share price dropped,is it just general market conditions?

[lpf] 07/6/2007 07:45

GARP - Growth At a Reasonable Price - see on TMF

[mistertibbs] 07/6/2007 00:06

Solid garp stock. Now you got me there. What is that please? Excellent announcement and possibly even higher than the quoted £168m over time.