Accrol Share Discussion Threads

[iomhere] 09/10/2017 09:01

CWA1
If it's the piece I read on small caps, costs have increased but earnings haven't kept pace.
Personally I shouldn't have thought the supermarkets would want to squeeze the life out of ACRL unless of course they have a better reliable option open to them. I've no idea what forms in a banker's mind since a few wobbly debts supports lending at more favourable rates for them.

[cwa1] 09/10/2017 08:20

Morning jonwig

That appears to be subscription only. Is there anything compelling or new in it?

Cheers

[bsdjj] 09/10/2017 07:49

The original founding shareholders should put their hands in their pockets. Wonder if it will happen....

[value viper] 09/10/2017 07:42

rights issue or more likely cost effective placing coming then ; if so, dilution to PIs
still, looks like it will survive (?!) ; wonder how much they gonna need
what a nightmare
co has misled investors imv and should be investigation (but there won't be)

[discodave4] 06/10/2017 18:48

shawzieNever held here, was on my watch list up until the prelims & CEO departing.Hope when it starts to trade again that the impact to holders is not too bad.DD

[shawzie] 06/10/2017 16:54

DiscoDave 4
I note that you no longer hold Accrol shares and after my previous posts, I also exited Accrol at 141p.
For existing shareholders, I hope that this company can be turned around and it should have a successful future.

[shawzie] 06/10/2017 16:33

2012 Lancashire Telegraph
A MAN got his hand stuck in a paper machine at a Blackburn factory.

Paramedics called for officers to attend Accrol Papers Ltd in Davyfield Road, at 7pm on Sunday, after the 25-year-old was injured.

A police spokesman said that the man was taken to the Royal Blackburn Hospital suffering from ‘non-life-threatening injuries’, and a file would be passed to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

There is no longer any police involvement.

A spokesman for HSE said that the incident report had not yet been recieved, and as such, an no investigation into the accident had begun.


A spokesman for Accrol Papers Ltd declined to comment on the incident.

Established in 1993, Accrol Papers Ltd is one of Europe’s largest independent soft tissue converters with manufacturing capacity at the purpose-built plant in Blackbun, in excess of 60,000 tonnes per annum.

Paper products including toilet rolls, kitchen towels and facial tissues.

[shawzie] 06/10/2017 16:31

2015
NIGHT-SHIFT workers at a Blackburn paper plant were evacuated when a toilet roll machine caught fire in the early hours of yesterday.

Four Lancashire Fire and Rescue crews attended the blaze at Accrol, in Roman Road, just before 3am.

About 20 staff were forced to leave a building towards the rear of the site after the fire was discovered in equipment that converts paper into toilet rolls.

Watch manager John Riley said: “The factory was occupied at the time and the fire was discovered by an employee, who raised the alarm and the factory was evacuated.


“There was heavy smoke-logging and crews spent several hours ventilating the building using ventilation fans. The cause of the fire is still under investigation but not thought to be suspicious.”

Two crews from Blackburn station, one from Darwen and one from Hyndburn, were in attendance at the scene for about three hours.

A statement from the company said: “In the early hours of Monday, September 14, Accrol experienced a fire on one its production lines.

“No-one was hurt and Accrol staff executed all procedures in an exemplary fashion.

“The Fire Brigade attended the site and contained the fire within minutes, leading to no damage to the building or stock.

“We would like to thank the Fire Brigade and its staff for their speed of response and the professional manner within which they dealt with this incident.”

Accrol was celebrating in May after announcing a recruitment drive to create 100 new jobs after its annual sales broke the £100 million mark.

[bsdjj] 06/10/2017 11:25

https://www.ft.com/content/74a07776-a9c9-11e7-93c5-648314d2c72cArticle is slightly hopeful that this is not a complete disaster.

[camerongd53] 06/10/2017 10:59

My suspicion of what happened is the following:
Possibly after the recent results announcement somebody senior found that all was not right - whistleblower or unbelievable story to the board or confession that controls are not working
Board then demand an immediate update/assessment by internal audit or external consultants
Receive this report and CEO departs.
New CEO arrives and makes his assessment
On receiving his assessment, Board suspends shares so that a false market does not happen - although the shares had been weak of late there does not appear to have been a major leak about the problems
The suspension is likely to result in the shares falling substantially on removal of the suspension. The extent will depend on the announcement from the company. The suspension announcement was not complete doom and gloom but it could still become very bad.
I suspect that the board were told porkies about future margins which are dependent on future input prices, exchange rates and selling prices. Fundamental proper controls or lack thereof or blatant lying.
I experienced the horrors of this with Goldplat a few years ago where the company bought gold waste for processing based on current prices and when it came to selling the gold, the price had dropped from $2000 to under $1200.
Can't understand why a HSE fine is material - surely it can't be over £100,000 to be worthy of a mention. May possibly be padding which does not reflect well on the board and advisors

[keyno] 06/10/2017 10:59

Industry gossip being what it is, I am puzzled about the new appointment - the new man to replace Crossley is from DS Smith. It was partly his appointment which kept me invested here recently as I - perhaps wrongly as it turns out - took the view that he would have a clearer idea what particular nasties were lurking in the woodshed. At least I didn't top up my original holding, which I came close to doing on more than one occasion.

[value viper] 06/10/2017 10:51

love it, investors champion gloating ; i guess simply very lucky they hadn't recommended what really was an "investable" AIM listed business based on the info provided

[discodave4] 05/10/2017 23:53

PS Bookbroker, I do wonder about your motives, you always seem to appear on threads whenever there is bad news, never apparently a holder though........do you enjoy gloating and seeing people suffer?, don't bother answering, it's rhetorical.

[discodave4] 05/10/2017 23:46

haroldthegreat,In answer to your question, no I didn't know about the accident.My sincere sympathies to holders here, I too could so easily have been one. However, as posted previously, I have to thank Texaspete2 who flagged that in their annual report their outlook (page 22) mentioned a possible 30% increase in pulp prices and inflationary pressures. As this was not even mentioned in their prelims in July I started to have doubts about what they report to the market. They did however intimate that things weren't going well and the prelim numbers to me confirmed they were starting to struggle with margins. "Increasing input costs, driven by exchange rates, are impacting most product categories in UK retail and like all UK manufacturers, we continue to seek inflation recovery. There are positive signs, with some retailers increasing consumer price points, although it is slower than we expected."Then when the CEO suddenly departed that was the red flag for me and I removed ACRL from my watch list.Hope further news is issued which softens the likely impact to the share price so pi's aren't hit too badly.DD

[spob] 05/10/2017 22:28

Toilet roll maker Accrol suspends shares and warns on profits


Aim company says earnings set to fall ‘significantly’ below forecasts in wake of Brexit

Accrol was one of the largest recent Aim listings


by John Murray Brown

Financial Times


5 October 2017


Toilet roll maker Accrol was in talks with its bankers on Thursday after suspending trading in its shares and warning that profits would be “significantly below market forecasts” in 2018.

The Blackburn-based toilet roll and tissue maker, which floated on Aim in May last year, said it was facing “more challenging trading conditions” which “are having a significant effect on the trading performance”.

It said while revenues were expected to be broadly in line, earnings would be “significantly below existing market forecasts” for 2018 with net debt “correspondingly higher” at year end.

A person close to the company said it was discussing changing the terms of its bank covenants.

One leading shareholder said the company had told a conference call on Thursday it expected the share suspension to be “a short-term blip”, with the shares trading again next week.

Accrol was one of the largest recent Aim listings, as the husband and wife founders of the company — Jawid Hussain and Mahroof Begum — reduced their holdings, as did private equity backers NorthEdge Capital.

The decision to seek a temporary suspension of the shares comes as Accrol launches a “wide-ranging review” of the business.

This follows the appointment of Gareth Jenkins, a former executive with paper company DS Smith, who took up the position of Accrol chief executive on September 11.

Accrol’s main customer is Lidl, the German retailer. But analysts say domestic demand for Accrol’s own-label toilet paper product has weakened following the Brexit vote.

This is despite the company’s predictions at the time of the IPO that it could be a beneficiary of a Leave vote if nervous consumers bought more discount products.

Accrol has also been a victim of higher international pulp prices, which has pushed up the price of the paper reels it buys to make toilet rolls.

Robert Waldschmidt, a paper industry analyst at Liberum, which acts as a broker on behalf of the company, said all paper product groups had been hit by international pulp price rises, which are up 20-30 per cent this year.

This follows stronger pulp demand in China and other fast growing emerging markets.

Accrol also warned its cash position may be hit by a larger than expected fine from the Health and Safety Executive. This follows a factory accident. The company initially thought the fine would not be a material amount and did not include it in IPO documents.

Liberum described Thursday’s news as a “a very disappointing and rather unforeseen set of circumstances”.

It said it was putting its share recommendation under review, and would provide an update “when there is greater clarity”.

Liberum took up its position as joint corporate brokers in July.

[lordyjordy1] 05/10/2017 22:01

@Jonwig thanks for the reply....
Looking at other companies who issued profit warnings recently and the savage way investors reacted (provident financial) I can see this changing hands at 20p on Monday.

[lordyjordy1] 05/10/2017 21:59

@Jonwig thanks for the reply....
Looking at other companies who issued profit warnings recently and the savage way investors reacted (provident financial) I can see this changing hands at 20p on Monday.

[mrmark01] 05/10/2017 21:10

Scandalous!

[mrmark01] 05/10/2017 21:09

Wish I had sold at 160 back in May. Be lucky get 60 if this comes back!

[jonwig] 05/10/2017 20:08

lordy - I think you have a point! A rather perfunctory one-liner that the CEO is leaving immediately would, on its own, be suspicious. The in-line trading statement probably allayed fears.

The point, though, is that Zeus should not have allowed the RNS unless, of course, they were kept in the dark. In that case they should resign as NOMAD.

stuffee - a very good post.

[lordyjordy1] 05/10/2017 19:34

Hi all, I've not been investing long so go easy. On the 7th of August they issue an update saying they are trading in line with previous forecasts and they are appointing a new CEO. They also advise that parent reels are in excess of supply so are cheap and will remain so for the foreseeable.
3/4 weeks later they issue this shocker. They also say rising costs of parent reels are part of the problem... WTF....
To the more experienced eye would you say accrol knew they had a problem which is why the new CEO was brought in. So in future is not wise to be wary when a company issues an update saying they are changing the CEO. Hope my ramble makes sense. Thanks in advance

[stuffee] 05/10/2017 17:42

I find it scandalous that no apparent mention was made in the Admission Document re the apparent accident prior to the IPO potentially resulting in a H&S fine, now described as having material impact on the Company's cash position. I guess the uncertainty re cash impact and funding may be the principal reason for the suspension.

To answer a question above, I doubt any such fine could have been insured by the Company, albeit negligence by the relevant directors, vendors and advisors might be covered.

The Admission Document does confirm the vendor shareholders gave appropriate warranties and indemnities at the time of the IPO in May 2016.

I find it near inconceivable that the three Hussains, Majid, Wajid and Mozam, who founded and formerly managed Accrol, and trousered £20m from share sales, were not aware of this incident. So I guess the Company will have strong grounds for recovery from these individuals, albeit it might take ages to settle and Accrol must arrange funding until then.

I suggest Zeus may also be in the firing line. They may well have failed proper due diligence to inquire into this incident, probably too busy counting their fees. Zeus may well now be examining their insurance for negligence.

Let's hope the new CEO, Gareth Jenkins, appointed a month ago and with reasonable record, can clear out the rubbish and sort things.