AEC Education Share Discussion Threads

[saucepan] 23/3/2012 14:04

OK, thanks, Effortless Cool. Good to get some further insight. What you say sounds fair. I held AEC briefly in the past. I know it tends to trade on a fairly low P/E. Provided a bottom is in on the chart, and I think it must be now judging by today's news, I plan to settle on tucking away for recovery. I don't see why the share price cannot climb back into the mid 20s, perhaps more, on a 9 to 18 month view.

[effortless cool] 23/3/2012 13:18

saucepan,

I think that profit of £1.7m is well off the mark.

The trading statement of 13/12/11 reset market expectations for profit to £300k. This new announcement - "above expectations" - needs to be judged relative to that.

Let's say it's £500k, then that makes earnings per share of about 1p. Would have been about double that without the "one-off" expenses. So a PE ratio of between 6 and 12, depending on whether you base it off actual or adjusted profits.

Not an unreasonable entry point then, but not a no-brainer either, given its patchy record.

[wjccghcc] 23/3/2012 13:08

No. A bit too small for me. Good luck with it.

[saucepan] 23/3/2012 12:49

WJCCGHCC: thanks for that explanation. I suspected there could be some smoke and mirrors. However, AEC looks a classic recovery play from current levels. Are you holding?

[wjccghcc] 23/3/2012 11:53

It's not quite so straight forward. At the interims, cash was 3.2mm and debtors/inventories were 2.7mm. However payables were 6.6mm so that cash only arises from their paying their suppliers a lot more slowly than they pay their debtors.

[saucepan] 23/3/2012 10:36

I am only making deductions from the following ShareScope data:



£1.98 million cash is shown for 2010. We have been told today that cash rose to £3.7 million by 31 December. That is an increase of approximately £1.7 million.

Unless there are other explanations (e.g. sale of assets), the increased cash presumably reflects the profits that have been made. So, we could be talking about profit in the region of £1.7 million, plus or minus.

From the ShareScope data above, when profit of £1.08 million was made in 2009, EPS was 2.21p. Extrapolating from that (and unless share dilution complicates things - something I need to check), £1.7 million profit would generate eps of nearly 3.5p. That's a P/E of 3.4 at 12p a share.

If there are holes in this analysis, please put me right.

[borsya] 23/3/2012 09:41

I'm wondering when Top Info will come to this bb ;)

[battlebus2] 23/3/2012 09:40

A s34icknote your a tad late here but i see atleast another 50%.

[s34icknote] 23/3/2012 09:33

My guess looking at the past figures is eps will be 1.25p !

[s34icknote] 23/3/2012 09:31

I,m in at 11.67 p!!!
I agree re market cap 4.75 at the price i paid and 3.7 m in bank so jumped on !!

[saucepan] 23/3/2012 09:06

At beginning of the day, AEC's market cap was £3.6m, according to ShareScope. In today's update they confirmed they had £3.7m cash at 31 Dec!

Cash has increased nearly £2m since 2010, giving an idea of the profit that will be made in the 'ahead' statement.

The acquisition announced today is for peanuts and it sounds as if it can easily be knocked into shape.

[penpont] 23/3/2012 08:42

So am I right in thinking this has the same in cash as the market cap? Just looked on Morningstar for forecasts but WH Ireland have none up at pres. Anyone got an idea what is expected?

edit - just saw they were expecting 0.3m for the year at the last TU

[saucepan] 23/3/2012 08:38

Long here this morning.

[battlebus2] 23/3/2012 08:10

Excellent update think we are heading back to 15p territory :))

[guru] 23/3/2012 08:03

Nice update!

[tyranosaurus] 08/3/2012 13:12

Chart looks like a staircase going down, but nobody posts here anymore, so I`m talking to myself.

[guru] 05/9/2011 08:03

Results out - quite a turnaround and recovery. Well positioned for growth now.

[battlebus2] 09/6/2011 17:39

Yes creeping along without to much notice always a good sign.

[guru] 09/6/2011 14:00

Quite a recovery!

[ayiman] 28/5/2011 09:40

They seem to have integrated the UK operations successfully and should return to profit I think modest growth possible
ayi

[tyranosaurus] 27/5/2011 13:08

Could have been a lot worse.
Hopefully thay can produce a profit this year.

[guru] 24/5/2011 08:28

Results out, cashflow good, divendend kept and confident statement about 2011.

[tyranosaurus] 25/12/2010 10:23

I`d like just 6p more, no reason to be greedy !