Ashley House Share Discussion Threads

[scburbs] 24/10/2011 14:05

The new statement is certainly not entirely consistent with this (despite the rigorous approach they took)!

"Forward pipeline of £131m of design and build value upon which we will be able to recognise revenues in the next two financial years."

"Despite the external market uncertainty, the Company has completed nine schemes during the year and delivered its highest ever gross revenue of £27.5m. High activity levels continue and at the year end there were nine schemes in the construction phase with a design and build value of £32m. A further four schemes are expected on site in the first half of 2011/12."

"The Company is currently working on a significant number and value of projects with clients seeking to deliver the improved community based estate which will allow the continuing shift of care from Hospitals into the community. Although we are working on the majority of these as the appointed partner our quoted pipeline figure represents only the design and build value of the schemes currently on site or on which revenue will be recognised in the next two years. With the prevailing market conditions and schemes moving to close at a very slow pace the Board has taken a rigorous approach to reviewing this number. The pipeline on this basis stands at £131m (2010: £174m). This number, which represents 32 schemes, supported by a further 25 schemes the Company is working on as appointed partner underpins the Board's belief that although the next two years will continue to be difficult there is real and tangible growth to come in the longer term."

[goliard] 24/10/2011 13:49

Fairly bleak statement really and no sign of the talked about corporate action. If the high quality business develment team were already there, then what were they doing until now? I still don't see the value. Maybe they are talking this down for MBO purposes, but that doesn't look good for current holders.

[topvest] 24/10/2011 12:56

Still sounds pretty tough, but RNS generally upbeat and realistic. The business should rebound very strongly in a few years time provided they can keep the business in funds over the next two years. Hopefully, there are still a few projects progressing to keep some revenue flowing!

[scburbs] 24/10/2011 12:45

Are they taking the hard decisions on cost cutting? The focus on new businesses is welcome, but they need to make the hard decision to restore profitability as well.

"In order to further develop new products and services such as those described above we have recently established a new high quality and experienced Business Development team. This has been done with no addition to overall staffing costs following further re-organisation of the Company's overhead."

[topvest] 17/8/2011 15:41

Yes, it must be a possibility. At the end of the day, Ashley House must be worth a minimum of £20m, even if net assets are written down to £30m. At a circa. £10m market value something is likely to happen. Is there any other form of restructuring that might work -i.e. demerger of some of the activities? / sale of part of the business. The LIFT deal with Assura was aborted due to failure to agree an appropriate structure for the deal according to the Assura accounts. Anyway, hoping for better days here. Bought too early!

Personally, I would rather stick it out as they will be worth £50m+ in a 3-5 year time frame once things pick up. I'm not in any hurry to sell at a rubbish price.

[scburbs] 17/8/2011 13:02

Sneaky MBO on the cheap set to be announced?

[goliard] 17/8/2011 10:54

I just can't figure out where the value is.

[topvest] 17/8/2011 10:36

A couple of buys this morning and the price is bouncing up. Always the chance of a bid at these sort of prices, particularly given the last RNS.

[cnx] 05/8/2011 04:59

reading the latest report..................i thought income /revenue was recorded when it was legally contracted for. why then is there a provision againt income/revenue?

yes. i understand provision against debts/receivables.

looks to me as if income/revenue has been overstated?

[hugepants] 04/8/2011 13:52

powerful performance from this dog today.

[adam] 26/7/2011 17:01

> Pershing

Who do they represent? They have been building for a while.

[theophilus] 26/7/2011 16:17

Ashley House PLC

26 July 2011

Ashley House plc (the 'Company')

Holding in the Company

On 26 July 2011, the Company received notification that, following a recent market purchase, Pershing Nominees now have an interest in 2,600,000 ordinary shares in the Company, representing approximately 4.4 per cent. of the Company's current issued share capital.

Th.

[topvest] 26/7/2011 14:59

Edison still going for 1p dividend this year, on the expectation that a capital restructuring will allow:

[irenekent] 26/7/2011 13:55

The market seems to think its undervalued.

[goliard] 26/7/2011 13:33

Agreed. Sounds like a clear message that some corporate action is imminent. I'm just not sure that I would agree that it is undervalued.

[topvest] 26/7/2011 12:18

This comment was interesting

"The Board believes that the Company is at present significantly undervalued and as a consequence it is exploring with its advisers ways in which to maximise shareholder value in the short term."

How do you maximise shareholder value in the short term without selling the business or spinning something off?

[scburbs] 26/7/2011 08:58

Nothing too shocking, but more clarity needed on the forecast profitability in the "no growth" period, i.e. does no growth mean broadly stable earnings at 3.9p or doesn't it.

Some heroic assumptions on the LIFT intangibles makes it look like they are just holding back a write off for next time. In order for the carrying value to be correct they need to be generating a profit stream that generates a 16.7% return on £24.8m (as well as generating the £24.8m itself). Does that seem likely at the moment?

With this number being flaky and the receivables prone to write offs the balance sheet is still solid, but not enough to make this an asset play, future earnings are the key.

"LIFTCo intangible

The Board also reviewed the carrying value of the LIFTCo intangible asset held on the balance sheet which was the amount paid for the seven LIFTCo interests on acquisition in 2008. After careful consideration of the discounted future cashflows, it decided that no impairment was necessary. However, in the light of the on-going uncertainties the Board will keep the intangible under review and may need to impair this balance in future periods.

...

LIFTCo Intangibles

The carrying value of the interests acquired has been reviewed with reference to the forecast earnings expected to be generated from them and the Group's weighted average cost of capital of 16.7%. The existing seven NHS LIFT agreements which underpin the value of the business have a further 13.5 years to run on average.

The forecast earnings are based on the pipeline of projects being worked on as a result of the 2008 LIFTCo acquisition."

[goliard] 26/7/2011 08:03

No dividend for the forseeable future and further write downs to come in LIFT seem likely. Assura definitely won't be interested in buying ASH as they don't do design and build. ASH doesn't own the properties it develops and that is all Assura is now interested in. Assura would buy their completed properties though. Very difficult to see any improvement here until there is another round of building in the NHS. No word on reducing senior execs pay, which is worrying given that they earn far bigger salaries than a company of this size merits. Maybe there will be something in the Annual Report.

I do not hold.

[topvest] 26/7/2011 07:42

Results out - not great, but at least no more bad news. There was a significant pointer towards some form of corporate activity i.e. the share price is significantly undervalued and we are looking to resolve in the short term. I wonder what this means - implies either selling the company or a transformative deal I suspect. The latter will be difficult, so suspect the former. I wonder whether Assura or one of the other bigger players are interested?

[saucepan] 10/7/2011 20:19

Just discovered this thread and the sad news by chance today - more than a year on.

I'd like to pay my respects. I learned a lot from Ashley. He was a wonderful character.