AT Communications Share Discussion Threads

[jwe] 15/9/2008 10:13

Directors taken a few more

[gryphon2] 15/9/2008 08:48

old FD invested £2m of hs own money in this.. he has now lost £1m .. poor guy .. hope it all comes good for us all .. I have lost a packet too ... yet another Bloody dday!

[strangeman] 12/9/2008 17:27

I know it's generally undesirable to be 'in debt', but I thought that the main problem with the 'credit crunch' was that the banks don't have it to lend, and therefore those who need it can't get it. Therefore, I would assume that if an organisation has enough to service its needs (as ATCG do), then there is less of a problem.

I sold out a few weeks ago, but got the dividend on the 9th, which makes me feel a bit guilty somehow ...

[daz] 12/9/2008 17:12

I got the impression that the FD left because he didn't like the direction the company was taking which is obviously increasing risk and didn't want to be associated with it.

[davidosh] 12/9/2008 13:09

I do not think the FD was a scapegoat....It seemed to me that he did a good job in the re-financing but was not the type of FD they needed for the long term. I never like to see changes in FDs let alone two in as many years but the explanation given by other board members was reasonable to me. Still a big job to be done on the debt levels but if achieved then this is exceptionally cheap. High risk/ high reward as they say

[8trader] 12/9/2008 12:28

Why dont they sell a business or two and ease the burden ?

[skeptic69] 12/9/2008 12:14

The fact that the execs did not recognise the seriousness of the cashflow situation earlier is hard to understand. Whilst the ex-FD appears to be shouldering most of the blame I suspect there is a more fundamental problem within the Group.

The service & maintenance divisions should be fairly easy to predict so the problems are more likely to be within the distribution division, Rocom.

In April the distribution division, Rocom unilaterally increased payment terms to some suppliers to 60days so cashflow problems must have been evident at that time. The same division is probably the one offering extended credit while at the same time having to increase stocks to cope with demand from their contract announcements. Amazon & DSGI are notorious for demanding 90 day terms and both are on long term contracts.
Certainly suppliers will not be prepared to shoulder the burden in the current climate so rectifying the problem may not be easy.

Although the FD was the scapegoat, but perhaps there are bigger management issues at Rocom which need addressing.

[staymour] 12/9/2008 11:53

jwe,

Think maybe it was because the div date was announced in the finals as 9th Sept.

But deep in the footnotes to the interims it was changed to the 16th.

So probably a lot of folks have been phoning up wondering where their divi has gone.

Ot maybe worse wondering if the company can afford to pay up.

[jwe] 12/9/2008 11:12

Stange announcement!

[pre] 12/9/2008 09:21

wonder who snapped up 100,000 shares this morning....a good sign...director buy perhaps?

[stemis] 11/9/2008 19:52

You are assuming that the increase in debtors is just due to poor credit control and therefore can be 'rectified' by a stricter approach. It could of course be ATCG offering/allowing longer credit controls as a strategy of gaining sales. If they withdrew that offer then they could lose sales and hence profits. It may be ATCG advancing invoicing and hence revenue (and profit) recognition on the basis that they won't chase the debt. I don't know of either is true but neither do you know its just lax credit control.

However the adverse cashflow is as much about reduction in creditors as increase in debtors. Have ATCG been stretching creditors to flatter debt and is this coming home to roosr? The level of creditors does still look high compared to sales.

[masurenguy] 11/9/2008 17:55

The increase in debt is virtually all in receivables so I doubt that they could have forseen that back in April. Consequently the potential exists to reduce the current level of debt quite quickly if they can focus their attention on collecting overdue amounts.

Clearly they need to address this on a more fundamental basis in relation to increasing overall cash generation through higher sales and a stricter control on costs in order to start paying the debt down on a more structured basis.

[daz] 11/9/2008 17:43

Yes good point. It seemed odd earlier in the year but it looks more reckless now. At the time of the announcement in April, they would/ought to have been aware of the deteriorating working capital and debt situation.

I suppose they could be suprememly confident in an improved cashflow but the business has never generated that much cash, so you would think safety first is the best option.

[whiterussians] 11/9/2008 15:12

Heading down quickly again

[pre] 11/9/2008 09:38

well oversold...directors buying will swiftly send this back up imo...L2 good:-)

[robhammers] 11/9/2008 09:33

hope one of directors buys the company

[tsmith2] 11/9/2008 09:16

last couple of days has seem small sales but larger buys and L2 is looking very good!

[whiterussians] 10/9/2008 15:51

Masurenguy - 10 Sep'08 - 11:35 - 1304 of 1307


Has the reported comment from Paul Hill spooked the market and do people really think that they are on the verge of breaching bank covenants ?




ummmm, Time to put the garbage out

[recruiter] 10/9/2008 14:31

is that confidence or negligence (paying a divi)....either confident that the debt will be reduced or negligent that they should have used the divi money to pay down a little of the debt.

[masurenguy] 10/9/2008 14:23

tyranosaurus - from yesterdays interims: "AT Communications Group will make an aggregate dividend payment of £771,413 to its equity shareholders on 16th September 2008. This represents a payment of £0.01 pence per share".

[tyranosaurus] 10/9/2008 13:29

Edited out

[whiterussians] 10/9/2008 11:53

Anyone know what EBITDA cover is on the bigger borrowings and what the covenants are?

[masurenguy] 10/9/2008 11:35

Insiders hold circa 25% of the stock so that leaves circa 57.5m in free float. Since yesterdays interims circa 1.57m shares have been traded. This corresponds to circa 2% of the total shares issued or 2.8% of the free float, yet the share price has fallen by 48% since 8.00am yesterday.

Has the reported comment from Paul Hill spooked the market and do people really think that they are on the verge of breaching bank covenants ? The increase in debt can almost wholly be accounted for by the £7m or 36% increase in receivables against a sales increase of circa £4m or 10% over the same period. It would appear to me that the quickest way to address this issue is to swiftly collect some of this debt ! ATC have a number of large blue chip customers and they are the most likely significant debtors in this equation. Do some people really think that some of this debt is doubtful !

[masurenguy] 10/9/2008 09:45

"kappa3 - 10 Sep'08 - 1299: where are you MASUREGUY- What have you to say NOW!"

Time to put the garbage out - kappa3 - 10 Sep'08 - 1299 of 1301 (Filtered)