Atlantic Global Share Discussion Threads

[shiny1000] 04/1/2007 23:32

The following AIM stocks have been highlighted for 2007. Stephen Fine of KBC Peel Hunt says buy Alternative Networks and Avingtrans and sell Biofuels and XG Technology; Luke Ahern of Corporate Synergy says buy May Gurney and Worthington Nicholls and sell White Nile and I-Mate; Les Ames of WH Ireland says buy Asian Citrus and Stanley Gibbons and sell Andrews Sykes and Evolutec; and Jim McCafferty of Seymour Pierce says buy China Shoto and Jaques Vert and sell China Real Estate and Adept Telecom.

[explorer88] 03/1/2007 09:14

morning mad - srf: a couple of trades half a million dollars (520p and 535p) helped the share price rise yesterday

[madasafishman] 03/1/2007 09:03

exp88
sounds good
looks like my purchase was the only one over christmas although someone
bought a few yesterday
o/t
nice rise on srf yesterday
although was low volumes and dont think that moved the price up
but something/someone did

[explorer88] 02/1/2007 12:39

Project Portfolio Management is Your Friend
By Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

Three reasons for project managers to embrace PPM - Realism, Rationality, and Visibility

Project portfolio management (PPM) is HOT. On a recent morning, my inbox yielded five Gartner, Inc. announcements about major software players (including Primavera and Microsoft,) adding to their PPM capabilities. Books, articles, white papers, Web sites, and conferences on the topic proliferate.

"So what?" you may ask. I understand; for the project managers and teams working "in the trenches" of projects day to day, the latest trend in project management theory or software often looks like "more work for me" or "more empty rhetoric from consultants and management." But here are three reasons why the rank-and-file of project management should not only welcome PPM initiatives, but actively work for them at the grassroots level:

PPM brings realism to an organization's planning processes. The Balanced Scorecard Collaborative estimates that upwards of 80% of corporate strategies are never implemented. While the reasons for this are complex, at least part of the problem is that "strategic thinkers" dream up initiatives that the company has no hope of carrying out. Likewise, the hammering project management takes for "bad estimates" and project failure often begins in the executive suite with unrealistic targets, deadlines, and budgets. PPM aligns what an organization wants to do with the resources-the money, hours, people, time, and equipment-required to get it done.

Whether the "portfolio" consists of IT projects alone, or a more ambitious list of projects from across the enterprise, a complete list of all the initiatives competing for resources is a baseline requirement to even begin portfolio management. For many companies, simply asking, "What projects do we have?" is a kind of revelation. Counting projects derives instant value from portfolio management, because certain realities are quickly revealed: If you schedule 130% of your human resources to projects, for example, a lot of things will not happen. Projects that duplicate or cancel each other out can be eliminated. Large projects must be "chunked" for portfolio analysis. As we have learned to segment large projects into smaller initiatives, project failure rates have dropped.

PPM brings rationality in the allocation of resources, both human and financial. After project inventory, the next important step in creating and executing a PPM process is to establish budgets (dollars and human resources), and define start and finish dates for these initiatives. Future projects or programs are also forecasted and added to the organization's potential portfolio of work. Also, at this stage, good PPM processes count heads. For some companies, the scarcest resource isn't money but project managers. A critical factor in project selection thus becomes: Do we have a PM who can manage it? Which brings me to my third point:

PPM brings visibility to project work and project people. The recent trend toward improved resource tracking and leveling functionality in PM software is a great boon to the portfolio manager. In fact, without a system for knowing what each person in the pool of potential project personnel is capable of, and when they will be available, you cannot really be said to manage a portfolio.
In addition, PPM requires an organization to be sufficiently "mature" enough to pull it of. That means the following organizational attributes and infrastructure are in place:

The organization knows how to manage projects. Without project management methodology and practices in place, you don't have the most basic data to work with. Bad project management means cost and schedule estimates that are exercises in fantasy.

Good information is available on every project in the portfolio. Gathering data in such a way that it can be put into context and become information is where software reigns supreme. How long will each project take? How much will it cost? What's the expected ROI? What's the status on the projects already underway? This is where the enterprise-level project management tools with portfolio management capabilities really earn their keep. Suddenly, project information is flowing from team level to executive dashboard level, making project management less of a mystery and more of a value-adding necessity to corporate leadership.

A project office is in place. While intra-departmental portfolios may perhaps be selected and balanced without involvement of a project management office, it's doubtful that anything on a wider scale can succeed ... and you can't optimize the system by balancing only parts of it. If a project management office does not own the process of project inventory, prioritization, and selection, it cannot be done well. Research analysts from the META Group recommend this strategy, and those companies that have put enterprise-wide PPM in place, such as Cabelas and Northwestern Mutual Life, have relied on it. A project office is good news for project managers, as it focuses attention on the training, rewards, and career path of the project professional.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Atlantic Global is the only UK company, and one of only two European companies, positioned in Gartner's "Magic Quadrant" for PPM.

[explorer88] 01/1/2007 02:01

Happy New Year!

[johnroger] 30/12/2006 12:49

Explorer88
Many thanks for your response

[explorer88] 29/12/2006 20:12

JR - only one analyst (Stephen Ford, Collins Stewart) covers ATL and his initial revenue forecasts are best used for toilet paper! :-). His initial revenue forecasts have consistently been behind the curve (both upside and downside). He was forecasting FY06 revenue of £3.2m (profit of £500,000 and eps of 2p) when i was forecasting FY06 revenue at £2.2m ... he has now downgraded his FY06 revenue forecast to £2.2m ...:-) This means that ATL would make a small profit in FY06 H2 and about breakeven for FY06 - i.e. NOT eps of 2p (that's from Stephen Ford's old forecast).

Mr Ford's FY07 initial revenue forecast is £2.5m (revenue growth of 13.5%). My FY07 revenue forecast is £3.6m (see earlier post - i.e. similar to what Mr Ford was originally forecasting for *this* year, rather than *next* year). I'm expecting average annual revenue growth of about 50% per annum for each of the next three years as CV is rolled out to existing and new clients, and a totally new version (all new IP) of CV is launched next summer.

JR - does that answer your question? Let me know if you need any further info. or insight...

[johnroger] 29/12/2006 18:09

Will they have made their forcast numbers or not!
Yes I know that you can't answer the question but you may have some pointers to offer

[explorer88] 29/12/2006 15:07

JR - what info. do you need to make a decision?

[johnroger] 29/12/2006 14:59

explorer88

According to Sharescope consensus eps to 12/06 is 2p but I don't know who made the forcast or how old it is. With half the capital value in cash this would make for an enterprise value of only three times the earnings in the year now ending.
No profit warning has been issued but that could still come after the year end!
I can only conclude that nobody believes the forcast.
Still trying to decide, to buy or not to buy.

[explorer88] 29/12/2006 14:25

mad - welcome aboard Atlantic Global (ATL) with your first purchase today!

If ATL's share price doesn't rise at least fivefold in the next three years, i'll buy you a bottle of champagne! :-)

[explorer88] 22/12/2006 12:14

Happy Christmas Mad

Here's to a profitable New Year ...

[madasafishman] 22/12/2006 12:00

exp88
im struggling to release funds for this
get paid out for rtd takeover on the 1st jan
so will be fine then
hope to buy in on 28th with t10 then funds will cover on 1st jan
o/t
im sitting on massive loss with srf im in at 5.47ish
if it drops to 4.30s again im selling everthing except ada and atl(when i get them)to buy more srf
ive seen this with takeover bids before they really drop the price back down without news
shame i got so carried away on the rise
srf results in jan or march ?
anyway happy christmas and new year
ive enjoyed our chats this year especially the srf ones cant believe i got distracted after all our takeover talks i wasnt holding when they went up
still you win some you lose some
heres to a prosperous new year
happy christmas
mad

[explorer88] 20/12/2006 18:30

Jim will be speaking at the Business Performance and Project Management summit in April ...



...it's going to be a busy year for Atlantic Global next year with the masterclasses, the PPM book, and new product releases all helping leverage sales ... FY07 H2 revenue should exceed revenue for the whole of FY06. My initial revenue estimates for FY07 are...

H1 £1.25m
H2 £2.35m

FY07 £3.6m

[explorer88] 20/12/2006 18:19

Jim Robinson, Head of programme delivery at Virgin Mobile, said: "The mobile telecoms industry is more competitive than ever before, placing increasing pressure on Virgin Mobile to react quickly to industry developments with new products and services. The onus is on the IT department to build the applications that will support these new products and services quickly and cost-effectively, while maintaining progress with ongoing IT architecture renewal.

"With it's focus on delivering a high-level view of the IT project portfolio, supported by the ability to drill down into project, resource or cost issues, Atlantic Global's solution perfectly fits our vision for top-down management of IT project delivery against business priorities."

Corporate Vision will extend these capabilities to include a full resource management system, a high-level view of the complete project portfolio, which can assist the management team in monitoring the performance and costs of the IT programme and its alignment with business goals. In addition, Virgin Mobile will use Corporate Vision's scenario-modelling capabilities to understand the impact of engaging new projects or changing business priorities on costs and delivery timelines across the rest of the IT programme.

As it provides a dynamic system for project tracking, budgeting, resource management and risk monitoring, Corporate Vision will also enable Virgin Mobile to further automate and increase the visibility of a number of core programme and project management processes. For example, IT project managers will now be able to specify and request resources from the programme office directly within the system, rather than by email, and then monitor the approval process. They will also be able to enter progress against project milestones directly into the system rather than report to the programme managers on a weekly basis..

A by-product of the milestone-tracking feature is that other project stakeholders within the business will have access to up-to-date status information at any time. For instance, the marketing team relies on regular meetings with the IT programme office to find out about progress on the delivery of new products and services that are in the advertising or public relations schedule. Meanwhile, the finance department will be able to more closely monitor budgets against projects and their component milestones.

"In any industry where change is a constant factor, the IT project portfolio can no longer be effectively managed with Microsoft project plans and spreadsheets alone," explained Eugene Blaine, CEO of Atlantic Global. "In the face of change, IT directors and project sponsors need hard, fast information about the IT project portfolio and a means of modelling the potential impact of business change on the project portfolio. Virgin Mobile is one of a number of forward-thinking IT companies that have been quick to see the value of this approach."

[explorer88] 20/12/2006 14:25

In the last five weeks, buys have outnumbered sells by 15 to 1

(925,000 buys, 62,000 sells)

[explorer88] 20/12/2006 10:45

KL - regarding quality of product ...

I attended the annual ATL user group day on 12th October 2006, which was very insightful.

The day was chaired by Jim Robinson, who is Head of Programme Delivery at Virgin Mobile. Jim used to work for LogicaCMG and, whilst he was there, he bought ATL software for Logica.

When Jim moved to head up Virgin Mobile's programme delivery he bought ATL Corporate Vision and is now rolling it out at Virgin. He's bought the product not once, but twice now - and he convinced me that ATL's product is high quality and will be in significant demand as the market for PPM expands.

[explorer88] 20/12/2006 10:31

Hello KL

Welcome to ATL BB ...

[katylied] 20/12/2006 10:27

Many companies are declaring total voting rights just now x88. It must be a formal obligation that they do so, though I don't recall it happening in past years. I have been looking at ATL. It is interesting, but I must dig deeper on the quality of the product. I am reminded how SPE (same ball park, if probably a more sophisticated & expensive product-range) has still yet to recover much from the post dot-com-boom reality check. Making sales is still heavy going. On the whole, the average british company does probably need a fair bit of convincing, to change its administrative ways. Nevertheless, the current ATL share-price looks inviting...

[explorer88] 20/12/2006 10:10

Morning Mad

Interesting announcement this morning regarding voting rights / number of shares in issue - has got me thinking ...

I had lunch with Steve Allen (ATL's Chairman) a couple of months ago and we discussed how two of ATL's main competitors had been bought out this year at 4.5 and 5 times revenue (because of the forecast growth in the PPM software sector).

If you apply the same formula to ATL you get a buyout valuation of £10-£11m on predicted FY06 revenue of £2.2m, increasing substantially in FY07 (i reckon FY07 revenue will be £3-4m). £10-£11m equates to 45p-50p per share.

EB holds just over 50% of the company and, up until now, i had thought that he would not want to sell the business. However, i'm starting to get a feeling that he may sell the company ... he is rightly proud of the quality of the IP in Corporate Vision and, i'm getting the feeling that he'd like:

a) Corporate Vision to reach the widest number of users asap (which is best achieved by being part of a larger business)

b) shareholders and staff to realise financial benefits from their commitment to the business (the original IPO back in 2001 was at 25p)

Someone clearly has a little more inside info., bearing in mind the substantial buys which went through on 22 November 2006 (which, according to my records, were the largest share transactions in ATL in a single day in the last five years - other than 30th June 2003, when a similar level of buying triggered sharp share price rise from 30p to 90p...)

[explorer88] 19/12/2006 19:11

Mad -

"if ada and srf are bought out i will add more to my holdings in this..."

...that's my strategy too.

[madasafishman] 19/12/2006 17:53

exp88
dont worry im not expecting any guarentees
will make my own decision at end of day
if it all goes wrong i only ever blame myself
never anyone else
will be looking to take out a smallish holding(edit)in next day or so then add on any future rises if it looks promising you will know when i have bought as with the low vols on here the price will rocket :-)
ive substantially decreased my portfoilo over the last few weeks
and will be in cash come feb,march untill aug,sept when i will invest again
for the winter the only shares i will hold through the summer will be this one ada till june then review and srf(if i have to average down due to no buyout)
if ada and srf are bought out i will add more to my holdings in this
thanks for the info

[explorer88] 19/12/2006 17:32

If it goes down more, i'll buy more. I feel we've probably bottomed out now and announcement in mid january will trigger initial rise / start to re-rating in the share price

sept and oct buys equalled sells

nov and dec buys outnumbered sells by 9 to 1

cash in bank nearly 2m

research team split into two - one team developing existing IP for Corporate Vision, the other team developing new software to launch next summer

PPM book due to be published in March (two of the authors work for ATL, the third is running their free seminars next year)

At user group event, Eugene said (and i believe him) that the company had been approached with some major prospective contracts which would transform the turnover of the business, but that he wanted to develop Corporate Vision's IP further before taking on these contracts.

I met a number of prospective clients at the user group event who were planning to sign contracts for Corporate Vision - including Applied Materials (major prospective client, especially if CV is used in their US business).

Big clients - Virgin Mobile, Provident Financial, Norwich Union etc ...most of whom i met at the event and everyone i spoke to said they were delighted with CV / ATL business solutions and were planning on rolling out CV / business solutions across their different divisions.

EB wants to re-introduce the dividend as soon as possible.

Summary - yes, ATL has turned the corner. Can't guarantee that the share price won't go down further, but reckon in 2-3 years it will be many times current price. My three year target is 120p-140p.

[madasafishman] 19/12/2006 16:46

exp88
when you say not high risk i take it you mean that
it is unlikely to go down alot further due to value of business at present
2m cash etc

because just purely looking at the chart this is in a serious downward trend this could easily halve again ?
unless it has alot of good news to come soon ie: the company has turned a corner ?

[explorer88] 19/12/2006 15:34

hello mad

i'm a recent investor in ATL (although i've been tracking the business for five years). I am one of the largest private shareholders in the business.

the business is very conservatively run - has nearly £2m cash in bank, EV is just a little over £1m.

Revenue this year will come in over £2m and i believe this will grow substantially over the next three years as businesses invest in PPM and ATL rolls out it's Corporate Vision software.

I attended the annual ATL user group a couple of months ago - met clients and prospective clients. Very impressed.

Will post further details and analysis when i have a little more time ... but my summary is that if you have "patient money" which you're happy to tie up for three years - then ATL is the best prospect i've found to potentially increase its share price tenfold in three years without taking on high risk.