Best Of The Best Share Discussion Threads

[investographer] 21/6/2020 16:01

This company is definitely going places. Without a sale, if 70p eps is hit next year, a PE of 30 gives us a share price of GBP21 WITH a decent dividend.The brand is growing exponentially thanks to the social media & marketing that Hindmarch is perfecting.This could go to Private Equity for double the current price...

[studentinvestor13] 21/6/2020 14:53

What a great share this has been and I am sure it is now a bigger holding for all of us. Delighted I found out it was listed earlier this year having been a customer for a long time. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of the sale process!

[muddystone] 19/6/2020 08:17

Price and obscure quantity....and it didn't show up on the actual day it was traded

[dan_the_epic] 19/6/2020 06:38

Maybe rather than running a business where the huge majority of players don't win their dream car despite spending lots of hard earned money on it (what I'd term a negative business), he'd like to move into something a bit more positive.

BOTB is not going to win any ESG awards any time soon

[investographer] 19/6/2020 06:34

Below posts are from mammyoko on Stockopedia

[investographer] 19/6/2020 06:32

Don't think the market has ever really had a clue about how to value Best Of The Best (LON:BOTB) - hence the recent upwards lurch in price on low volume. Given the small free float the instis have not been playing here and only the house broker covers it. So price discovery seems mostly about PI supply and demand. For once, I think holders are in a that fortunate position where there is limited two-way business - it feels like this will be all one way provided the company continues to deliver. If someone wants to buy it, good - provided it's at a good price. The only risk is that William and Rupert sell it too cheaply because what's the odd GBP10 million on the price when you're sitting on tens of millions already? But given that this is now a pure online play and that growth looks to be accelerating, the only reason I can see for them cashing in is that they don't feel that they are capable of taking the business forwards. I can't see why they would think that sitting on a yacht in Monaco would be preferable to taking their baby on the next stage of its journey, though. William is a self-confessed petrol-head so seems to be in the perfect job. Given that these shares are very tightly held and that all the indications are that the business is poised to grow rapidly I can see no reason for anyone to sell. How many other companies with similar growth potential and financial strength are there out there at the moment?

[investographer] 19/6/2020 06:25

A good post on Stockopedia. The main consensus is a buyout of GBP20 Re Best Of The Best (LON:BOTB) , William Hill (LON:WMH) and BetFred have been suggested as interested parties. My review of their financial position suggests that they would both struggle to raise the GBP185m that might be required. I am guessing that it is PE that has either shown an interest or been approached. That might not result in an overly-generous offer. Considering that William and his wife would be looking at a payout of approximately GBP88m and Rupert of GBP28m at a take-out of GBP20, I don't think that they would be too fussed about holding out for any more. If finnCaps 2021 forecast eps was designed to elicit an offer and is the best case scenario then GBP20 would be attractive. If it is the base case scenario and there were to be further upgrades as the year progresses (there have been at least 8 upgrades over the last four years), then eps of GBP1 may well be achievable and GBP20 doesn't look quite so generous. They would need to do revenues of about GBP35m to achieve that against finnCap's estimate of GBP28m.The question is how much this could grow with overseas expansion. Non-UK revenues were only GBP2.8m out of a total of GBP17.8m last year. I have no idea whether this can grow substantially but my question would be why not?One look at the accounts shows what a simple business this is. Some have inferred from the simplicity of the business that there is, consequently, no moat. I do find it extraordinary that something that is just a re-hash of all those competitions that ran in newspapers when I was younger could be talked about as being worth up to GBP200m. But I think that this represents the wholly justified premium for fantastic execution. The fact that we are talking about such a premium indicates to me that the moat is wider than it appears. Competitors do exist but William and Rupert have actually made this desirable by very clever marketing while also seeming to be that rare breed on AIM - reasonably trustworthy.I think it may be hard to get PE to pay what this is worth so it may drag on. I am interested in others' opinions.Disclosure: I am long from 280p

[glavey] 19/6/2020 05:19

How do you know it was yours?

[muddystone] 18/6/2020 11:14

I'm not particularly au fait with all this but can anyone explain to me why a buy trade I made yesterday has only just appeared on the trades page 24 hrs later? It was a relatively small one

[arshadte] 18/6/2020 00:43

So does that mean private investors will effectively vote on share prices for any takeovers.

[investographer] 17/6/2020 17:22

William Hindmarch*2,375,65825.33%Philippa Hindmarch2,350,00025.06%Rupert Garton*1,389,46714.82%Michael Hindmarch*832,0238.87%Stancroft Trust726,7447.75%Octopus Investment Management170,0001.81%*denotes director There are currently 9,377,253 ordinary shares of 5 pence in issue.Shares in Best of the Best Plc are only tradable on AIM.There are no restrictions on the transfer of securities.Shares in Best of the Best Plc not held in public hands represent 74.13% of the issued share capital of the Company.

[peart] 17/6/2020 16:59

I'm sure the directors who are the majority shareholders know they've got something good here and will only accept a knock out offer. Interesting game to see how this plays out and as we say "time will tell"!

[peart] 17/6/2020 16:54

I agree 100% with your comments as my posts from earlier today confirm. I've held this stock since circa 2006/07 at flotation and have spoken to Rupert Garton (Director) twice in that time and my sense was, as you touched on, that he was a decent and morally upstanding man who was working hard in the business. (I hope I don't sound too clever in my length of time holding this company - I would add that I've purchased several other similar sized companies around that time and a fair few went bust - so I don't proclaim that I can read the tea leaves better than the next person!) I sense that a ballpark price might have been spoken about - otherwise why make an announcement (however I'm not familiar with the detail of public company takeover rules). I don't feel that the directors would accept anything lower than the early 20's and as I've said and you touched on for a pure online booming company that is cheap. Stateside they'd probably pay 50!

[davidosh] 17/6/2020 16:18

Good news for us shareholders but puts kibosh on a #MelloVirtual appearance next month and a BOTB investor competition at the event. Unfortunately the reply from William H this morning reads 'You may have seen this morning’s announcement...With that in mind we are bound by the code & can’t really talk to anyone so sadly will have to miss this one but hope to be able to do one in the future.

A shame but as investors you are all very much welcome to attend this virtual event

[dave4545] 17/6/2020 13:58

Plus is online prizes business a guaranteed long term good thing or has it benefited from people in lockdown ?

[dave4545] 17/6/2020 13:57

I'd not buy it, I know it's done well but £5 mil cash £4 mil profits, yes they both will increase but a buyer would have to pay £150 mil +

Hardly seems cheap to me ?

[investographer] 17/6/2020 13:46

Paul Scott on Stockopedia Best Of The Best (LON:BOTB)Share price: 1400p (up 12% today, at 09:06)No. shares: 9.38mMarket cap: £131.3m(I'm currently long)Review of Options under Formal Sale ProcessBest of the Best plc runs competitions online to win cars and other prizes.The company has received;...very preliminary expressions of interest which could potentially lead to an offer or offers being made for the Company.How interesting! There's an obvious rationale for a larger gaming group to buy BOTB, and then feed its existing customer database into the company, hence scaling it up rapidly. BOTB has about 2 decades of experience in this niche, and considerable brand credibility from years of operating from UK airports - people still remember this, even though the company gradually went online-only over the past few years.The Board of BOTB has confidence in the long term prospects for the Company but believes that it is in the best interest of all stakeholders to explore possible strategic options for the business (including a potential sale) by commencing a "formal sale process"My opinion - I think we're in a nice position here. There's possible further upside if one or more bidders put in an offer to buy the company. Management has a controlling stake, so they won't sell it on the cheap. Their track record is such that I think we can trust them to look after small shareholders, as they have in the past.If no acceptable bids are forthcoming, then we have very strong profit growth to look forward to, and the share price should continue rising long-term.A cynic might say that the recent big hike in FY 04/2021 forecast earnings might have been at least partially motivated by maximising the sale value of the company? That said, the company has overshot forecasts 5 times in total in the last year, so clearly the previous forecasts were far too pessimistic, and didn't reflect the traction the company is gaining with its digital marketing. Plus other growth initiatives.Forecast EPS is 70p for this year, so at 1400p we're only on a PER of 20 - arguably still cheap for a company that's just reported doubling its profit, and has extremely high operational gearing with more growth underway.It's tempting to bank some profit, but I think it's worth 2000p+, hence logically I feel it makes sense for me to sit tight. Obviously that's just one person's opinion, other investors may be happy to bank profits. It's your call!

[johndoe23] 17/6/2020 07:17

Looks like it.

[farnesbarnes] 17/6/2020 07:11

This will be suspended soon.

[investographer] 17/6/2020 07:08

Well done fellow golfers & commiserations to those that obviously missed the boat : (Paul Scott currently values this at over GBP20 with a PE of 30I doubt the company will accept anything below GBP30My target now is GBP40

[peart] 17/6/2020 07:02

That's what makes a market - different views, and we don't know what the directors know and that will be very significant in any price achieved.