Booker Group Share Discussion Threads

[woodpeckers] 18/6/2014 08:36

I'm not surprised to hear that badmumba, CW has an excellent reputation and is certainly the reason this company is where it is. I think his board of directors are all expected to be equally driven which is why I have no qualms with the options they are granted. Having said that, one concern is how long can they keep going at this intense rate or how long will they be prepared to. The CFO and others have made lots of money out of it so it must be tempting to call it a day at some point and I'm not sure how badly the share price would react if he was to resign.

[nar1] 17/6/2014 21:03

I think £1.20 odd next stop and likely to see more buys

[woodpeckers] 17/6/2014 20:41

I agree badmumba. I think we were all aware that it was on a very high P/E but at this price there must be a lot of investors waiting to push the buy button. Sadly that's now become the problem ..... everyone wants to catch the bottom and as this is such an uncharacteristic fall, no-one knows how far it will go.... I will certainly be watching for it.

The one good thing I hope that will come out of this is that I have always felt that CW is a great CEO, in that he appears to be very focused and driven, but it seems to me that he has done so well 'unintentionally' wooing the markets that he has almost taken it for granted. He tells 'the world' as little as possible (perhaps sensibly, this is not a stock that has a lot of 'froth' around it) but I do sometimes feel that he does need to remember that this is not 'his' company, it actually belongs to the shareholders and as one of them I would actually like a little more information at times (eg how much does India presently contribute to the bottom line).

Enough rambling.....

[badmumba] 17/6/2014 16:20

Still dont understand the fall here, i know a lot of stocks have fallen of late but i think this is overdone now .

[woodpeckers] 17/6/2014 13:16

Bearing in mind that they stated in the results that they intend to pay the 3.5p special divi as well next year this is going to be paying over 5% div yield this year and next (based on the current share price) which makes it much more attractive. I presume they are doing it as a special div rather than putting the normal div up just in case they decide they don't want to pay out that much each year. Shame though as if they just stated they were doubling the divi, which in effect they are doing, I think it would have had a much bigger impact on the share price Fund managers would have bought in who invest in high div yielding shares. I think it would have been a better move to commit to doing that bearing in mind what a cash cow the company is. CW will still have plenty of cash available for expansion.

[oilyrag] 17/6/2014 11:49

When this went ex-divi the share price was 140p give or take. Buying now will result in a much larger (divi) profit and if you buy before 9 July you also qualify for a 3.5p Cash return (further discount on current price if you like.)

140p minus divi 2.75 equals 137.5 cost per share.
137.25p minus 128 equals 9.25p profit per share. Much better than holding for divi.

9.25p profit plus 3.5p cashback equals 9.96%roe. at 128pps.

[woodpeckers] 17/6/2014 11:46

On a brighter note, I've just been doing a bit more rooting around and came across a couple of interesting articles.

I'm guessing that when CW said in the EOY results that "We are reviewing growth options in India..." he was probably talking about the following. It looks as though there is now huge potential for internet wholesale in India. Booker will be able to take the lessons they have learnt growing the internet side of the business in the UK over there.



Walmart presently runs 20 Best Price-branded wholesale stores in India and plans to add another 50 such outlets in the next four to five years.
"We are at a stage where focus is required and focus of the entire team should be in making the current business of cash-and-carry very big. The opportunities to serve under-serviced small retailers in India is immense," he said, and quoted from a McKinsey & Co report that put the market opportunity in the wholesale segment at around $300 billion and expected to swell to $700 billion by 2020.




Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) has opened an e-commerce website to supply goods to mom-and-pop merchants in India as the world's largest retailer seeks to dominate a market it estimates will be valued at $50 billion by 2020.


"The mandate from Wal-Mart for me is to focus on the cash-and-carry business." Iyer said in an interview in New Delhi June 13 . "We are into cash-and-carry for the long-haul and the prize is big."

Wal-Mart's e-commerce initiative may boost orders from hotels, hospitals and web-savvy businesses, said Ruchi Sally, head of retail advisory at consultant Elargir Solutions Pvt. in Mumbai.

"Initially it may be only in the cities where they have stores, but they can roll it out nationwide," Sally said via phone from Mumbai. "I see a huge potential in this."

Competitors such as Metro and Reliance Retail may follow Wal-Mart's lead and offer similar services, she said.

[woodpeckers] 17/6/2014 10:59

Never ending fall....Wonder if the company will comment at any point? I don't think it's really CW's style but it might help..?

[blunderbuss] 16/6/2014 07:43

That's 0.5% per shorter.

[sarah_jane] 15/6/2014 10:37

Most decent sized companies will have some shares shorted in them. But if it's less than 0.5%, then its hardly significant so unlikely to be the cause of the falling share price

[blunderbuss] 13/6/2014 15:16

mm, I think the records only show shorts > 0.5% of issued shares. No record doesn't mean no shorts held.

[nar1] 13/6/2014 09:26

120 ouch :-(

[mrmomentumt] 13/6/2014 08:59

Sadly L2 looking weak. Next strong support at 120p ish. Hopefully wont go that far!

[fruitninja84] 12/6/2014 22:57

Still waiting here and have not been tempted Back in yet with the lower price ... Errie feel to the whole market imo
Not calling anything but still think this will head lower yet maybe below 130! There is no rule that states that a year or two growth cant come off a share price indeed for any good reason?

Its tempting at these levels but the scary thing is markets are moving sideways, slightly up (100 index) and this is falling...

BOK WILL rise again but this year? we will see, my old fav halma heading back up and another fav of mine RTN looking like it could fall below 600 ...

[woodpeckers] 12/6/2014 21:25

Really wish I could find something positive to say here.

Bought back a percentage of my original holding at 142p and now wishing I'd waited. I have trawled to find anything that is causing this pullback and can only think it is something to do with India... ??? Funds selling due to IPOs would affect the whole of the 250 and that is slightly up today comparing sharply to our 2.9% drop! Whatever, something is definitely amiss as the market no longer likes us...

You can look at charts from all angles and see what you want to see but at the moment ours is definitely looking like it's heading south to me and I really don't know why.....

Will sleep on it... the great thing about this stock, unlike some small AIM shares is that it is very liquid, so selling a reasonable quantity (though my holding is relatively small at the moment) is always quite easy.

[philo124] 12/6/2014 21:15

Waiting to buy in for 1st time.

[mrmomentumt] 12/6/2014 18:26

I don't think so Blunderbuss as short tracker doesn't list any funds currently short on BOK.

BOK is not a buy today and sell for 50% upside tomorrow on a RNS of a major deal. It's a long term tuck away and reap the rewards of the good dividends and capital appreciation over the long term type of share. The longer term 3-5 year charts still show a positive up trend from what I can see. It also seems the share price performs strongly from the half year mark onwards so at a guess it wont be long before it turns imo.

[blunderbuss] 12/6/2014 17:29

We may find that some Fund or other has opened a short.

[pilly11] 12/6/2014 17:17

Did not expect that today

[woodpeckers] 12/6/2014 11:34

Ok, Nar, you get to the front and I'll bring up the rear! ;-)

[mrmomentumt] 12/6/2014 07:47

Considering the div, it was actually 'up' on the day when the rest of the indices took quite a battering!

[nar1] 11/6/2014 21:57

Needs a good forward push

[pilly11] 11/6/2014 17:27

Down less than the 2.75p not such a bad day