Brady Share Discussion Threads

[cocl2] 24/1/2008 09:52

The previous warning was not about their forecast. It was warning the market that it was not listening and the forecast was broadly accurate and not going to be an underestimation.
However, I do agree that the money is only useful for five things:
1) Buy someone or something (buy a competitor, buy an extra back office or trade entry component that is currently missing etc.)
2) Spend in not immediately revenue generating projects (convert to 64-bit Windows, change to PERL, change to a different database, change the architecture in some way to allow more speed or functionality or otherwise improve the product but not in 2008-2009.)
3) Pay the bills when revenue becomes slack.
4) Pay dividends.
5) Defence against a takeover (5.9m STG is money in the bank and people tend to shy away from paying your money for their money. If they dropped to 2m STG and had more product or whatever, I think they would be more appetising as a takeover target.)

So, I think we need the money being spent and not to have this much money in 12 months time. However, I suspect davidosh might try to get the ball rolling by asking them questions face-to-face.

[unionhall] 24/1/2008 09:51

As I understand it they got £600k in Cash from the placing to the new chairman in July. ( presume they didn't accept an IOU )

This indicates their operational cssh flow was minus £300k in the last six months.

A bit strange for their traditionally stronger second half.

Am I missing something ?

[cyberian] 24/1/2008 09:50

I will be at AGM and will try to have them replace their Brokers who I believe have had a negative influence. CEO did not need to undermine sentiment/confidence to try to put an adverse slant on previous management to make himself look better. What he did achieve was to slam the share price when it was holding up well and achieve some options at a more advantageous price...well that was the result of his warning....expect profits to be substantially below market expectations. Did their Broker endorse this staement?? Whatever, the new CEO and Chairman had better get their fingers out and start to convert some pipe-line interest now that they have at least got the right mix of personnel on board.

[davidosh] 24/1/2008 09:24

There has definitely been poor guidance over the last 12 months from the directors and I for one will be giving them a hard time at the AGM.

Hopefully with some large contracts from here and with the strong balance sheet we can see a floor under the share price and some bright spots of light now for 2008

[cyberian] 24/1/2008 08:18

So as I expected the company is in better shape than when compared to that overly cautious warning last September...still makes me mad that the new CEO tried to down-play things after his arrival. It appears that he did inherit a reasonable situation to build on...sure the focus and staffing was not matching prospects, but he could have worded his September statement better imho.Now GET ON WITH IT...cash a healthy £5.9 million and expecting the company to start securing some large contracts over the year.

[unionhall] 18/1/2008 11:39

cheers, agreed, it sounded good tho....

[cyberian] 18/1/2008 11:37

unionhall...no, just trying to fill-in a few gaps. Wish the company were a little more pro-active on the news front but think they should change their Broker to add some sparkle. We need some guidance soon after those two large share purchases by the Chairman (60p) and CEO (44p)last year.

[cocl2] 17/1/2008 22:42

Never mind, I have found the notice from last year. Although the last time they tried to tell the market that they had gone mad and that they were *only* on course to hit their targets, the share priced dropped quite a bit. So, I wouldn't want them to be making any kind of statement without qualifying what they mean. The last "You got it wrong" statement seems to have been interpreted as "We got it wrong".

[cocl2] 17/1/2008 22:36

That made me laiugh but I doubt cyberian is Avril Adamd (Marketing Manager) or Alla Lapidus (Moonlight Media)
Anyway, did they do an anouncement this time last year? All I could find on the website was an announcement about Mitsubishi International.

[unionhall] 17/1/2008 21:32

cyberian - are we to take that last post as their trading statement ?

[cyberian] 17/1/2008 13:56

No trading update statement unlike last year (11/1), so it appears that they may be more in-line with their numbers expected by the market than suggested by the new CEO's statement trailed back in early September. I thought at the time that he wanted to be over cautious and perhaps has overplayed his hand. Understand contracts are still coming through although may not be the mega type of almost a year back. Still I believe that the company may be doing reasonably well and with even better profits to come this year and beyond. I wish the new man had simply stated he had inherited a good situation but one that badly needed a more progressive management style to take BRY to a higher level. They have loads of cash and have been quite profitable even to the extent of paying a modest dividend last year. Demand in the sector remains excellent with Deutsche Bank today stating that they intend to increase their commodity trading staff by up tp 25%. Also the emphasis on a more geographical product reach seemed to be part of the new BRY stragegy. So, expect that may have incurred some additional costs in recent months with a re-balancing and improvement on staffing levels to grow the business will hopefully see a more up-beat comment from the new CEO in due course.

[muttleyrules] 11/12/2007 17:50

Ultimately you need people to sell v600 ... I'm pleased that we are seeing more urgency about signing up contracts. The v600 has more functionality than any other product in the market and I'm not sure that there are any 'performance problems' beyond the norm.
You can spend all you like on a product but you've have to sell it. Customers don't just knock on your door. Seems more likely that the CEO has seen that the product is massively undersold to its potential customer base. If they could sign up 6 or 7 in 2006 without any proper sales effort then 2008 and 2009 should be very exciting. That's presumably why he's bought a large number of shares at 44p.

[supatrada] 11/12/2007 17:04

cyberian: If i throw a dog a bone, i don't want to know what it tastes like.

Apparently a significant number of technical staff have been cut in favour of an increased sales team. Whether this is a wise decision given the current instability and performance problems their v600 product is experiencing is a matter for consideration. Difficult to see any short-term increases in share price as a result of these hires as the sales pipeline in this business is often huge. Also one must question whether an increased spend on sales is pertinent given that good software tends to sell itself and Brady's position in the market is well known given their 20+ year history.

[muttleyrules] 11/12/2007 16:46

Co just put two press releases on their website:
1) New hire in the US to push for more growth in this geography
2) Announcing new strategy which doesn't seem that new to me!

Risk is that it may be more costly in the short-term seems logical to push BRY into a new league.

... a new strategy to consolidate its position as the market leader. Following the September appointment of Gavin Lavelle as its new Chief Executive Officer the board is implementing a series of actions that form the foundation of the company's expansion strategy. The focus will continue to be primarily on trading and risk management for the metals, mining, commodities and energy markets. Brady has enjoyed success in these sectors for a number of years, and expects significant future growth supported by the very buoyant market conditions.

Gavin Lavelle, CEO of Brady, said: "We have very ambitious plans for international growth and are focusing resources on customer support and development as well as specialist sales and marketing. To support these changes we are in the process of recruiting additional people and refocusing the responsibilities of members of some teams. When I joined Brady I knew we had a strong position internationally in risk and trade lifecycle and a top class client list in the mining and trading sectors. We also have a great team and focusing on strategic market sectors will allow us to take full advantage of our expertise and knowledge. This will strengthen our position of supplying global enterprise-level software solutions to new and existing clients and providing the highest levels of service and support in the industry."

[cyberian] 11/12/2007 12:58

Agree muttleyrules...apologies supatrada as the process may be more attuned to weeding out less productive employees as muttleyrules has suggested. With CEO spending a further £300,000 approx.on shares, and the Chairman buying £600,000 of new shares, they must know what they are doing.

[muttleyrules] 11/12/2007 08:59

All you will see at BRY is some upgrading of staff ... the underperformers are being cut out in favour of more dynamic hires. Overall staff numbers are likley to grow over the next 12 mths not shrink. Not convinced the CEO would have bought at 44p if he had a poor story to communicate in January 08 - more likely he would have bided his time. Trading update may not reveal a flurry of contracts but it should convey Lavelle's optimism about the future.

[cyberian] 10/12/2007 23:38

Your comment is a load of tosh...BRY have over £6 million cash and are recruiting staff to meet demand. Previous CEO was too cautious on staffing levels and they had to turn business away. CEO and Chairman have bought large stakes in company and after recent annoyance at losing business I am confident new team will succeed.

[supatrada] 10/12/2007 23:10

Heard from a reliable source that redundancies are looming at Brady. Is this a positive or a negative? Only time will tell but always bad for morale and will they be able to meet their delivery targets with a reduced workforce?

[hattori_hanzo] 27/11/2007 10:58

oldvic - 26 Nov'07 - 21:02 - 315 of 316

Aye!

I recently bought a few at 47p.

EDIT: Sold at 48.5p (I decided the price was likely to retrace in the short term and the market is currently too risky to sit on dead money, but I'll be back. Good luck).

[unionhall] 27/11/2007 10:22

Count me in - I have these in a pension fund so happy to see the original trend line becoming established again.

Executive buys certainly look to underpin the price - especially the 60p.


Not much into graphs but a line from Feb 06 to Jan 07 would put the share price between 55 and 60p at the moment.

Every chance we should see a continued steady rise from there over the medium term barring accidents.

Serious growth depends on how they use their cash. If they don't use it Brady surely becomes an attractive takeover target.

[oldvic] 26/11/2007 21:02

anybody out there
sign of a pulse today

surely someone else holds
well 3 people do after today

speak up jones your through

[muttleyrules] 22/11/2007 14:00

stock came from Gerrards ... they now hold 9.4% ...

[muttleyrules] 16/11/2007 09:27

Confirmed as CEO purchase of 675k at 44p - 2.47% of company ... total holding 2.51% plus options package ... hopefully will be more motivated to get some contracts through the door ... a clear vote of confidence in recovery potential of Brady ...

[cyberian] 16/11/2007 09:26

So it was the CEO who bought...not sure from whom but who cares a strong indication for future prospects...great news at last.