Brighton Pier Share Discussion Threads

[mr clive] 05/7/2024 09:11

Indeed. Thank you for your regular commentary - helps keep me sane!

[thecroots] 05/7/2024 09:08

Hi Mr Clive,

Thought someone was adding then!!

Probably like a lot of us here, i bought in for the medium term. PIER is a steal at these pries so we shouldn't concern ourselves too much with these movements.

Kirmich, makes sense to add in alignment with the weather.

I cannot see the weather being as bad as last year.

[thecroots] 05/7/2024 09:07

Hi Mr Clive,

Thought someone was adding then!!

Probably like a lot of us here, i bought in for the medium term. PIER is a steal at these pries so we should concern ourselves too much with these movements.

Kirmich, makes sense to add in alignment with the weather.

I cannot see the weather being as bad as last year.

[mr clive] 05/7/2024 08:59

Long time holder, first time poster.

Re liquidity, I was recently able to roughly double my holding via II, adding 70,000 at an average of 44.8p - seemed a good idea at the time! (thecroots commented 18th June)

Had to buy in 2 or 3 trenches and paid about .75p over the top, but not too outrageous. The share price has dropped ever since, so might take more than a few £10k buys to move things along.

Anyway, no plans to sell and happy where I am - see current value in 80p - £1 range with scope to grow, so plenty of headroom. Time will tell!

[kirmich] 05/7/2024 08:28

Just changed my order to 10.000 at 0,39

If the current + prospected weather were a bit better, I would try to double my position quickly, now rather slowly as it is pretty weather dependent.

[kirmich] 05/7/2024 08:06

Hi mr Croot,

It was me who had the buy in and only got 2500. Will try to buy again today.

Just checked, they bought the Pier in 2016 for 18 million. Maybe they overspent, but given the cashflow it had produced since then, I doubt it.

I would keep doing what they are doing, dont get into more debt by expanding as it is too expensive for the moment, use the cashflow to further pay down debt (800.000 interest paid last year on the debt) and if you want to spend something, use the autorithy to buy back shares, even for a “minimal”; amount of 500.000 pounds, it would do wonders.
And pray for a few weekends of great weather in the UK

As is normal, everybody has its own ideas how to progress, but I think everybody agrees this is a well managed company. Look at what they survived the last few years

[thecroots] 05/7/2024 07:56

Hi Kirmich,

Bought on the open market but probably would have to sell via a different avenue. Not looking to sell for at least 2-3 years.

One thing to be considered, is that both Cavendish and Edison have sent out research notes. Perhaps, yesterday was a tree shake to gain some share to sell. Never thought about it until Davidosh said he wanted to buy 10k shares but only managed to buy 2500.


Bookbroker, they NEED the indoor golf. Its their hedge against bad weather. Why would you want to sell a business that has little overheads generating gross of 98%. They are actively looking for further sites.

I have always said they should introduce a dividend. Doesn't have to be a big % yield

[jm6783] 05/7/2024 07:32

The highest RoE and least capital intensive business is golf. To my mind, that is the business they should be expanding.

[bookbroker] 04/7/2024 23:27

The best outcome is to sell the bars, indoor golf and focus on the two outdoor attractions. BP does not need too much investment, just upgrade and improvement. LW. has amazing potential for the scope, but that needs capital.

[ijamlon] 04/7/2024 21:48

The liquidity is especially bad because of the now hilarious £14mln market cap, fully 70% is locked up by 3 shareholders who sit on it. So we're essentially dealing with a £4mln free float at most, which is microscopic and off limits for almost any institution now. Those of us who have bought large amounts, we are probably stuck with them until there's some big event unless we want to decimate the share price. There are various strategies they could deploy for improving the liquidity (targeted buybacks or share issuance, a large transaction - purchase or sale, dividends, scrips) but the bottom line is it needs to be bigger and the best liquidity generation is to grow.

[kirmich] 04/7/2024 21:46

Thx for the answer mr Croot and for the extra insights

One extra question on your build up of your shares, did you buy them all on the regular market of did you purchase them in off market deals? And maybe a second question, did you know who is selling?

[thecroots] 04/7/2024 20:21

hi Dartboard

my main area of buying was from 34p which Sent the price up to near 60p.

I aim to get to 4%

[dartboard1] 04/7/2024 19:19

Such low volume that any day someone decides to buy or sell it moves the price. No idea how you managed to accumulate Crootes without sending us to 2 pounds

[thecroots] 04/7/2024 18:22

Hard to imagine that this was 120p in 2022 - even harder to imagine that the share price now is at the same level than it was during Covid when the pier was closed!!

[thecroots] 04/7/2024 18:20

I get your point - I have spoken to the CEO a couple of times and i know for a fact that she has 3 personal family events (I won't share what) within the next 12 months to pay for - so i would imagine that may have played a part. Who knows..

Nonetheless, if i was CEO and i wasn't sure how things were going to pan out for the financial year then i wouldn't buy any shares. Sure, it would be better if the amount was higher but a director purchase - big or small- does send out the right message.

[thecroots] 04/7/2024 17:37

Could also be a tree shake for a big buyer if Kirmich could only buy 2500 rather than 10k

[thecroots] 04/7/2024 17:34

Pug,

PIER has indoor crazy golf centres in high footfall areas. Each one two 18 holes!!

[pugugly] 04/7/2024 17:29

Could there be a risk of new gov compulsory purchase of some golf courses for housing at price of undeveloped land - Golf mainly played by middle and upper classes?

Could it be this is is a possible Red Flag? Pun intended? Remember many years ago they introduced a betterment levy.

[thecroots] 04/7/2024 17:20

Agreed- it is very well managed.

[thecroots] 04/7/2024 17:19

Kirmich,

I had this conversation with them last November. Cannot see that happening. I think we would get an offer from Private Equity first. It was private equity owned before. Their answer was that do you think Luke Johnson would accept an offer of say 60p per share when he added funds well over 100p?

I have a 3.5% holding now. I may add a few more and the Brighton Pier group website has been updated to show..

You have to think that the CFO isn't getting any younger - none of us are, so i would imagine he will be hanging up his boots in a year or two, maybe longer. But he also has a 3.1% holding - so obviously he would like the share price to be higher than it is now. And of course a place to sell them.

Also the CEO bought 10k shares in May. I doubt she would have bought if something was wrong. LWV had a good start to the year being 7% up. I am also hoping we have had a bit of business from the football showing in the bars. I know on the pier that had a big screen showing.

Don't forget the £4.9m lease impairment chargeback is going back on this years accounts so that will show as paper profit.

I think LWV is the one that will have good comp figures this year as their new dynamic pricing seems to be working good. Just need the weather to be kind..

Cavendish have a 12 month price target of 75p and considering NAV is 61p , the current share price really is a steal in my opinion...

[kirmich] 04/7/2024 16:57

Tried to purchase 10,000 shares at 38 pence, got 2500. The only worry i really have is they will take it private.

It is very well managed and in a good year they can get free cashflow of 8 million i think. For a 16 million market cap.

Maybe its time to make an inventory of the amount of shares we represent? With the Croots family its easy as they are a 3% holder. I have far less with 111.000 shares. But at current prices i will be adding more.

[thecroots] 04/7/2024 16:57

They have already said they want more golf sites....