Cenkos Securities Share Discussion Threads

[tanneg] 23/5/2019 20:37

Cenkos sole Placing agent for GCP Asset Backed Income Fund Limited raising up to
£66 million

[speedsgh] 22/5/2019 10:26

Cenkos, acting as joint bookrunner alongside Berenberg, have raised £20m in a placing for Marlowe (MRL).

[lord gnome] 20/5/2019 10:19

Back to watching and waiting then - and hoping?

[speedsgh] 20/5/2019 09:39

Cenkos is a rudderless ship at present. The company could do a lot worse than heed the advice of Crystal Amber who are generally smart cookies. New chairman and a clean brush required to sweep out ALL the old management? Why no predators showing interest in Cenkos in spite of the weakness of the current position? Situation will presumably resolve itself eventually but whether that is to the benefit of all shareholders remains to be seen.

[lord gnome] 20/5/2019 09:15

Interesting that Stockopedia indicates that the company is currently valued at £36 millions and yet it has £40 millions of net cash on the balance sheet. Valued at less than the cash it holds. I realise that this is held for regulatory purposes, but even so, if anyone can even begin to turn this around, the share price should easily double for starters. Pity is that currently, I can't see it happening.

[speedsgh] 20/5/2019 09:04

Crystal Amber continue to up the ante...

‘Poorly managed’ Cenkos pressured to acquire rival broker -

One of the City’s biggest stockbrokers has been labelled a “poorly managed business” by a large shareholder who wants it to merge with a rival, as new regulation and Brexit heap pressure on one of the oldest industries in finance.

Crystal Amber, an activist investor and the fifth-largest shareholder in Cenkos Securities, has demanded the Square Mile broker buy another firm.

The Aim-listed stockbroker, which arranged stock market floats for Eddie Stobart, the logistics group, in 2017 and breakdown firm AA in 2014, suffered a 25% fall in full-year revenues in 2018, compared with the year before.

Richard Bernstein, investment adviser at Crystal Amber, said City’s broking sector is overcrowded.

“We want Cenkos to lead consolidation. You don’t need four firms doing very similar things with four compliance departments and four rents in the City of London, you need one firm,” Bernstein told Financial News.

"We’ve been having dialogue for well over a year and they [Cenkos] are not responding. We think it’s a poorly managed business. They need proper management, they need some leaders who understand business.”

Bernstein’s comments come as the broking industry fights for survival amid falling commission rates, a dearth of UK initial public offerings due to Brexit uncertainty and the loss of revenues from the introduction of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II.

The activist investor, which has held stakes in fund manager Neil Woodford’s Patient Capital Trust, banknote printer De La Rue and online retailer Ocado, is also critical of the constant change at the top of Cenkos.

Last week, the broker revealed its plan to rehire former boss Jim Durkin as chief executive has been delayed unexpectedly by his failure to receive approval from the Financial Conduct Authority, the regulator. Durkin, a City veteran and a major shareholder of the brokerage, was chief executive between December 2011 and July 2017.

“How did the board decide that Jim is the best candidate in the country? It was a bit like, ‘We know him and he knows us, so let’s choose him. Jim is the saviour’,” Bernstein said. “Jim is a good equity salesman and a decent man, but he’s not a business leader.”

Cenkos has asked outgoing chief executive Anthony Hotson to stay until Durkin gets approval from the regulator. Hotson, a former Bank of England economist, quit in October following a 90% drop in Cenkos’s pre-tax profits.

A number of stockbrokers in the Square Mile, including Peel Hunt, are considering merger talks. Shore Capital Markets bought rival Stockdale Securities in a £9m deal in February to create London’s fourth-largest corporate broking firm. Last year, Santander was in talks to buy Peel Hunt while Macquarie, the Australian investment bank, was reported to have been circling Liberum.

Cenkos Securities declined to comment.

[speedsgh] 20/5/2019 09:01

New appointment replacing Grant Thornton as Nomad to Coro Energy (CORO). Mirabaud Securities & Turner Pope Investments retain their positions as joint brokers...

[speedsgh] 18/5/2019 10:15

Cenkos have acted as joint bookrunner alongside J&E Davy & RBC Capital Markets on the c£7m placing for Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd (FOG) completed yesterday...

Proposed Placing -
Results of Placing -

[albert zog] 15/5/2019 07:35

I’m out of my measly position. Divi flow has been ok. But not clear to me when share price will ever pick up. Management situation here is bizarre. Deal execution in these markets also very poor, for all brokers not just Cnk. Can’t see there being consolidation either.

[lord gnome] 15/5/2019 07:26

Poor trading then, although I think we could all have guessed that. I just hope it's in the price.
So the Mail was right for once then and big Jim Durkin is still in the frame. The dear old FCA are making him sweat though. Will they, won't they? When will we know?

[lord gnome] 09/5/2019 17:47

Surely we already mow the answer to that one. Durkin has been blackballed. The Daily Mail must be short of something to fill the column. A few articles short of a paper?

[speedsgh] 09/5/2019 10:00

Nothing new here in this short article from the This Is Money website...

Broker faces fierce scrutiny from the City regulator as he vies to return to CEO role at Cenkos -

The returning chief executive of small company broker Cenkos is facing fierce scrutiny from the City regulator, amid fears he may not be the right man for the job.

Jim Durkin, 58, left Cenkos in 2017 and announced his comeback just 18 months later.

But almost six months after he revealed his return, he is still waiting to be approved for the position by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority.

Candidates should be app-roved as 'fit and proper' within three months, but the Mail has learned Durkin was called into the FCA for an interview.

He was at the helm of Cenkos when it was fined £530,500 for failings relating to work for scandal-stricken insurance software firm Quindell.

Cenkos declined to comment.

[lord gnome] 07/5/2019 07:55

Good old Daily Mail. Behind the curve as usual. Rehashing old news. But when will something happen here?

[farview1] 02/5/2019 23:24

Go post your rubbish elsewhere.Blocked.

[lord gnome] 17/4/2019 08:18

Ref speedsgh' post 3096: I suspect that the lack of any news from the company about Jim Durkin indicates that he failed the personality test with the FCA.

[lord gnome] 12/4/2019 18:16

Good to win one, even if it’s a tiddler.

[speedsgh] 12/4/2019 08:42

New mandate. Cenkos have been appointed as Nomad & sole broker to IXICO (IXI), replacing Shore Capital...

[speedsgh] 12/4/2019 08:38

Acting on small placing/open offer to raise up to £3.25m for Tasty (TAST)...

[lord gnome] 06/4/2019 16:03

Good. Somebody needs to sort this out.

[speedsgh] 05/4/2019 22:54

Crystal Amber are clearly not happy...



Richard Bernstein - @CrystalAmberRB1

Cenkos, the £37m mkt cap broker releases its 2018 accounts. 7 board directors-2 generate revenues-of the rest, CEO and FD paid £1m including £583k compensation for loss of office. The 3 non-execs paid a combined £410k. £1.4m paid to non revenue generating directors! A disgrace.

[speedsgh] 01/4/2019 21:11

albert zog - Many thanks for highlighting the planned cuts to Canaccord Genuity's UK capital markets business which was announced yesterday.

CG's press release...
Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. announces a restructuring of its UK Capital Markets Business -

Canaccord Genuity blames City cuts on Brexit turmoil -

Brexit blamed as Canaccord Genuity axes jobs in London -

CG press release and news articles don't appear to suggest that CG are withdrawing completely from UK capital markets sector but refer to a 'significant reduction' in jobs with tens of employees earmarked for redundancy out of its 110-strong UK workforce including senior staff in equities, corporate broking and equity capital markets.

Articles contain some interesting commentary on the current state of the capital raising & advisory markets in the UK.

"The UK experienced its lowest number of initial public offerings in a decade during the first quarter of 2019, according to Dealogic, the data provider."

The news is also noteworthy seeing as CG poached no less than 4 Cenkos clients (Michelmersh Brick Holdings MBH; Comptoir Group COM; IG Design Group IGR; & Mercia Technologies MERC) between Dec 2018 and Feb 2019 and was also apppointed as joint broker to FairFX Group FFX alongside Cenkos. These companies represented some of the more reputable clients in Cenkos's portfolio.

[albert zog] 01/4/2019 18:17

The collapse of Canaccord UK - announced today - may herald an opportunity for Chenkos. Lots of sme clients up for grabs ?