Christie Share Discussion Threads

[bigbigdave] 09/1/2006 13:41

Order please CR, this isn't the PLE thread.

[cockneyrebel] 09/1/2006 13:19

Big Bob, Big Dave, big rise I hope :-)

CR

[bigbigdave] 09/1/2006 12:47

Joined in. Looks a good story.
Should motor if it breaks out.

[bigbobjoylove] 09/1/2006 12:11

in for 5000 this morn dundoe ;-)

[cockneyrebel] 09/1/2006 11:15

Can sell 25K online at 1.5p premium, can't buy 1K online.

CR

[cockneyrebel] 08/1/2006 13:55

Yep, wonder who the fool will be? :-)

CR

[wjccghcc] 08/1/2006 13:25

Well, last results were Aprils Fools Day so we'll see then :-)

[cockneyrebel] 08/1/2006 12:53

Well I did say that they could be worth £180m if they wer firing on all cylinders, not today.

"If these businesses were firing on all cylinders with the sort of sales they have then they would have a break-up value of £180m+ imo. This company won't be valued at that tomorrow but £31m mkt cap is way too cheap imo - bags of scope for the stock to treble and still be very cheap imo."

I'm not saying these are a 6 bagger overnight.

I used Savills as a comparison but above your post I have used Colliers Cre which is a much smaller property co.

Yes, these companies do differ but it's never possible to compare exact like for likes.

My main issue is that if you take the sum of the parts, get them running at a decent clip the valuation would be well north of where it is today. I don't need these to 6 bag, a doubler will be plenty. This is where many punters go wrong imo. It isn't going to 6 bag overnight but if it falls short miserably by 60% it will still have doubled!


These will have sales of £90m next year I suspect, the market cap is £31m and the directors are buying decent amounts at about 10% below today's price, in particulary the FD, which I regard as a positive. From £90m sales it doesn't take much to get £6m profit and put CTG on a PE of around 6 or so, and I don't think there will be any 'deflate after the finals'. I think investors sometimes expect too much, in particular in the past few years when most software companies have struggled.

We'll see - sometimes your nose tells you more than the results imo.

CR

[wjccghcc] 08/1/2006 12:27

CR, I respect a lot of what you say but sometimes you do get a bit carried away! That's one of the biggest ramps I've seen you do and I wish you wouldn't cos it makes me take some of your other research with a pinch of salt :-(

Setting aside the fact that I'm not invested here because I feel management run this as a personal fiefdom and are not particularly visionary when it comes to taking the group forward outside their traditional area of hotel valuations and stocktaking:

Savills is far larger, has large international exposure, serves far more markets and is far more profitable, Christie is exposed mainly to the hotel transactions market which can be extremely lumpy - currently they're lossmaking due to slow takeup of business at the new offices. One asks why they didn't open these new branches several years ago? Having said that, this division is certainly where the value is.

Ascribe provides software to hospitals and pharmacies to ensure correct prescribing to patients. VC Timeless is a bit player in the EPOS market which has never fitted comfortably into the group and has been lossmaking pretty much since they bought it. Compare their margins/performance with Alphameric, XNC or TRX. They should sell the damn thing.

Chelford provide supply chain software. Orridge and Venners provide outsourced physical stocktaking services - a very different, much more staff intensive and lower margin business. A good solid business but not one to set the world alight and with limited scope for margin improvement.

Is CTG undervalued? Yes, probably, IMHO although as I mentioned earlier, I don't think management are the most forward looking here or provide the best shareholder value. Are they worth 180mm as higlighted in your analysis, that gave me the biggest laugh of the morning. Provided the new offices begin pulling their weight, I can see a 10-20% upside on fundamentals.

Of course, with your following they'll probably have a 50% spike before deflating after the finals :-)

[cockneyrebel] 08/1/2006 12:03

Another example of what the property division could be worth (Christie and Co, Christie First and Pinders.).

Colliers Cre (COL) Sales of £67m, mkt cap £52m.
Christie property division, sales of £37m might be worth £30m on that basis, when fully profitable - the valuation for the whole Christie Group.

CR

[tonyx] 08/1/2006 11:14

Thanks for the reply, CR.

[gringostar] 08/1/2006 00:08

I think share price is based on profits and EPS more than sales, so what's going to change to get those margins up?

[cockneyrebel] 07/1/2006 19:07

Hard to compare tony. SMC have great growth and earnings visibility. CTG have very high sales and scope for big margin growth. If SMC is 10 I'd say CTG are 8 but scope to be a 12 :-)

Yep, hope we get a big team, it's a nightmare playing what are regared no hopers - you're on a hiding to nothing imo.

CR

[tonyx] 07/1/2006 18:49

Very good post CR.

Not a holder (yet) but would like to know how you would rate CTG on a scale of 1 to 10 if SMC were a 10. TIA!

PS See you round 4 of the cup!

[cockneyrebel] 07/1/2006 18:34

Okay, I'll add a bit of meat to the bones as to why CTG is so very, very cheap.

First, let's look at the the Commercial property division - Christie and Co, Christie First and Pinders.

These three between them had turnover in 2004 of £37.3m Savills had £316m sales. Savills is valued at £650m. So on that basis alone if a company bought the Christie property division they might pay £75m for it on a valuation the same as Savills.

The Software solutions business VCE Timeless had sales of £13m in 2004. VCE Timeless is an EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) Software company. A similar company might be Ascribe (ASP). In 2004 Ascribe had sales of just £6.5m and a market cap of £37m. You might therefore expect this division to be worth £75m

The Stock Inventory Businesses, Orridge and Venners had sales of £20m in 2004. A similar business might be Chelford which had sales of £12m in 2004. Chelford is valued at £17m On that basis you might expect this part of Christie's inventories business to be worth £25m.

Sum of the parts, based on sales, these three businesses could be worth around £180m if the business was broken up and sold. Christie as a single entity is valued at £31m.

Come on, if you're a value hunter you can see the cheapness here.

They are set to do £80m in sales here, they are valued at less than half sales! Think about it. It isn't going to take much of a margin increase here to get the profits way higher. If they got margins up to 7% they are on a PE a little over 5 while it's quite possible with these type of businesses the margins go above 10%. If they achieve that the PE is 4.

The market is fast asleep here imo - they could quite possibly sell the property business alone for far more than the current market cap.

CR

[cockneyrebel] 06/1/2006 13:21

yep, one small trade and they've marked it up

CR

[cockneyrebel] 06/1/2006 11:49

MM's still buying 30K online too - it will only take a couple of small buys to bust their game imo.

CR

[cockneyrebel] 06/1/2006 11:05

a little breakout yesterday by the way.

Look at that bowl shape chart too, go through 128p mid and we'll be galloping imo, March 04 high - just 5p to go :-)

CR

[sheik yerbouti] 05/1/2006 20:13

Cheers CR, done.

[cockneyrebel] 05/1/2006 18:36

Might be worth putting these links in the header Sheik Y


http://www.christiegroup.com/

Christie + Co (Commercial Property) http://www.christie.com/christie/splash.asp

Christiefirst (Mortgage Insurance) http://www.christiefirst.com/

Pinders (Business Valuers) http://www.pinders.co.uk/

VCS Timeless (Point of Sale Software) http://www.vcstimeless.com/

Venners (stock control software) http://www.venners.com/

Orridge (pharmacy stocktakers) http://www.orridge.co.uk/

CR

[sheik yerbouti] 05/1/2006 16:18

lol!

Trying to break out, offer up to 125p now.

[cockneyrebel] 05/1/2006 15:00

Good title - fill your lunchbox imo! :-)

CR