Communisis Share Discussion Threads

[hopeful holder] 13/7/2016 19:34

Just reminding myself of results reported in March this year."We have delivered an improvement across all key performance metrics during 2015. Adjusted operating margin moved further ahead and bottom-line profitability contributed to a doubling in free cash flow. Significant contract renewals and our new business pipeline will enable us to continue delivering growth, profitability and value in 2016."Financial Highlights-- Significant improvement across all key performance metrics-- Strong growth in profitability, operating margin and earnings per share-- Free cash flow doubled-- Dividend increase for the fifth consecutive year

[salpara111] 13/7/2016 12:27

well the share price seems to have found some decent support around the 35/36 level so the next update will be critical.
I dont have enough confidence to take a stake before hand but if they are good there will be plenty of time to ride the share price back the the high 40s

[40t] 12/7/2016 10:25

Well done Masurenguy - wish mine wasn't!

Wonder how much each mailing to a segment of the customer base adds to CMS's bottom line?

[masurenguy] 12/7/2016 10:19

40t - both Lloyds and the Woolwich (Barclays) don't have collars on their tracker mortgages where as a number of Building Societies do. I still have a Woolwich tracker that I took out in 2008 on a BTL and this will go down according to any bank rate reduction.

[40t] 12/7/2016 10:12

Good point Masurenguy, though a significant proportion of those trackers are collared and have long since hit the collar, so there'll be no change in the rate.

We're experiencing a lengthy hiatus while the banks reassess their ancillary product offering in the light of the woeful outcome of their past marketing of such. The result is that, as consumers, we experience relatively little direct marketing from the banks. However, having done some work for a leading bank of late and spoken with their customers, it's remarkable how loyal the great majority remain when looking for other financial services. Add to this the possibility that consumer preference for online may be nearing saturation (retired folk looking to simplify their day to day existence and office workers not wishing to return home and continue looking at a computer screen for admin purposes) and the potential for expansion in printed looks good.

In the meantime, it remains to be seen how badly the latest dip in gilt yields has affected the pension deficit - and whether this week's BoE announcement will make it any worse. Possibly the impact of this on the share price is not unrelated to Richard Griffiths' activity.

[touche] 12/7/2016 09:59

I think that is a near racing certainty for this Thursday. Interesting his increase was via CFD's.I took an initial stake today on valuation grounds. Too cheap at these levels.

[masurenguy] 12/7/2016 09:31

If Carney reduces the bank rate from 0.5% to 0.25% this summer as widely expected, all of the banks & building societies are going to have to contact customers with tracker mortgages for the first time in years. Lloyds and Barclays use CMS as their preferred print and digital marketing partner in this context, which will not have escaped the notice of a sophisticated investor like Richard Griffths.

[zho] 12/7/2016 08:55

Richard Griffiths above 15%

[zho] 08/7/2016 09:32

Re my question above, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has a view on (what I imagine to be) an increasing pension deficit.

An article at looks at Brexit fall out and appears to suggest that Communisis has the fourth largest pension deficit when measured as a percentage of market capitalisation.

[masurenguy] 07/7/2016 15:35

Second largest daily trading volume over the past 16 weeks. With the largest volume day earlier this week, someone may be building a position here as owenski previously suggested on Tuesday.

[zho] 07/7/2016 08:45

I see that 10 year gilt yields dropped sharply from around 1.45% before the referendum to around 1.05% after.

Has anyone been able to figure out the the consequences for the CMS pension fund deficit?


Edit: from


New ways for company pension schemes to calculate the cost of future promises to members are being reviewed by the government in an attempt to ease the pressure of rising deficits.

Ros Altmann, the pensions minister, said she was reviewing how schemes could account for their liabilities, as new measures to ease the economic shocks from Brexit are expected to inflate pension shortfalls.

[owenski] 05/7/2016 20:53

Looking like someone's buying a position here, lots of AT buys today.

[temo82] 05/7/2016 15:07

Same here hopeful-holder... It's been the other way around for good part of the last two years. Welcomed change!

[hopeful holder] 05/7/2016 14:27

A sea of red in my portfolio yet this manages to show a tad of blue....

[zho] 01/7/2016 15:45

>>The current market cap of £72m seems undervalued against projected sales ...>>

Yes it does, and hopefully it will bounce if and when the Company put out a "trading in line" update, but it will be rebounding from a lower base than would have been the case if they could have been bothered to put out a TU at the time of the AGM statement.

[masurenguy] 01/7/2016 13:40

The shareprice is still languishing since the St Ives profit warning 2 months ago and the recent Brexit vote. However there has been no change in broker forecasts of circa £372m in sales with adjusted pre-tax profits of £16.2m for the current year. The current market cap of £72m seems undervalued against projected sales - excluding pass through - of £250m compared with forecasted eps of 6p this year, which puts CMS on a current PER of just 6, plus a yield of 6.1% at todays Offer price of 36p.

CEO Andy Blundell also recently stated that CMS was pretty neutral on Brexit if it occurred. Furthermore, the post-Brexit fall in the exchange rate of sterling against the Euro should benefit margins in Deploy going forward since half of their business (circa £30m) is billed in Euros.

[hvs1] 28/6/2016 13:15

are you some sort of clown perchance

[senor_sensible] 28/6/2016 09:45

Brexit means every organisation in the UK will need to change their marketing material, leaflets, info, etc. A lot of companies outsource this to CMS, watch this space, CMS will be making hay soon. They are recruiting :-)

[hvs1] 27/6/2016 10:09

this has been in decline for a couple of years

the weak shares get weaker, lol

[senor_sensible] 23/6/2016 09:15

This could be quite good in view of "Brexit or in" 'brexit' would result in most corporates having to update or replace marketing material. 'In' would result in general market recovery (which may have been withheld pending results tomorrow)which would help the bottom line here.

well worth a punt IMO

[hopeful holder] 22/6/2016 19:26

I regret not selling these when I was quids in, it's about time we had a decent reversal of this down trend and soon.