Conduit Share Discussion Threads

[daz] 12/6/2013 07:49

The cash balance has been flattered by the £7.2m received for the short term lease, the property must need a fair bit of renovation as £2.2m is earmarked for dilapidations, which will probably be spent in the current year.

Group property costs have also increased, which will be a drag on this years profits, although they do have increased space in London after the co-location moves, so acquisitions can be expected.

You have to say though that for revenue to be static after the acquisitions is a pretty poor show but the shares are cheap and the chart indicates that a breakout is imminent, which the buy-back will certainly help.

[rivaldo] 12/6/2013 07:49

Also good to see that digital revenues have accelerated, and will become over 50% of revenues this year - ahead of schedule. I note the major project being undertaken for ASOS....

[addison17] 12/6/2013 07:33

Agree Rivaldo, in the current climate the results are pretty good.

[funkmasterp12] 12/6/2013 07:24

I didn't short it in the end. I'm bloody glad now !!

[rivaldo] 11/6/2013 10:57

As a reminder, the forecasts are:

Historic : 11.1p EPS, 3.7p dividend
Current year : 12.1p EPS, 3.9p dividend.

CRE will also be showing over £10m net cash, against a £58m m/cap (incl. the reverse premium).

Almost exactly a 4% divi yield, which even without any Havas stake speculation or cheap fundamentals should mean that institutions will be happy to sit and collect or invest more assuming the outlook is OK.

[funkmasterp12] 10/6/2013 16:27

I'm considering a cheeky 7-day short on this, to be honest. There have been downward spikes on the past few result days and I still believe CRE to be ahead of itself currently given the earnings forecasts, unless there's some major surprises in the results.

I could of course be totally wrong =)

[rivaldo] 10/6/2013 16:10

Cheers addison17 - the price continues to creep up in advance of the results.

[addison17] 10/6/2013 09:11

Finals out Wednesday.

[birdsedgeuk] 09/6/2013 17:13

Tipped to do wellwww.traderdiary.co.uk

[smithie6] 06/6/2013 13:17

Creston started in Marketing at 96p/share back in 2001




if it now manages to get back to 96p in 2013....
maybe shareholders should get some balloons and party poppers ready !

...or maybe after 12 years to get back to the same share price as they started at ..there wont be much of a party atmosphere
---

while on the +ve side, at least it didnt go bust during those 12 years....although it maybe came close when the share price dipped to 20p around 2009 and a rescue share issue took place...but I guess many companies had problems in 2009...

[rivaldo] 05/6/2013 14:24

Interesting to see CRE moving up on a 100 point down day for the markets.

Looks like TMW may be in line for new digital work from Sainsbury's:

hxxp://www.australiancreative.com.au/news/abbott-mead-vickers-and-the-art-of-seduction

"Meanwhile Sainsbury's is about to amp up its digital presence and has appointed a roster of agencies to support its incumbent, Dare.

Rival retailers including Tesco, Waitrose and even Marks & Spencer have been boosting their personalised marketing recently, putting pressure on Sainsbury's to do more talking with than talking to.....

.....Likely candidates for new digital projects are Tullo Marshall Warren, AKQA, Big Mouth Media and McCann Manchester, with whom Sainsbury's has worked in the past.

In 2011, Sainsbury's began its get serious about digital by beefing up its online management team. In its latest results, posted last month, it revealed the online grocery division of Sainsbury's had increased sales by nearly 20% year on year."

[smithie6] 05/6/2013 13:42

...good news...

but
glass half full or half empty...

CRE is always winning contracts ...which get publicised
and
losing contracts...which dont get publicised...

turnover and headline PBT for this year ....co. said it was expected to be the same as last year....
and despite spending 20M on acquisitions.....the perf. does not seem to have improved (which infers that without the acquisitions the turnover and profit would have fallen)
-----

"ending a relationship with the agency's founder Rana Reeves that started when he was at Jackie Cooper Public Relations (now JCPR) more than a decade ago."

will the same happen again ?
(with Bruce McLachlan and Frankie Oliver, currently joint MDs of Fever ?
..ie. them leaving and taking Sony business with them ?)

a -ve view perhaps...but you can see my logic....since it appears that it is what happened with the Sony contract previously...that the contract responsible left and took the client with them...(maybe with a time out period in between...I dont know)

[rivaldo] 04/6/2013 13:55

Just announced - excellent contract win for CRE's Nelson Bostock:

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1184664/fever-brought-sony-crucial-playstation-4-launch

"Fever brought in by Sony for crucial PlayStation 4 launch
by John Owens, added 29 hours ago
PlayStation 4: The new controller (Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment)

Sony Computer Entertainment UK has appointed Fever ahead of the launch of its PlayStation 4 games console.

Fever, which is part of the Nelson Bostock Group, was selected following a two-stage tender process that culminated in a three-way pitch.

Its appointment on a retained basis comes ahead of the PlayStation 4 launch, scheduled for the end of 2013.

It also follows Sony parting ways with John Doe, ending a relationship with the agency's founder Rana Reeves that started when he was at Jackie Cooper Public Relations (now JCPR) more than a decade ago.

As well as aiding the launch of the console in the UK market, Fever's responsibilities will include extending the appeal of PlayStation's existing consoles, PlayStation 3 and PS VITA, including reaching out to new audiences, such as the family and casual gaming markets.

Fever will also assist in the PR campaigns for software releases from Sony Computer Entertainment UK including Beyond: Two Souls, Rain, Puppeteer and Invizimals.

The console was previewed earlier this year and is being seen as vital for the company, which posted a loss of £3.2bn in the last financial year.

David Wilson, head of PR at Sony Computer Entertainment UK, said: 'With the launch of PlayStation 4 on the horizon, this is arguably the most important time in PlayStation's history. With Fever, we feel we have an agency that understands our target consumers and can develop insight-led ideas that will resonate with the right people. We are confident its experience will help us push PlayStation to new heights.'

The account will be led by Bruce McLachlan and Frankie Oliver, joint MDs of Fever."

[smithie6] 28/5/2013 13:16

thanks for that

well, your/Morningstar EPS forecasts are for EPS to stay roughly stable....
or perhaps 10% fall
with share price at 94p to buy then P/E is around 8....

if it keeps churning out 12p EPS then it is perhaps fairly priced...taking into account risk that EPS could fall...

..if one ignored risk, and said that 12p EPS was g'teed then 94p would be cheap...

at 50-60p it was a good buy...after bad news..but more risk at that time since mkt was worried about more bad news..

all depends on what happens in next 2 years....recent CRE turnover and profit has been a dissapointment imo noting the large amount spent on USA acquisitions...3 bad news items spring to mind..crash in perf. of Insight 2 or 3 years ago, layoffs in UK about a year ago..and recently the loss of 40% of business of one the (expensive imo) USA acquisitions !...and I think 1 large UK division showed a fall in numbers in last accounts (was it comms division)........
while on other hand the co. has got bigger and operating in more countries (but at a high acquistion cost imo....that has not performed in terms of profit)
...can't keep producing bad news items....if the share price is going to go anywhere

(I assume that analyst expectation of future fall in profits is due to loss of that 40% in 1 USA business)

[funkmasterp12] 28/5/2013 12:32

According to Morningstar, consensus 2013 PBT forecast is £9.9m and 2014 PBT is £10.53m. 2012 PBT was £10.83m so that would assume a c. £1m drop in 2013.

EPS 2012 was 12.34p, consensus 2013 is 11.48p, 2014 is 12.46p.

Unless I'm missing something blitheringly obvious here?

[smithie6] 28/5/2013 12:26

'consensus forecasts for 2013/2014 reckon a 1-2m drop in pre-tax profits' !!
really !

ouch !
(forecast for fin. year to March 2013 is same EPS as last year I think...so around 12p EPS)


I wasnt aware....
...no info from the co. hints at a 1-2m drop in PBT next fin. year !...
----

if it really is a consensus forecast 1-2m drop in pre-tax profits for 2013/2014....I wont be impressed !
spent 15-20M on acqusitions in USA using the profits being generated by CRE (instead of accruing as cash to shareholder benefit or paying out as divi)....and yet you claim the forecast is for the EPS to FALL !! in 2013/2014

if so...it would infer that the USA acquisitions were a waste of money imo...a lot of money !

[funkmasterp12] 27/5/2013 16:45

Based on consensus forward forecasts for 2013/2014. A c. £1-2m drop in pre-tax profits would see 75p maintaining the current PE. CRE has always traded with a low PE making it look good on \'value\' screens, but it never seems to break out beyond that.

[smithie6] 27/5/2013 13:30

Funky
How do you estimate 75p/share as fair value ?

----

PS if the share price hits 96p....maybe some balloons could be inflated...and a few fireworks...to celebrate the share price getting back to the share price when share price first started its move from being a shell to being in the marketing sector...back in 2000...

13 years ago

one could argue the pros and cons of the real value for the shares...or value if sold to another co. in the sector...

but
anyone who has stayed invested since those days back in 2000 has lost a lot of money imo due to inflation (the total divi. has not kept up with total inflation)

[smithie6] 27/5/2013 13:26

\"A block of 2m shares such as USS\'s is minor and immaterial in this context.\"

...have to disagree on that one....

(if you wanted to build up shares buying at market price...and then make an offer at market price + X % ....then it makes sense to buy as many as possible at the market price before making an offer.....saves you a lot of money...

and
if another bidder pops up and succeeds in takeover battle by paying 10% more...

then
if you bt. 20% at mkt price....and you sell out to higher bidder....at least you make a nice profit on those shares...and if you win then you get the co. which helps your main business in some way...

so, imo the Havas takeover theory is sunk.....
but for reality ...only time will show us what is the true reality now ..

[funkmasterp12] 25/5/2013 10:54

Interesting. It's odd that everything on the Havas front has gone so quiet - it's not far off a year now that they bought in. But there are still huge synergies between the companies and according to Havas' last results, they are still acquiring.I monitor CRE and Havas regularly still waiting for news. I still feel on fundamentals the "real" price of CRE should be c. 75p so I'm hesitant to get in at 90p without more news, but if it does indeed come it's party time.All IMO/dyor

[rivaldo] 24/5/2013 15:23

To Havas the amounts involved are peanuts, and if they increased as suggested the share price would have immediately increased a long way on obvious speculation, which they could not control.

The only instance where this may not be the case would be where a block of say 10%-20% of CRE came on the market. A block of 2m shares such as USS's is minor and immaterial in this context.

If they bid it''s imo far more likely to come out of the blue as an agreed bid at an agreed level. There may or may not be share price activity beforehand to indicate that something's up.

[smithie6] 24/5/2013 15:07

I disagree.
If HAVAS had wanted to takeover Creston then Havas would have outbid Ruffer to buy the large block of shares that was being sold.

They didnt.

A company that is planning to make a takeover offer (at X % higher price to get people to agree to the takeover) would be willing to pay much more than an institution that is not planning a takeover offer !

so, for my mind anyway...Havas do not look to be planning a takeover.

[rivaldo] 24/5/2013 14:54

Smithie, I'm afraid that is rot! Their buying of shares is simply an indication that Ruffer are extremely keen on the stock.

If anything their enthusiasm can be seen as support for the theory that Havas will turn their stake in CRE into a formal atakeover bid. But overall it makes not one jot of difference as to whether Havas will bid or not.

I do note however that sells are currently achieving a premium to the bid at 90.5p.

[smithie6] 24/5/2013 12:36

Ah....
the recent move of a block of shares from 1 large holder to another....
and not to Havas...

imo indicates the death of the Havas takeover theory postulated by some posters...!