Conduit Share Discussion Threads

[trademap] 31/12/2013 18:18

Possibly. Could only buy 3,750 shares today on Selftrade against a maximum sell of 75,000.

[madengland] 31/12/2013 12:20

Maybe something brewing!

[madengland] 24/12/2013 17:01

Looks like it stabilised and bounced off 80p. Good luck to holders in 2014, you have to hope for Elgie out, Havas in.

[madengland] 18/12/2013 21:43

Yes smithie, all set up for tax reasons and to benefit a few people

[smithie6] 12/12/2013 15:28

P44
"Under a letter dated 29 January 2001, Mr D H Elgie was to have
been granted options to subscribe for a number of new Ordinary
Shares equal to 5 per cent of any new Ordinary Shares issued by
the Company. "

I wonder if that is why DE made acquisitions including part payment in shares ??
so he would get more options
(me, a cynic, yes indeed !)

[smithie6] 12/12/2013 15:16

btw
divi of say 4p
at present that is the same loss as over 2 days of trading !

any holder that didnt sell quick on results day...lost around 20p....5 years of divi

Divi investing....much more risky than many people are aware of.

[prop_joe] 12/12/2013 15:15

Smithie6,
I don't doubt the accuracy of your calculations but I think the current market cap as opposed to asset book value is around £50m. So £6m of after tax cash would be a 12% return on today's share price which is a pretty good return if £6m pa is sustainable? Given the economy is (finally) improving at least maintaining the historic profits level generated during a deep recession/period of stagnation shouldn't be a tall order even for a sub-par management team?
Regards

[smithie6] 12/12/2013 15:11

If compare NBI and CRE a bit more.

NBI dirs. are on low salaries....but have multiplied the share price by X5 since its IPO at around 10M pnds around 7 years ago.
NBI dirs. get low options, but some each year with an exercising price at market price. Because the share price has multiplied X 5 those options are now worth a lot......but shareholders have made loads....everyone happy.

At CRE, high salaries, high options and bad perf. and no one happy !

My point ?
High salaries and high options do not produce good performance....and often the inverse, since often an indication of bad corporate governance....where self enrichment and keeping power may be the order of the day.

[smithie6] 12/12/2013 14:57

Paulypilot
"Plus we are now coming into the part of the economic cycle when companies crank up their ad/marketing spend."

Uh ?

H1 results were down !!...not up !
profit in some divisions....crashed !...I assume since some workers had....no work !
the dip in market spending was in 2008/9...a few years ago now

----

What's another name for a divi investor ?
Poor !

If pays 5% divi and inflation is 3.5% then your gain is 1.5%.
After 10 years you make 15%. (or maybe 20% with compounding)

15% over 10 years. yawn.

Need to invest for capital share price growth, not divis, imo.
Cant achieve that with bad H1 results or 7 years of flat results (in 2 years time).
----

the thing about dir. pay and dir. options ....is not so much about whether CRE can afford it but more about the principle and whether dirs. actually care or not about making a return/benefit to shareholders.
If dirs. are not interested in shareholders and only for themselves (and produce flat results for 7 years, 2015) then one assumes that no reason to buy the shares.

[toffeeman] 12/12/2013 13:45

I am assuming that the market is discounting yet another value destroying acquisition - sorry to be negative - but it seems to be a repeating pattern - I feel sorry for all those employees who bought stock at around 160!

A 5% yield on a stock like this is abnormal to say the least - so we can safely assume it's either 50% under or over-priced.

[harry the haddock] 12/12/2013 13:32

There's no problem with bank debt. Plus we are now coming into the part of the economic cycle when companies crank up their ad/marketing spend. Creston has almost 50% of turnover in digital, so they're in the growth area

that's what i thought and why i decided to stay

[paulypilot] 12/12/2013 13:06

Hi,

I've found notes 23-24 of the Annual Report: hxxp://www.creston.com/uploads/1385307604_Creston_Annual_Report_2013_24_July_2013.pdf
(copy link into browser, and change http at start to http - advfn PLEASE stop doing this, it's ridiculous & unbelievably annoying)

Have to say, these notes are really confusing & seemingly contradictory. I'm going to have to work through these again & try to work it out. By the looks of it, the LTIP replaced the EMI scheme, the unapproved options, but NOT the Employee Sharesave scheme. Is that correct?

The 2.8m LTIP scheme says that "there is no exercise price", but then shows a table listing "price of award" of between 54-108p per share. So how does that work then?

Very confusing indeed. If anyone has a nice clear explanation of the current position, it would save me a lot of time working it out!

Overall though in the context of 60.6m shares in issue, this doesn't look like a deal-breaker to me.

Cheers, Paul.

[paulypilot] 12/12/2013 12:46

Hi,

Must admit I'm a bit perplexed by things here. Reading this bulletin board, I was expecting some real horrors in the Creston Annual Report. But actually, apart from a CEO who is a bit overpaid (£400k seems warm to me, probably about 20-30% less would be about right), I couldn't see anything else that made me recoil. Non-Exec fees are a little high too, but again not outrageous - and David Grigson is a big hitter, being Chairman of Trinity Mirror.

As regards Share Options, the currently outstanding options are all out of the money, and the quantity is again maybe a bit on the warm side, but not very excessive. I can't see any zero cost options disclosed, unless I missed that.

Sure, the company's performance has not been great of late, but it's attractively priced now I reckon. Dividend yield now not far off 5%, and they are committed to a progressive dividend policy.

Balance Sheet looks OK, obviously after writing off all the intangibles it's still the right way around. There's no problem with bank debt. Plus we are now coming into the part of the economic cycle when companies crank up their ad/marketing spend. Creston has almost 50% of turnover in digital, so they're in the growth area.

I think it looks attractive, at this valuation. I didn't like it at over a quid, but 80p looks a bargain to me.

Regards, Paul.

[addison17] 12/12/2013 08:32

Yep heading down sharply to below 80p, can it hold at that ?

[madengland] 12/12/2013 06:51

Yes both him and BB. The debacle with the co location as they call it, hello Mr. Finance director.....oops. Ever since the reverse takeover by the cash shell Creston has been run for the good of a few and never the shareholders. Institutions won't hold and put up with this, the only hope would be someone like Havas buy it to save the best cuts. If institutions are unloading we could see 60p. It's looking near that time year when they will make an acquisition to boost their pay packages. Oops sorry, i meant to drive synergy and shareholder value

[smithie6] 11/12/2013 14:26

388,626 share options for Don Elgie june 2013

exercisable at ....0p !! if meet perf. criteria

-----

If keep issuing massive share options to the MD
with new perf. conditions for each new block

then due to the laws of nature..as the PBIT value rises and falls over the years (last 7 years, around an average value)..he will get some of the share options
and get a massive bonus

even though no good performance has been produced.

Unjest and farcical imo.

Imo we've gone from one incompetent and over generous chairman of the renumeration committee to another one.

By just issuing more and more options or options exercisable at 0p !!
to the MD is not the way to produce good company performance. As the last 13 years has proven.

If the bod decides that the co. performance can not be improved, (7 years with flat PBIT if include this year and next year)
then should the bod not replace the MD if it thinks that is the solution.
or just accept 0% growth. and half the salaries of the 2 execs since growth is flat.

[smithie6] 11/12/2013 14:18

"The number of newly issued shares that may be allocated under
the LTIP (and any other employees' share scheme adopted by the
Company) will be limited to 10 per cent of the issued share capital
in a ten year period. Shares purchased in the market, rather than
issued, will not count towards these limits. "


Why not !!???

Infers that if you buy 10% of the co. shares in the market to satisfy options....and then any LTIP shares are up to 10%...then you could have 20% of shares as options !!!

Nuts.