Eckoh Share Discussion Threads

[hutchmeister] 04/3/2019 07:43

Very nice and welcomed trading update

[septimus quaid] 29/1/2019 20:08

Sometimes ECK put out the odd trading update. Otherwise, unless there is some "special news", the next major update will be circa mid June with the announcement of the finals.

[azioni2] 29/1/2019 14:53

The 10,000 is a BUY. We are well overdue a positive announcement...let's hope!

[septimus quaid] 18/1/2019 08:17

Been a ECK holder for years, without a constant drip of positive news updates the shareprice inevitably drifts lower.

The US venture is taking forever to yield significant results (I've lost track on how long ago that happened).

...edit, edit:

In November 2015, Eckoh acquired the US business Product Support Solutions (“PSS”), predominantly in order to support Eckoh’s continued expansion of its Secure Payments products in the US, where PSS has a significant presence.

[zipstuck] 17/1/2019 18:07

From last accounts


Current Trading:
-- Year to date new contracted business now exceeds FY18 total of GBP15.3m
-- Strong and growing pipeline in US Secure Payments, further contracts won since period end
-- Largest contract renewal secured with Vue Cinemas worth GBP2m over 3 years
-- Record visibility for second half

[rock star] 25/10/2018 07:44

Probably not the best of days to put out a positive trading update!

[boadicea] 05/10/2018 11:57

The company's general approach to product development costs appears to one of charging mainly to p&l rather than capitalising them. This avoids the risk of a heavy one-off write down if a particular project turns sour. The analysis of factors leading to the final cash flow is a more complex exercise but overall the picture here looks quite healthy and might tend to indicate that real and potential profitabilty is at least as good as claimed. I suspect that many companies wishing to emphasise growth would have chosen to guild the profit lily a little more strongly.

From the final results -
"Whilst Eckoh continue to innovate by developing new products and features such as those detailed in the Chief Executive's Review, little of this is capitalised on the balance sheet with only GBP0.3m (FY17: GBP0.2m) added in the year to the value of the intangible fixed assets of the Company. Whilst taking a prudent approach to capitalising salary cost reduces reported profit, management believes this approach gives an accurate reflection of the trading performance of the Company."

[septimus quaid] 05/10/2018 11:07

shoee62, interesting concept re p/free cash flow ratio and not one that I’ve come across, or if I have I can’t remember.

As these new “big” contracts start to generate more cash, and because ECK’s products are generally software/IT based, I don’t get the impression they will require a great deal of capital expenditure to service (hence more of the new cash flowing is “free”)?

ECK’s (imposed) switch from the Capex to Opex model seems a long time ago now.

[shoee62] 05/10/2018 10:01

Agree it looks like a seller still there.

In the FY results, they show a useful table of contract wins, and avg size for the US payments side. FY17 avg of $918k was distorted by a large win of $3.7m, so this win is going to distort it again. Avg for FY18 was $776k.

I think the market is slow to react to this with the switch from Capex to Opex pricing(Saas), plus IFRS15, deferring revenue. That is despite Saas revenue companies trading on significantly higher multiples than license and support ones.

Looking at Stockopedia, the PE number is 48, but price to free cash flow is 21 which cuts to the reality of the ability of the business to generate cash.

[septimus quaid] 03/10/2018 16:34

according to today's RNS, Kestrel unloaded circa 1.3 shares on Monday

[boadicea] 03/10/2018 09:45

There are definitely indications of someone unloading shares at round figures (41p, 42p etc.). If a single entity starting with 3%+ and sales exceed about 2.5m shares a holdings rns should emerge. Either way we may not make much progress until they have finished.

[boadicea] 01/10/2018 14:24

A quantity of shares seems to have been made availble at 41p (1.64 million). The seller may have finished at 41p so the price has moved on a bit. A similar looking sell has occurred (60k) at 42p, so may stick around this level for a time.

[boadicea] 01/10/2018 13:12

The queation sometimes becomes, Who is an insider?

If the MD, CFO or Head of Sales (etc) arranges a trip to the States (etc), there are a number of people who will know about it, e.g. his travel agent. I don't think this makes the travel agent or someone that sees his booking, an insider - he will not know who his client has arranged to see or why. He may however speculate on the importance of the trip and decide to take a positon. So there is a genuine query as to where to draw the line.

I recall a visit many years ago by some directors of GEC to a competitor company in a similar electrical field. Their car was parked discretely around the corner but was spotted by a junior employee of the visited company. It had the give-away registration number AE1 (AEI being a susidiary trading company of GEC at the time.) A bid duly followed shortly afterwards.

The answer is possibly a trading suspension pending announcement, triggered by a share price sensitivity function.

[azioni2] 01/10/2018 12:58

Long overdue......let's hope one of many new contracts win in the USA!

[septimus quaid] 01/10/2018 12:57

Good news, good coverage doing the rounds:

Eckoh wins bumper payments contract with mystery US giant



hTTtp://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/stocktube/10665/eckoh-plc-bags-its-biggest-ever-secure-payments-contract-10665.html

[oohrogerpalmer] 01/10/2018 12:36

Insider trading is rife but as its usually only the PI's that lose out the authorities don't give a dam.
They are all bent.
Good rise none the less.

[greg the grinch] 01/10/2018 11:39

The insider dealing happens too often.... authorities dont give a sh*t...happened with SXX recently

Anyway hopefully going over 55p in coming weeks/months

[septimus quaid] 01/10/2018 11:00

I too am disappointed with the news management (and not just on this occasion), surely it would be easy to track down who was dealing on Friday and look at any possible associations with the company.


...unfortunately, this kind of news leakage is something I’ve come to expect from ECK

[mazarin] 01/10/2018 09:39

It’s always ‘strange’; how significant trades are made days before ‘price sensitive’ news is officially announced. It smacks of ‘insider dealing’ and should be throroughly investigated in the interests of transparency, as it isn’t ‘Rocket science’. Yet we rarely hear about it, or of people actually being prosecuted. This is great news for ECK and clearly been in preparation for quite a while. Although I have been expecting Contract news for some time, so am delighted to read the scale of the numbers. $7.4m ‘Largest ever Contract’ competively won and expected to impact over the next 2 years. Well done ECK.

[boadicea] 01/10/2018 07:58

Shares like ECK that are on an expectational rating require a steady stream of growth news to prevent them from sagging. Well we ceratainly have some here and the expectation will be maintained of further US contracts to come. This should be good for 10 to 20% rise in share price (imho).
A pity that the price action on Friday seemed to anticipate the announcement - but possibly just a non-specific hint somehow that a rns was being prepared.

[johnthespacer] 01/10/2018 07:43

Nice contract win in the US! Worth 7.4m USD

Should get the share price moving again hopefully!

[mazarin] 19/9/2018 14:43

This morning's brief statement 'Trading in line with expectations' ahead of AGM appears to have been well received and may be given the share price a bit of a boost today, however, I also suspect another Contract Win Announcement is due quite likely soon.

[cascudi] 19/9/2018 08:25

Good statement today

[chasbas] 14/8/2018 10:51

The shares still seems highly rated but just bought a few at 35.05p. This is at least a 4 year low. The market (including myself) seem to have ECK's valuation badly wrong over the last 4 years. The share price could yet fall further but I have faith (just about) that ECK is a quality stock and growth (mainly from the US) will eventually come through strongly. After all, ECK does not have any problems, has cash on balance sheet, rising margins and it has loads of IP.
IMO if it falls to 30p it really should be taken over by someone who can really accelerate growth.