Ecsc Share Discussion Threads

[steve3sandal] 05/4/2018 19:40

I recall the FD has an options package announced last year not egregarious. I am simply reading through the lines but I wonder if some boardroom coop here to reduce management cost run rate in light of inadequate revenues. I suspect the market has called this a miss too down 22%. Don't hold but now off the watch list. Does anyone else see them running out of money FD takes over FD knows action reqd.

[cerrito] 05/4/2018 12:05

I see from the website that neither the new Chairman or CEO have shares in the company-I guess the Chairman picked up a very few in his fees last year,
I checked for curiosity; would have been better if they had and they will no doubt shortly announce an options package for the new CEO

[cerrito] 05/4/2018 10:45

I saw this as marginally good rather than bad news but appreciate I may be talking my own book and the truth is that not knowing the people involved, I have no idea.
I see that trading in line with management expectations and cash ahead of plan and the market is challenging so all this is broadly neutral,
The new Chairman and CEO appear fine on paper and a quick google search did not reveal anything negative on David Carr Mathewson and good that the new CEO has IT experience. Also good for me that Mann staying as an employee and not selling his shares- that said once again as I do not know him I am not qualified to make a comment. Is he an excellent salesman and a poor Manager?
.
Appreciate comment from anyone who knows these people.
Not selling or buying

[sweepie2] 05/4/2018 10:19

Bad day today and their statement with the board changes sounds like things won't get much better in the short term but with data regs kicking in next month, things will hopefully get abit better especially if they can work out how to scale up the business without incurring a higher base of costs

[montyhedge] 03/4/2018 07:47

Will there be a placing, guys? What your thoughts.

[red ninja] 24/3/2018 14:58

That share price curve has not been looking good for the last few days.

However, in reality it's not just ECSC, its Brexit, the Trump trade war, The Russians.

All these factors and the fact that growth sector share are no longer cheap means that a lot of small growth stocks are heading South at the moment.

[cerrito] 17/3/2018 17:16

No wonder the share price has gone down since the interims came out, as H2 was not good with H2 Gross Profit down to £0.8m from the £1.2m in 2016 and a £1.4m operating cash flow deficit in H217 compared to a £0.1m surplus in H216.
They are very guarded in their outlook statement. The other issue is cash generation. I read the carefully worded Going Concern statement closely which would suggest that they feel they can limp along without an equity raise and I guess the recent share price weakness indicates that there is scepticism about this.
I hope I can organize myself to get to the AGM and if so and having pressed the flesh will need to come to a decision as to what to do.
PS
Good on them for getting these figures out so much quicker than the majority of AIM companies of their size.
PPS
I note they have a very stable shareholder base with no changes in holdings RNS#s since June. Of course good that the CEO has 19%
PPPS
I see that they recovered £178k of the £225k of corporation tax recoverable as at June 2017.

[cerrito] 16/3/2018 18:59

Just got round to kicking the tyres on the prelims.
I had a problem with the income statement, specifically they state that the operating loss pre exceptionals is £3169K but if you add up the figures I at least get £3.4m odd.
Appreciate it if someone can check the maths of the income statement,
Thanks

[timbo003] 08/3/2018 08:53

Headlines like this one in today's Daily Mail are probably helping sentiment today



On a less trivial note, NEX quoted Crossword Cyber-Security (CCS) announced a fund raise today which was heavily over subscribed.





The CCS placing shares qualified for EIS tax reliefs, so I bought a few.

[cerrito] 20/2/2018 19:59

I popped into the website to see if there was any news update but to no great surprise found nothing-what did strike me was the number of vacancies….anyone knows if that number is usual? Of course difficult to know if number of vacancies is good-reflecting expansion-or bad reflecting high turnover, resignations.

[cerrito] 16/1/2018 11:00

My understanding of the company’s understanding of market expectations for FY18 is sales of £4m, ebitda loss of £3m and loss before tax of £3.3m. This suggests a modest pick up of revenues in H2 and profitability going nowhere in H2.

[cerrito] 10/1/2018 09:49

I guess no surprise that they have repeated what they said on Nov 29 and that 2017 will be per market expectations. That begs the question what market expectations are: the information provided by Barclays has a £2.2m loss and that provided by Digital Look has revenues of £3.3m and a loss of £3.3m. Remember first half revenue was £1.9m and loss £1.5m.
I am going to get onto the Company/advisers to see what figures they are using and ask them please to include that in the future and if you folks can do the same the message may get through.
Disappointed that cash has gone down from £3.1m at June to £1.6m at year end which suggests limited financial flexibility but I guess we need to suspend full judgement till we get the Prelims and read the going concern statement and see the interplay between receivables and payables-they have no inventory. Indeed on the basis that they recovered the £225k of corporation tax due as at 30.6 the cash decline becomes worse; I guess cannot be too bad as they are resuming cash payments to directors.
Red Ninja you did well to sell half your shareholding; I sold about 15% earlier in the week.

[red ninja] 09/1/2018 12:42

I bought in because they fell below 167p IPO price and because the Artemis VCT was holding them.
I thought they were in a growth area, possible good news was only delayed according to the company and they announced they had taken action to contain costs.
I also thought the bull market might continue into this year.

I can't see any news in the market.

I've sold half today at 232.5p in order to take a cautious stance although will be more than happy to see them go higher.

[ali47fish] 08/1/2018 10:28

it 's been going up for a number of days- what has changed if anyone has any insight please!

[red ninja] 07/1/2018 08:44

It never sold out of ECSC, it just sold some its stake.

[ali47fish] 06/1/2018 15:24

i am not sure but i have read the artemis update as i am invested in the vct itself but noticed in its new or most recent invesdtments that it has bought back into ECSC- casn anyoner confirm ort otyherwise please!

[red ninja] 06/1/2018 15:02

Artemis VCT comment in final report out 6/12/17

"Seeing the success of Keywords Studios in the past year it is easy to forget how the company got off to an inauspicious start on AIM, with a profit warning just a few months after its IPO. ECSC Group recently suffered the same fate. Much like our more successful investments described above we were attracted to ECSC due its potential to grow quickly into the £3 billion cyber security market with the IPO proceeds providing the investment required to scale the business to meet demand. The results so far have been disappointing. Early signs were encouraging so we were surprised to read a cautious trading update from the company at the end of June - we were, quite honestly, expecting the opposite. The interim results announced in September showed little improvement.

The company is currently trading below its IPO price of 167p but our profit taking in May, at the height of the publicity surrounding the NHS ransomware attack, means we are still showing a profit on our initial investment."

[rackers1] 05/1/2018 11:16

sell the rally

[scorpio13] 05/1/2018 10:47

It certainly moves on very small volume. Was tempted to sell out yesterday but decided to hold for ride up hopefully

[cerrito] 04/1/2018 22:23

Over 50k of shares traded both today and tuesday-alot for ECSC

[red ninja] 02/1/2018 18:21

Mmm any specific reason ?

[scorpio13] 02/1/2018 10:02

A good bit of movement upwards at last

[panic investor] 29/11/2017 08:40

Not backed up by director buys either !

[jockthescot] 29/11/2017 08:10

Very vague! Almost 2 fingers to the market for hammering it over past few months.