Eleco Public Share Discussion Threads

[rathkum] 27/6/2013 13:13

Impressed with the last paragraph:

[britishb] 26/6/2013 09:37

On what basis do you make that pearl of wisdom-like comment, coldfish? The FD's tax affairs are his own and not the company's, non?

[coldfish 2] 26/6/2013 08:39

That could land Elco with a massive tax liability - and it go back years and years.

[ansc] 24/6/2013 09:56

After such a dull (weatherwise) weekend and with the subject of tax avoidance being a hot topic politically last week, spent a few interesting minutes yesterday evening unearthing a few details about Eleco's own possible candidate, their FD; he has his salary paid into the company Shore Mountain LLP.

According to the Duedil website, the impressive-sounding Shore Mountain turns out to have just two directors, himself and a Mrs M B Turner (presumably his wife). She doesn't have any other directorships but he is listed as having nine, again impressive until you discover that seven of those relate to Eleco! [Eleco plc, Bell & Webster, Milbury Systems, Eleco (Sd) ltd, ...(Gns) Ltd, ...(Pp) Ltd and ...(dis) Ltd]. It makes you wonder why he needs to have his salary - a cool £114k last year (not bad for a part-timer!) - paid this way if it's other than for a tax benefit. The government really does need to get to grips with this legalised tax evasion. When you read that so many of our over-paid sports 'stars' are all at it (as well as the oft-mentioned [household names] 'overseas' companies), is it any wonder that this country is in the dire financial straights that we know it's in?

Will the chairman's AGM statement tomorrow bring a shaft of light to brighten our gloom? After my way-off expectation of last year's annual outcome, I've given up on predictions!

[ansc] 16/6/2013 12:16

Someone's trying to teach granny how to suck eggs! (lol)

It might be just coincidence, but Cohen's share purchase on Friday has come just before he seeks re-election as a board non-exec; it hasn't worked on me and I've voted against. Firstly, the recommendation is that non-execs do not serve longer than a nine-year stint (he was appointed in November, 2002) and secondly, he's now aged 70 and I think a younger, more dynamic candidate would be useful following the recent changes and with the emphasis more on the software side now; I'm only in my sixties but struggle to keep tabs with the ever-changing computer scene.

[westcountryboy] 14/6/2013 09:38

Now on the daily leader board for top gainers...

I think ansc will be quietly excited given the number of shares he holds. Patience finally being rewarded: well done!

[britishb] 14/6/2013 09:17

Well you might not be excited ansc, but I am.

If elcosoft do £2m+ ebitda and precast stuff turns a reasonable profit this year (order book well up, so it may/should) and with the loss making stuff sold off, ELCO might do £2.5-£3m editda this year. As I said before I reckon equity should be worth c 20p/share at that level of trading... A fair bit of debt and the pension deficit aren't great but there's freehold property in there to partly offset that.

[ansc] 14/6/2013 09:14

That was a sharp move up whilst I was typing the above perhaps Mr Cohen knows something we don't!!

[ansc] 14/6/2013 09:11

This explains yesterdays buy (but nothing to get excited about):

Eleco plc ("Eleco" or the "Company") - 14 June 2013

Directors Dealing

Eleco announces that, on 13 June 2013, Mr J Cohen, non-executive director of the Company, purchased 52,500 ordinary shares of 10p each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 9.5 pence per Ordinary Share.

Following this purchase, Mr Cohen is interested in 118,208 Ordinary Shares, representing 0.19% of the Company's total voting rights.

Even when you add John Lee's 1.0m to JK's 1.0m buy, that still leaves the best part of 2.0m of Delta's disposal unaccounted for. I'm still none the wiser!

[britishb] 14/6/2013 09:00

Can only buy 100 quid's worth online and bid for 500k at 9.8p. One might surmise someone wants to buy in size!

[britishb] 14/6/2013 08:16

Another modest non-dir share purchase. All good.

[britishb] 13/6/2013 17:37

I guess the delta overhang is cleared ansc, so this may move up quite quickly, esp if we get a reasonable trading update at the AGM on 26th.

[westcountryboy] 13/6/2013 17:25

Well, John Lee has just bought the 1m from Delta. Note that this is not the John Lee who writes in the FT [John Robert Louis Lee, Lord Lee of Trafford]. It may well be this JD Lee:
hxxp://companycheck.co.uk/director/902979098

NB 'hxxp' is of course ADVFNspeak for h t t p

[ansc] 13/6/2013 17:05

I seem to be missing a trick here. With Delta having disposed of at least 4.0m shares during the last couple of weeks, 1.0m of which we know have been sold and the whereabouts of, a net 46k shares bought today nudges the price up once again.

I'm well and truly confused!

[britishb] 11/6/2013 15:37

Tx for that ansc. Some more biggish trades today so I'm guessing that Delta completely out.

I reckon remaining biz's worth £20m +. Knock off debt (£6m?) and pension deficit (£6m?) add back property (£5m?) gives £13m valuation and easily 100% upside to the equity from here. Duff trading would bring it all crashing down but all remaining biz's trading well currently it seems. Director buy may be confirmation of all that.

[ansc] 11/6/2013 14:40

Wow, that was quite a revealing RNS this morning. Delta now hold less than 3% [which is roughly 1.82m shares] so they must have sold at least a further 1.5m since the sale they made last Friday. With the share price nudging up again this morning, where are all these shares going? One thing is for sure, they're not all being placed through the market if the daily markings are to be believed.

As for the pension deficit, I had it 'from the horses mouth' last week that there has not been any reduction as a result of the disposals.

Somewhat surprisingly, the quote [for 25k] has narrowed to 9.05/9.45p. It all appears rather strange to me.

[ansc] 10/6/2013 15:41

As I suspected, Delta have disposed of another 2.0m from their holding, now down to 5.54%. The share price has just gone up tho' so one would surmise that the shares were already pencilled-in with a buyer.

[ansc] 10/6/2013 09:31

My impression, having spoken with the chairman recently, was that the company is happy to work with what they've got left now; precast, after all, was earning a fantastic profit just six years ago. Whether that is ever likely to happen again in the future only time will tell.

As rathkum rightly says, the chairman 'is getting on' and, with the emphasis going forward being concentrated on ELCO's software division, a replacement by someone with that pedigree might not be a bad idea. Whether he'd go voluntarily, there is an annual £329k reason that says he probably wouldn't!

[rathkum] 07/6/2013 21:43

I guess the strategic direction going forward would be to dispose of the two loss making precast concrete operations (I seem to recall they have always wanted to from previous statements) and then concentrate on the Software activities. Or clear the decks for an eventual takeout. After all Mr Ketteley is getting on.

[cwa1] 07/6/2013 17:34

Pretty reasonable show of faith I reckon.

[ansc] 07/6/2013 14:27

So that's where Delta's 1.0m shares went:

Eleco plc ("Eleco" or the "Company") - 07 June 2013

Director's Dealing

Eleco announces that on 6 June 2013, John Ketteley, Chairman of the Company, purchased 1,000,000 ordinary shares of 10p each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 8.375 pence per Ordinary Share.

Following this purchase, Mr Ketteley is interested in 8,423,255 Ordinary Shares, representing 13.89% of the Company's total voting rights.

[ansc] 06/6/2013 10:27

Delta offloaded another 500k yesterday following their 500k disposal a fortnight ago; they've clearly become disenchanted and who can blame them. I can remember watching a video (years ago before the recession kicked in) John Ketteley made with one of their big-wigs just after they had taken a significant holding, all smiles then. I would suspect an interview done today would be through gritted teeth!

They're taking a massive hit but, although a bitter pill to swallow, expect more shares to go as and when any opportunity arises.

[westcountryboy] 05/6/2013 07:35

I agree the results were not good but at least there was a clear reason for the delay - the need to restructure the debt and to await pension news. This week's news is a reminder of the underlying value in the operation. Even if they only continue to break even on the remaining building divisions and make £1.5m a year on software, that's quite good for £5m market cap, even taking the debt servicing costs into account. Bell & Webster and Milbury both have a good future if construction gets going again, so it's merely a question of patience. They have shown great tenacity in getting through the downturn.

[ansc] 04/6/2013 14:53

rathkum: Re your post [638] concerning Omnis, have spoken with Eleco's chairman and he has informed me that Omnis is headed by John Cowley, a transformational business expert specialising in construction-type companies, whose last success (according to JK) was rescuing Expamet from the brink before selling them on to Hill & Smith.

Personally, very sorry to see SpeedDeck leave the Eleco camp as I think it's a great little unit with an extremely promising future. The major problem for them apparently was cash flow which, as we all know from the latest results, is not a strong point for Eleco at the present time.

I have to admit that I found the recent results announcement quite a shock and a huge disappointment; was so certain beforehand that the company would be much closer to beakeven than turned out to be the case. Hence my buying spree earlier this year which has come to an abrupt halt! Will wait patiently for an upturn but now accept it's likely to be a while coming.

C'est la vie!!