Eurodis Elect. Share Discussion Threads

[momentos] 23/7/2005 09:36

It really is a situation involving all parties, not just Doug Rogers.

He will go into a company and do a review of the current state of affairs. He will then put together a detailed recovery plan. These will form the basis of any investors risk assessments, I am sure the funds in both cases get access to far more detaied information that ordinary shareholders. It was not only Eaglet that chose to support the plan.

For Eurodis, the funds made their choice to invest further on the back of this review / recovery plan. It didn't work, but given the bearing down on costs, working capital etc you can't say DR & Co didn't try their damnedest.

That doesn't mean the review / recovery plan was necessarily wrong, I would have thought the issues of license loss and customer/creditor confidence were examined.

Without being party to all those reviews and the judgements made it really is difficult to comment further. And without looking at the whole of Eaglet's portfolio performance you can't really call them as bad investors. For all the failures discussed above there may have been 5 other situations that succeeded and gave a storming return. It is, after all, their "Special Situations" fund.

Note: DR was non-exec chairman at both Dowding & Mills and Eurodis.

[nonlottie] 23/7/2005 09:27

You're right .very difficult to say although with Eurodis...............it seems that either the strategy was wrong or they just didn't raise enough money..

either way it can only be down to the new guy..has to take responsibility,raising £38m is a serious reputational issue.have to believe in it

Dowdings.........doesn't look like he was in charge......... seems to show him coming in.....helping with a new strategy with a board that was then cleaned out...

And then a new guy comes in a few months later as Chairman..... virtually all the bosrd is cleaned out........announces all sorts of financial problems.....and sorts it.

Why the old lot and DR didn't do it is difficult to understand....

Difficult to understand why DR was passed over if he's Eaglet's man and so good. Then why Eaglet they sold at the bottom.perhaps shareholders didn't like their strategy

Has to be said company seems to have turned .....but down to AN OTHER plus different approach, and Eaglet have lost out big time losing a doubling from 10p and then re-investing with their old mate in a rescue rights....then a write off.........Eaglet's assesments of recovery situations looks a little flawed to say the least.

Anyone got any ideas Dough boy etc????????????

PS Harry Redknapp had limited resources..........DR had £38m and should have either raised more or nothing........where would HK have taken them with £38m............into Parks football......I think not.too good a manager

[nonlottie] 23/7/2005 08:36

Loss on Oliver was a bit more than slight.....from memory was 16p to 8/9/10 30% plus.

But killer was write off after the sale. Not really helpful to shareholders when bringing reality to the situation to have NAV so much more than mkt price to an acquirer

Accept DR being used in difficult situations.....could be he just stops it getting worse.not really a money maker ....sorts of fits with the "not usually invests" comment I recall.

But to raise £38m for Eurodis with a plan and lose it all means would have been better without the recovery.........and Olivers - would have expected at least the asset position to be put right........

These turnaround guys usually completely kitchen sink it for good reason..so there's no surprises in due diligence to upset purchasers....wonder whether this was the Eurodis problem

If the Telegraph story has been a bit glossy in the recent past (nothing to shout about in last 5/6 years ) one has to wonder how accurate if you go further back........my experience with CV's is that inaccuracies are sometimes by design.

[momentos] 23/7/2005 08:01

lol pilbara.

It seems to be fair and well researched comment by Doughboy to me. Personally though my investment was not based solely on Doug Rogers record, although it was a factor.

TBH, the dust is not fully settled on Dowding & Mills, it is still recovering. Olivers was sold at slightly less than the share price when Doug Rogers took over.

Difficult to call - would either them have crashed into liquidation without DR efforts? If so he did his job in managing to salvage some shareholder value.

But I do agree, Eaglet / DR record together recently does look a bit poor now! But that is a bit unfair on DR, he has only been used in situations where Eaglet etc have found themselves invested in a distressed company.

[pilbara] 23/7/2005 07:40

Doughboy - thanks, only 3 months too late for me! Why make your point so difficult to unravel? For those that couldn't be bothered:

Eaglet bought in sometime pre 2001 at a price that must have been in excess of 30p

DR joined as Deputy Chairman in 2002 - share price circa 28p

Eaglet sold in 2003 at a price that would have been below 10p

DR resigned in 2004 when price was circa 10p. Price as high as 23p since.

It's been intersting to watch Momentous and Nonlottie exchange views. How do you view the latest postings Momentous?

[nonlottie] 22/7/2005 22:17

Now ( with benefit of Dowdings links) looking back to Mike's post 805 doesn't look too clever for DR in the recent past...........

ELH we all know about......... unlikely to be any near book and lost the rights money of £38m as well as mkt cap of £48m.........

... if posts are to be believed......achieved by staying at home and going to Spain for presumably UK negotiations

Dowding....not even the Chairman as claimed in Telegraph..........

OLIVERS.........sold as a loss and a discount to what it seemed an already discounted net assets...then wrote them down to sale price... dismissed as irrelevant by some

Epwin..only a non exec.........so truly irrelevant

Eaglet seem to have lost a packet,,,,,,,,,need to look hard at their prtfolio investing in future

All together nothing worth talking about since about 1999.........

No wonder whisper from City was not as good as may appear..

[nonlottie] 22/7/2005 19:53

Doughboy

Difficult to see what's what here as no information on share price movements.......or Eaglet's entry/exit position.

From what I can see this company is recovering although still a lot of debt.

Olivers does not show a lot of success in recent years......now followed by this one. Interested to understand how this fits in with Eaglet. .

Obvious thing is DR wasn't the Chairman as indicated in the Telegraph
article.

Not much consolation to those who were relying on the Telegraph........but not maybe an issue for them.......... most were tracking the industry and consolidation story.

[momentos] 22/7/2005 19:14

Should have been 2006?

[isis] 22/7/2005 19:00

Can anyone spot the obvious mistake in this thread title:-

2005 - The Year of The Electron (ELH)

[momentos] 22/7/2005 18:40

No sign of any news anywhere. Phone call to Eurodis on Monday I think.

[hayabusa] 22/7/2005 12:13

Very sorry to hear of the recent news - i have just come back from holiday and was unaware of the latest proceedings - hope you guys can have better luck in the future - i too lost everything in ELH - does anyone have anymore news with the latest events of any other companies interested in a take over, or have we realistically lost everything for good - appreciate any replies - would like to thank some excellent posts in the past and has taught me alot. Regards

[mike012321] 22/7/2005 10:24

2 of many lessons...
Limit exposure to companies with high debt (esp bank loans ,where facilities can be withdrawn/reduced by the bank).

The semiconductor distribution sector can be almost impossible to read (am thinking of all the reports etc on various websites over last few years). Roy Vallee, CEO of Avnet, recently said "anyone got a crystal ball" when asked in a conference call how he thought the sector would perform,which says it.

Like RCT I was quietly confident that Doug R would achieve a better result. I got it badly wrong.

[realcooltrader] 22/7/2005 10:07

GM all. An all too familiar story of greed for me too, I purchased several on 8th July at 0.96p and 0.87p to bring my average down, and was quietly confident of a result here. I may also have the dubious pleasure of the last ever trade, having sold 250k at 0.95p at 16.26 on the 14th.

[jordaggy] 22/7/2005 09:52

Morning Guy's. I lost my blouse simply cos I'm stupid !...never ever average down - greed got the better of me and my faith in DG was unfounded...past performance is no guide to the future and all that !...into CC and GKP at the moment to try claw back some losses - good grief !

[galleon] 22/7/2005 09:40

Morning guys..interesting question Pippin - and interesting replies too...yes, it IS therapeutic! I have lost significantly also ( mentally having now written off the total amount )but see no real reason to moan about it since the reason boils down to a combination of arrogance and greed...based on a strongly held belief that I couldnt possibly be wrong ( given the facts as known ) and that I would miss out if i didnt keep involved at a significant level..characterised by catching the falling knife far too often! I guess pride comes before ..etc is a true cliche!As is the case with Momentos, most of my mistake were recent - effectively trebling my holding in a very few months..ah well..painful though it is I shant let the B.......s grind me down - and shall be back!! ( hows that for arrogance!? )
ps - i still hold a small spark of hope for elh deep in mi guts!
lol and good luck for the future. - Actually it strikes me that the ones we should truly feel sorry for are the manic de rampers and saddos...they really do not have a life!. Be good.

[momentos] 22/7/2005 09:34

Cheers Stinger.

As I have kept re-iterating, just because the worst happened doesn't mean it was the most likely thing to happen when we assessed the risks with the information we had.

The 20% does have to happen sometimes.

[the stinger] 22/7/2005 09:26

momentos - At 1.5p ELH was a risk but no more than the likes of RTM/ISYS etc, etc. Infact this situation has probably arisen because the creditors forced it. Additional funding would have sorted things for ELH, but there was limited sources available for the directors to enquire about in such a short space of time (once the merger talks were called off).

I still feel ordinary shareholders will receive a return, but only if the group is sold as a going concern (max of 1.5p per share, probably .75p a share). I also believe major shareholders are playing a part in the sale to acheive this.

Goodluck all, this story could have been so different!

[momentos] 22/7/2005 09:19

Hi, my names M and I'm a Euroholic.

We sound like an AA meeting, but I suppose its therapeutic..

[atomic dog] 22/7/2005 09:15

Pippin - personally I don't think we did wrong. I sold all on the loss of the Phillips franchise having been a long term holder but then bought back on news of the possible takeover. It really was a sitting duck for a takeover and had it happened my own feeling was it would have been at around 2/3p - at least a 100% gain. But the thing is never to put too much money into this kind of high risk situation. It was only a small part of my portfolio and the loss is within the normal range of daily losses and gains for me, so I don't feel too bad about it. I am always amazed when I see people on bulletin boards who have 80% or more of their money in a single stock - they may be lucky and get away with it (read Hatto's very good posts on the Ashtead board) but I bet most get badly burned sooner or later.

Other companies I have lost are SFI (bunch of liars), Railtrack (still fighting to get it back) and Transtek (Geoffrey Robinson). I had a very narrow squeak nearly buying Mayflower and Henlys but decided they were going bust, which they did. It really can go either way. With Stagecoach I was very lucky buying a lot at 15p but it was very close to bust at the time. But that is how big money is made. Also Spirent bought at 10p - but at that time everyone thought it was going to go the way of Marconi. Oh yes I lost a packet on Marconi trading it all the way down to zero. I still think it was unfairly crucified by market makers, if they had driven it the other way it could have done a rights issue and survived.

Two terrible missed opportunities - I nearly bought Regus at 4p and Corus at 4p. Risk was simply too great, I was certain Regus would go bust. How on earth did it survive? Its now 100p of course.

And re-your losses in the tech crash. At least we've learned that bubbles do eventually burst. I'm still waiting for it to happen to Google but there is absolutely no sign of it yet! It looks a brilliant short, but then so it did at half its current level.

[pippin] 22/7/2005 08:42

This stock may well be a complete write-off but then again we might get something back. We can only conjecture at this point. But in essence we just sit and wait, because there's nothing else to do.

I have written the value down to zero, so I've nothing (mentally) left to lose.

Ed, Edward, chian, RCT, momentos et al - it happens! And it hurts. I've been in this position before and survived. I lost 90% of my capital in the tech crash despite having a large number of holdings "to diversify risk!" It would be a shame to give up because of this - I have regained all my losses with time and persistence and I am sure you guys can too. For a lesson to be worthwhile, it needs to be painful. My loss this time is modest because of past lessons.

However good you are, you will be hit by a total write-off from time to time. The brave and the strong will pick themselves up and start over, although it may take a while. The weak will retire, tails between legs.

I think it may be useful for us all to compare notes on what WE did wrong here - why WE goofed, not the company, so that we can spell out the lessons clearly and make different mistakes next time. I have waited till now because I didn't like the ghouls preying on the carcase of the thread but maybe now we can try to be objective. Anyone game for such an exercise?

[realcooltrader] 21/7/2005 16:28

Sorry ed3, re. the meths, I think the England cricketers' need is greater than yours.

[edward3] 21/7/2005 16:15

Hastings it is then..........any chance of a whip round for the fuel or maybe some of that meths that was regular used on here....