Fdm Share Discussion Threads

[diogenesj] 30/7/2007 23:50

It's very illiquid, Greek, and the spread tends to be huge. Usually you can buy and sell within it (in small quantities) - but it does add to the risk. As I said earlier:

DiogenesJ - 21 Feb'07 - 17:15 - 87 of 139 edit
Nice liquid stock this: someone bought 1,200 shares and the price jumped 5.8%. You can't help wondering what happens if you need to sell in a hurry. :-)

[greek islander] 30/7/2007 23:06

What has happened to the spread here? All of a sudden it is a horrendous 10p!
I persuaded a friend to buy a bundle today (it's got to be a good buy i told him) and he had to pay 152p on a stock that without any movement shows up as a sell price of 143p. Cannot find a worse spread anywhere on AIM - the MMs must be making a mint!

[cockneyrebel] 26/7/2007 18:45

Cheers GI.

Looks rather good to me. Suspec there's a seller that needs assinating before these get to their rightful valuation but looks like he's being worked off bit by bit - bet it moves fast when he's gone..

CR

[greek islander] 26/7/2007 17:51

UK Analyst

TIP OF THE DAY

Buy FDM Group at 150p

A tip from The AIM & PLUS Newsletter


FDM Group* is a rather unique IT staffing and services company. It trains its own IT contractors internally, who then work on contract for a minimum lock-in period. This gives it sector-leading margins and profitability. We tipped the stock in The AIM & PLUS Newsletter in March and have so far returned our readers with a 38% profit but there is much more to come.

Earlier this month the company reported ongoing favourable market conditions relating to the six months ended 30th June. Trading was buoyant with sales well ahead of last year. New client wins in the second quarter include The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development, Bunzl, Swiftcover.com, UBS Investment Bank in the US and Logica in Belgium. As a result of these significant new business wins, FDM will outperform our original full year expectations.



FDM continues to recruit IT staff (known as Mounties) and its new City of London Academy has dramatically enhanced its ability to do so. At the end of the first half, FDM had 190 of its internally trained Mounties on billing, roughly in line with earlier estimates. Mountie utilisation rates were slightly higher than forecast at 98.5%. More recently, FDM has been approved for funding under the Leonardo da Vinci programme. This is a European initiative which funds students and graduates who wish to travel to other European countries to receive training. This will enable European trainees to attend FDM's academies in the UK, increasing the throughput of Mounties and providing multilingual skilled resources to European clients.

[liarspoker] 24/7/2007 14:47

Strange that so many of us (Liarspoker) end up on many of the same threads.

I don't think it's strange. We just like the same sort of stocks. I am sure that a lot of Mining and O&G investors run into each other on those type of threads. :O)

[greek islander] 24/7/2007 14:21

CR

You will see that you persuaded me to take another look at FSG and I decided to buy a few, alongside some shares here in FDMG today.
Just been on a small spending spree - some cash rolled in yesterday - buying mainly for fun (in a small way) half a dozen new stocks that I had earlier jotted down.
Strange that so many of us (Liarspoker) end up on many of the same threads.

PS I usually buy small at the beginning, just 1-2k, while I get to know the stocks more intimately - it is a policy I have pursued for many years and it has worked well for me.

[liarspoker] 20/7/2007 15:16

I like FSG too. :O)

Best bet for a near doubler over the next 9 months or so imo. All relevant details on the thread.

[diogenesj] 20/7/2007 15:09

FSG's another one I still feel pretty good about too. I think you need to take a longer-term view, G.I. :-)

[cockneyrebel] 20/7/2007 07:51

Hi Greek Islander.

Nope, GNG doesn't do it for me nor most chinese stocks. Nothing wrong with FSG - I was buying @ 16p and still am buying @ 55p.

FDMG tipped as a buy in Shares yesterday and IC today - going to fly as soon as this seller clears off imo

CR

[greek islander] 12/7/2007 17:43

CR

But will you be going back in?

OT
I have rather lost touch with your stockpicking which was always pretty impressive. You, JTCod, Williemanjaro and Rivaldo are my four favourite stock pickers though you may have had a relatively bad run recently with some comparitively duff stocks such as Focus Gp and Led Holdings that I looked at and thankfully didn't buy. Have you lost interest in GNG which is now massively undervalued and what is your position on RCG which is an even better buy today? Would be very interesting to hear what your favourite undervalued stocks are at the moment.

[diogenesj] 12/7/2007 09:17

Me too, CR. Glad to hear I wasn't the only one!

[dixies] 12/7/2007 08:59

DS increases its conservative target price to 190p. They present an interesting bull case scenario as well.

Strong trading update - remains a high conviction BUY
FDM have reported a very upbeat half year trading update and 2007 results are expected to be "materially ahead of .. previous expectations", while "market conditions have remained very favourable". The story is evolving as we anticipated, with the new City office driving strong growth in Mountie placements and therefore in group margins. We are raising our numbers significantly, which leaves the shares once again on only 10.1x 08E PE – still a bargain despite recent strength in the share price. Our price target increases to 190p for 30% further upside from current levels. We believe that several of our new assumptions remain conservative and offer scope for further upgrades in due course. The Mountie model makes the company one of the highest quality plays in the recruitment sector, and FDM remains our highest conviction recruitment BUY idea.
Changes to forecasts: DS&Co EPS for 2007E moves from 10.1p to 11.6p (+15%); 2008E from 11.9p to 14.0p (+18%). 2007E EBITA (post share option costs & including other income) moves from £3.25m to £3.72m (+14%), 2008E EBITA moves from £3.78m to £4.40m (+16%)
Areas of potential conservatism in our forecasts: 1) Mountie numbers (we now assume 210 at year end versus 190 at the end of June – requiring a 2H increase of just 20 after a gain of 36 in 1H) – the new City office is at around 65% of capacity, hence still significant runway is available, and management are targeting 240 at year end. 2) Cashflow/net interest income. We have assumed an improvement of 12 debtors days YoY at 12/07, however the company are now 14 DSO's less than at 12/06 - the improvement has been as great as 19 days, but new clients have affected this somewhat. 3) Mountie Gross margins/Mountie pay rates – we have assumed that Mountie margins decline somewhat as "Mountie Consultant" numbers grow (above freelance margin but below Mountie margin) – however, a further increase in the utilisation rate (to 98.5%) should raise margins & anecdotally Mountie margins have increased. We have assumed a 3% increase in Mountie pay rates in 2007 – in contrast management have raised standard rates this year by 10%.
We have raised our price target in line with our increase in 08E EPS to 190p. We raise our Bull Case valuation to 300p per share which would give 105% further upside, based on a Bull Case 07E EPS of 14.6p and 08E EPS of 19.3p, applying SThree's 08E PE multiple of 15.6x. To get to these Bull Case forecasts, we assume Mountie numbers of 240 (07 year end) and 300 (08), we assume a further 5 day DSO reduction, we assume 10% increase in Revenue per Mountie in 07 and 5% in 08, and Mountie Gross margins +100bp in 2007 and +50bp in 2008. A number of these Bull Case assumptions look highly realistic to us.
Management are eliminating price competitive sub-10% Gross Margin freelance business at customers where this has no feed through into Mountie placements. This should raise Gross margins, increase the quality of the business portfolio and reduce the cyclical nature of the business somewhat.
The company have secured European funding to put French & Belgians through the Mountie programme. This increases FDM's access to talented Mounties at no cost to the company and should help to boost Mountie numbers and placements.
Utilisation rates of Mounties have increased again to 98.5% despite the significantly increased output of the Academy – highlighting the very strong demand for these individuals.

[cockneyrebel] 12/7/2007 08:13

Craking statement. Bought back in today - one I sold well too soon :-(

Fd PE looks very low after this statement.

CR

[diogenesj] 09/7/2007 21:21

I did think they might rocket today, jak, because of the Mail on Sunday tip. It's a very small and illiquid share to be tipped by a national newspaper. May possibly drift back a bit when the tip effect starts to wear off.

[jakleeds] 09/7/2007 18:32

Believe me Diogenes, I wasn't sneering, I just couldn't believe the timing of your post 121. It made me chuckle because it's the sort of thing that happens to me.

[diogenesj] 09/7/2007 14:04

Hmm, well, they have rocketed, haven't they, Jak? But you mustn't sneer at the mistakes of your fellow investors. :-)

[jakleeds] 09/7/2007 10:54

DiogenesJ - 8 Jul'07 - 21:50 - 121 of 122


Hope you'll keep posting anything significant, CWA. May come back to these when I've recovered my nerve, if they don't rocket too far in the meantime. :-)


LOL!!

[diogenesj] 08/7/2007 21:50

Hope you'll keep posting anything significant, CWA. May come back to these when I've recovered my nerve, if they don't rocket too far in the meantime. :-)

[cwa1] 08/7/2007 20:26

Awww, jeeez, just me left then. I'll switch off the lights on the way out ;-)

[diogenesj] 08/7/2007 18:49

Well, you woke me up. But unfortunately I was feeling nervous about the market and sold out earlier. I don't pay much attention to Monisha Varadan, but the Mail tip should certainly give this a boost on Monday. So good luck with it and well done for hanging on.

[cwa1] 08/7/2007 17:59

Not sure if I'm wakening anyone up by posting this :-) but there is a BUY recommendation in today's Midas column in the Mail on Sunday:-



FDM Group is an IT recruitment business with a difference. Most companies in this market subcontract IT geeks as and when the need arises. FDM grows its own.

The group trains and retains specialists to help firms in a range of industries, especially financial, telecoms and the media. It has 180 consultants or 'mounties' and chief executive Rod Flavell expects to have 240 this year.

Flavell founded FDM 16 years ago and the business has grown steadily since. It has utilisation rates of 98%, which means staff are almost always in demand.

FDM is relatively small - core earnings last year were £2.8m - but growth prospects are robust. The group provides services to 150 clients, including 15 of the world's largest investment banks.

The amount of money companies are spending on IT is increasing rapidly and many prefer to use FDM when problems arise because it trains its consultants in-house so they are of a known standard.

FDM will update the market this week on its first-half performance. This is expected to be extremely positive.

Midas verdict: The shares are 138p and have had a good run lately, but fans believe the stock could hit 200p early next year. This is a small firm and not for the risk-averse, but for those who fancy a gamble, there could be significant upside.

Might be a flurry of activity on Monday but we can all get back to sleep shortly thereafter.....

[cwa1] 15/5/2007 14:22

Daniel Stewart reiterates hold Enterprise Inns (ETI.L) (700p target) and says buy FDM (FDMG.L) (160p target).
The broker says hold Inspicio (INP.L) (190p target).

[diogenesj] 14/5/2007 17:04

Hi CWA!! Phew, thought you'd all sneaked out while I wasn't looking. :-)