Finsbury Food Share Discussion Threads

[battlebus2] 20/7/2013 21:40

Been away for a few weeks but great to return to the news. Not worried by the large sell as i can't see the reason for selling having anything to do with the companies future prospects or trading. A very happy holder.

[jpjp100] 19/7/2013 14:18

it is possible that Lightbody is selling with some encouragement from institutions to make the stock a little more liquid (i.e. for them to be able to buy it). it does say in the RNS 'The Ordinary Shares have been placed with both existing and new institutional investors.' without talking to the man directly, its all conjecture

[woodcutter] 19/7/2013 08:51

Aleman does it shed any light on the Lightbody sale?

[spaceparallax] 18/7/2013 12:49

ta ale, the latter is especially appropriate.

[aleman] 18/7/2013 12:12

Shares Magazine has a full page buy recommendation on Finsbury Foods and, as a bonus, also covers it for a full page in the editorial on how shares rerate.

[topvest] 17/7/2013 20:35

Looks like Ruffer have increased their holding. They are a good institutional holder to be increasing - no mugs!

[jpjp100] 17/7/2013 15:15

There is no doubt at all in my mind that you are right woodcutter I am absolutely certain that Mr Duffy is in full control and has driven everything since he became CEO, maybe even a bit before when he was COO (CEO in waiting?!) I can't guess at the motivation for Lightbody's share sales and I can't guess if he is going to remain Chairman going forwards, but Duffy as second fiddle in the FIF Orchestra...? No way.

[woodcutter] 17/7/2013 14:24

The big question in all of this is who's driving this business forward? We're looking at reasonable capex spend, new factory development, possible acquisitions and my guess is although it's purely speculative a lot of this is coming from Duffy. Expect more RNS's in the near future. WC

[woodcutter] 17/7/2013 14:09

jpjp i make it 2.4m the LC trade was a correction presumably from yesterday. aplogies could have been 4.8m even with the LC trade.

[woodcutter] 17/7/2013 14:06

Time will tell us the answer but i wouldn't mind betting that Lightbody hasn't been contributing at the level expected or there's been some kind of fallout and the rest of the board, in particular Duffy and Boyd or perhaps Marshall and they've made a move to restructure. Maybe as boff suggested he's feeling better returns available elsewhere. It looks like there are a number of delayed sales in the market coming through too which has dropped the share price a bit. I'm a little surprised that there are sellers at this volume outside of the obvious larger Lightbody sales but as Boff has said we all view it differently. Woody

[jpjp100] 17/7/2013 13:37

is that another 4.8m sold today?

[spaceparallax] 17/7/2013 12:49

Those who split from this share a few months ago must wish they hadn't. On the matter of the sale, the mkt seems not to agree with you Boff

[boffster] 17/7/2013 12:48

Looks like that's the rest of them gone then. Chairman with no shares? Board change imminent?

[woodcutter] 17/7/2013 12:11

Valid point Boff and there's more action today too. Without knowing the reasons behind the sale it hard to judge imo. We should also consider the institutions picking them up won't be doing so unless they feel there's still some growth in the business. Woody

[boffster] 17/7/2013 12:08

Whichever way you slice it (if you will excuse the pun) I don't think you can view the chairman selling half his holding as anything but negative. This man was a major beneficiary of the sale of Lightbody to Finsbury - i.e. a fair amount of FIF's debt ended up in his pocket, so I can't see him 'needing the money'. I think he will have sold because he sees his money better invested elsewhere. Just trying to maintain an unbiased view of things. It doesn't pay you to get married to your shares - surely markt would approve!

[spaceparallax] 17/7/2013 09:37

I'm am always cynical about matters such as the Duffy deal. The guy has helped guide a major turnaround in share price and indebtedness, nevertheless such deals although sold as beneficial to the shareholders do normally favour the recipient. On the Lightbody sale - it goes to show how strong the share is that it can resist the gravitational effect of such a sale.

[aleman] 16/7/2013 22:45

I read somewhere that wind power only recovers around 10% of its costs without subsidies (although there is lots of rubbish out there so it's hard to verify). Cenkos forecast is dated today: hxxp://tools.morningstar.co.uk/uk/stockprofile/default.aspx?LanguageId=en-GB&SecurityToken=0P000090U6%5D3%5D0%5DE0GBR$$ALL&Id=0P000090U6&ClientFund=0&BaseCurrencyId=GBP&InvestmentType=E0

[woodcutter] 16/7/2013 21:57

Agree on that too Aleman the bulk of the hard work is done now but i still think we've a further 50% share price uplift from here. Your point about commodities is noted something i always look at when i visit this board. Boffsters done a good job there it really defines part of the cost base. I'll be interested to see how their energy costs develop over the next few years the telegraph were reporting likely power outages sometime in the future at heavy demand periods and soaring costs for larger companies surplus diesel power generators feeding into the grid. From recollection wind turbines(waste of effing money imv)generated electricity is twice the cost KWh of conventional power station and diesel 4 times the cost. Woody

[woodcutter] 16/7/2013 21:49

Sicky.......you'll have to decide that one yourself all the info is out there in the domain. From the Cenkos figs Aleman has posted the 2014 numbers aren't that exciting but i think we'll see some revised figures over the time period in question. Aleman how recent is the Cenkos forecast? Woody

[aleman] 16/7/2013 21:48

I'm expecting an acquisition any time. THey need to do it before target prices rise any more. EBITDA is forecasted at £11m for 2014. An acquisition or three of maybe £40m might add another £5-8m, taking EBITDA to maybe £18m and debt to about £45m. It would take eps to 8.5-9p for 2015 (and rising past 10p in a few years as debt further reduces), making the shares still look good value. I'm still not convinced the full saving from the capex investment is fully costed in, as well. I think we could be looking at over 9p for 2015 but that is only if commodities remain subdued and supermarkets don't go for the hard squeeze again (which I think has backfired on them slightly in the last few years as they all the majors seem to have scared a few customers away, hunting better quality from independents) and the right acquisitions are achieved without hiccups. There's still plenty of water to flow under the bridge but I can see room for optimism, although I feel progress from here isn't quite as assured as the last couple of years.

[s34icknote] 16/7/2013 21:37

Remember when the shares were stuck at 52/ 53 p . I can see why from the director sell. Even directors have to spend the money eventually to enjoy life !!

[s34icknote] 16/7/2013 21:35

Hi Woody Well done chaps for sticking with this one. ? is it still worth buying or topping up at these levels ? Sicknote

[woodcutter] 16/7/2013 21:29

Mozy there are over 7.7m options on the table at 30th june 2012 exercisable at 20.5p so they're going to be traded at some point as i doubt we see 20p again. That's over 10% dilution if they're all traded. However many of these have been exercisable since june 2010 and are available to exercise until 2016/17 in some cases. Clearly in june 2010 you wouldn't have exercised them as the share price was still around the 20p mark. However it's then a matter of whether they believe the share price will continue to improve. If they start exercising then you know what action to take. Crawford Currie has roughly over 1m options yet he bought 41K shares recently at 56p so i'm comfortable with it. Despite the volume of options i think the directors will manoeuvre this very carefully not to p*ss shareholders off. They've as much as said so today. aimho. WC