Finsbury Food Share Discussion Threads

[spaceparallax] 17/7/2013 11:49

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 11:48

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

[woodcutter] 17/7/2013 11:11

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 11:08

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 08:37

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 21:45

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 20:57

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 20:49

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 20:48

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 20:37

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 20:35

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 20:29

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

[woodcutter] 16/7/2013 20:00

Aleman............ i think it's likely we might see a deal sometime in the next 18 months in which case all future figs beyond this year may well be revised. I'm only guessing here but with debt down i think a return to "sensible" acquisative growth is highly likely and i think if Duffy and Boyd continue to drive the business, particularly productivity improvements then we're in good hands. From recollection Duffy and Boyd came from Mars and based on my own experience of working with people who been trained or worked in some capacity at Mars then they're usual pretty switched on and it's no surprise that the business is gaining traction. We're never likely to see explosive sales growth so the acquisition and productivity route seems to be the most likely for eps improvements fwiw i'd conclude that Lightbody has been fortunate to have two exceptional directors looking after his interests. But then again he probably recuited them. WC

[aleman] 16/7/2013 19:43

Cenkos have revised to 8.0p for 2013 and 6.4p for 2014.

[mozy123] 16/7/2013 19:10

How many options are outstanding currently?

[topvest] 16/7/2013 18:18

This is very good news medium term as it diversifies the shareholder base. Lightbody has a lot of wealth tied-up with this and must have been biting his nails at one point when the share price was on the floor and the debt through the ceiling. He now has some serious money to spend and half his holding still intact. Be interesting to see who is on board. MAM may have added more I suspect, but there will be others.

[woodcutter] 16/7/2013 18:09

back from golf to find it was lightbody selling. Not so sure there's any need to begin to unwind your holding boff.............mind you it's probably bigger than mine and i've a few:-0 He must have had in mind to unwind some of his holding at some point and these next set of results do appear to be likely to show the final leg of the turnaround. Agree with aleman if he's wanted to unwind this many he'll have had to find a buyer and the insti's would be expecting a decent deal too. Who knows why he's selling he might have to...........divorce pending? it could be any number of reasons. I would be more concerned if he couldn't get them away to someone. Remember too an ED ex FD was a buyer recently at 56p. It's hard to judge what the pi's reaction might be but i'm at least waiting for the rns's and also the results figures. It might dip a bit in the short term on this news but i think it will recover and more. I think we also have to be mindful that Duffy who, at least in part, appears to have been the architiect of this turnaround has taken over 360K shares in exchange for his options and is unlikely imv to have done this without some knowledge of Lightbody's intentions. So i'd expect him to be pretty sharp. Woody post note If i had to place my trust in either Lightbody or Duffy then i think my preference would be Duffy. Lightbody if i recall correctly (it's so bloody long ago now) was before my time as an investor here but unless i'm mistaken presided over aggresive expansion and extensive debt. Since Duffy (and his FD) has arrived the business has grown from strength to strength. Debt down and productivity clearly up. I'll stick with Duffy for the time being.

[aleman] 16/7/2013 15:36

It would take time to sort this series of deals. The price would always move on a bit and it has only been over 60p recently. It's also worth waiting for more news as I think we might get some buying RNSes. I would not fret over the slight discount and concentrate on the coming results, although you may wish to sell a few if it is making you nervous to have so many. I sold a few recently either side of the tax-year end as my holding was getting a bit too large a part of my portfolio for my liking.

[boffster] 16/7/2013 15:24

Lightbody is no fool though.. I have to ask myself the question, why would he sell half of his holding at such a discount to the market price? The man hasn't become a multi millionaire by making daft decisions, this is (partly) the business he inherited and made prosper?

[aleman] 16/7/2013 15:16

Just seen it after my last post. Not quite certain but selling by the chairman seems to allow fulfillment of some options maturing and needs of an employee share trust without the dilution and market overhang you might normally expect for next year.

[boffster] 16/7/2013 15:01

Wish I was mate, really quite shocked by that announcement and I've got to say, I'm now considering whether its time to exit stage left on this one. Assume you've read the RNS.

[aleman] 16/7/2013 14:57

I agree with this_is_me. It looks like 6.5m was sold first, if you look at the times, and all the others look like arranged buys with the MMs taking a small cut. It was probably a multiple deal being lined up shortly before the price jumped over 60p that has only been completed recently. Can't be certain, though. I'm sure we'll have notification(s) in due course. I expect some of the directors now own notably more than a week ago. Boff's quiet. He may be in the know.

[this_is_me] 16/7/2013 13:59

I do not think that they were all sells; most were buys arranged by the broker on behalf of the seller of 6.5 million.

[woodcutter] 16/7/2013 13:51

The total sub bid sales at around 55p is 13.495m shares not far off the Lightbody holding so my guess would be he's been kindly pushed, all speculation of course. This could be good news as institutional investment holders pick up the shares and although we might see a few offloading small numbers in the short term it might be beneficial in the longer term and provide potentially a little more liquidity. To offload that quantity and have as little impact as it has someones clearly picking them up. We might be left with a slight overhang but i'd expect that to clear after such a good TS. Woody It may have also been David Marshall at London Finance

[woodcutter] 16/7/2013 13:39

TIM there are only a few shareholders with that kind of holding figs from DLook. London Finance 8m Ruffer 7.59m MAM 3.63m TDIT 2.72m and Lightbody himself 13.7m Ruffer, MAM and TDIT have all added recently so i'd be surprised if it was them. My guess would be lightbody has been coerced into selling but i could be wrong. Interesting few days brewing! Woody