Fisher (james) & Sons Share Discussion Threads

[wigwammer] 15/7/2022 07:30

Pleased I ignored you last time the shares were below £3.. made a nice 50%+ on the bounce, and probably will again ;)

[porsche1945] 14/7/2022 18:28

worthless, will be taken private or sold off. Bet you guys wish you had listened when i said dump it at 9 quid. UK is utterly fxcked. Political self harming brexit basket case with a trashed mickey mouse currency.

[lshaugh] 12/7/2022 19:27

I can understand some of the reasons behind some casting a cynical eye over FSJ - Primarily the debt burden. However, trading at 275p with a market cap of just £138m has to be in real bargain territory now. A review of company assets, future contracts won, an experienced new CEO, and stock holdings by some very astute long-term investors such as Aberforth, all give me confidence that stock is braced for a change in fortune. If FSJ recovers to even 50% of it's 2019/early 2020 numbers it will make investors like myself at current levels some very tidy returns. I think this is very possible within the next 2-3 years, so the question is...is the stock now at its floor price or will it drop yet further? As a long term value investor I'm not overly concerned and will buy not at what I already see as a bargain price, and surely FSJ can't drop much lower than a m as tidy cap of £138m??

[bouleversee] 23/6/2022 17:50

Yes, that is somewhat encouraging.

[bottomfisher] 23/6/2022 17:37

The sight of Aberforth Partners appearing on Fisher's share register with a stake of just over 5% is a reassuring sign. Aberforth is a long-term value investor and obviously sees value in the current depressed share price, even if Fisher's own board of well paid non-execs do not.

[bottomfisher] 21/6/2022 09:53

My confidence in the recovery prospects of James Fisher would be greatly enhanced if there were any signs of its highly paid board demonstrating their belief in the company by buying a few shares at current depressed levels. The chairman, paid £210,00 a year, owns just 5,000 shares, and only one of the five non execs, who are paid between £50-60,000 pa, own any shares. The combined shareholding of James Fisher’s chairman and non-execs amounts to 8,150 shares, worth less than £25,000 which compares with around £500,000 pa they earn in fees.

[bouleversee] 18/6/2022 18:40

I wonder why Vernet was replaced as CEO of Crane. Any ideas?

[elsa7878] 18/6/2022 12:09

Wonder if Eoghan was pushed? I was never sure of him. Strange lack of comment from the long term holders on here…

[bottomfisher] 17/6/2022 11:25

Excellent news that James Fisher (FSJ) has found a new chief executive less than a week after the surprise announcement that Eoghan O’Lionaird was quitting. He had been hired in late 2019 to turn round the over-indebted company. But the slump in the company’s share price, from over £20 at the time of his appointment, to less than £4 now, is a reminder that Fisher’s long promised recovery is taking a lot longer than expected to materialise, and cannot all be blamed on the effects of Covid, war in Ukraine, and a sharp global slowdown.

The less good news is that the speed of the appointment was no doubt helped by the fact that Jean Vernet, Fisher’s new ceo, was looking for a new job after being subject to a management reshuffle at Smiths Group where he headed John Crane, Smith’s largest division.

He has an engineering degree, spent over a decade at Schlumberger (an excellent training ground for the offshore business),and prior to joining Crane was CFO of Expro, the offshore energy services provider, during its successful turnaround.

Clearly, he has considerable experience working in the offshore energy sector, and as ceo of Crane one of the world’s largest providers of engineered technology, ran a global business which in terms of revenue and staff is roughly twice as large as James Fisher, and much more profitable.

Fisher’s new ceo ticks all the right boxes in terms of his CV. Let’s hope that he has more luck than his predecessor.

[illiswilgig] 11/5/2022 08:56

bottomfisher - I always regard management as a key issue. A new management team is always an issue and under such extreme difficulties its hard not to be concerned. In that sense I agree with you.

On;y 6 months ago talk of a rescue rights issue was common. It didn't happen. The Chairman and FD joined just under a year ago. In my view it is to the credit of the new management and quite an achievement despite the downturns, delays and increased costs in their markets during 2021. The recent AGM trading statement confirmed that Q1 was stable if not slightly improving.

I suspect that I might have different expectations of a 'turnaround' 'reasonably short space of time' and 'successful' and how to judge it from yours? Thats fair enough.

One impact of not raising fresh capital is that management are hamstrung by high levels of debt, interest payments and constrained in the capital they can provide to growth opportunities. Although it is to the benefit of existing shareholders not to be diluted it will take longer to recover with less cash to spend.

The return of operational and capital expenditure to the North Sea and European Off shore renewable markets is taking longer than I - and probably many others - expected. The speed of the turnaround and recovery are as highly dependant upon the availability of the market opportunity - as they are the success of the management team in getting the work and their preparations for doing the work euccessfully.

I am also a long term shareholder in Fisher. I was recently reviewing and noticed that I first bought in August 2000 at 74p - only 5x on my original investment - which corresponds to an annual return of 23% on my original capital investment over 22 years - without considering dividends. In 2018 dividends were 31.6p alone. I've been buying more shares recently and I expect the return from my recent buys to generate a similar return over time - though I probably don't have another 22 years for this.

Fisher is a very different business from the one in which I original invested. A collection of moribund reefers(dry bulk cargo ships), specialist nuclear transports, fleet auviliary charters, port management, laid up cable ships, a few coastal tanks bought from BP and the reason I invested. A recently acquired small ROV and submarine rescue business.

Fisher today is mainly a technology business in my view - as I anticipated. It's abilities in remote operations, ROV's and manipulators span the marine, defence, nuclear, O&G and offshore renewable markets. Expertise in artificial lift pumps, subsea connectors, well-head penetration, high voltage installation. commissioning and maintenance are high margin niche businesses. Data management and analysis together with software will play an increasing role in supporting their markets as remote operations increase productivity and capabilities.

I question how relevant a career in shipping or even marine support is to these technologies. It certainly appears to have gone beyond the capabilities of the previous management team - who started well but unfottunately for them, and for shareholders ended up literally out of their depth with seriously mis-allocation of capital and mis-management of the acquisitions.

The structure of the group now needs to be transformed to bring the individual companies into a coherent structure and to allow their complementary resources to face the new industries, technologies and opportunities. It will not be instant and it will take time.

Reviewing the careers of the management I see that they all share one common feature - experience in the funding, management and growth of decentralised technology companies. The CEO has an engineering background and experience with Spectris/Phillips, the FD with BTG and the Chairman with Serco(which has run MOD technology facilities successfully for decades and operates defence divisions in the UK, US and Australia) and Robin Stopford with Corporate Transformation and B2B development. In view of Fishers leading technologies, need for corporate transformation and the growth in opportunities across Defence, Nuclear, Renewables, decomissioning and the energy transition - I am of the view that experience with leading technology companies is of more benefit than shipping and marine services given that the divisional heads have decades of experience in marine support and services. Looks like a good team to me. That's just my point of view, based upon working in similar growth and technology industries, we must all form our own views and invest accordingly. If I don't have sufficient trust in the management I won't invest.

I am current;y buying more Fisher at these prices - despite being surrounded by bargains its close to the top of my list when I am able to free up capital or reinvest dividends.

cheers and good luck all

[bottomfisher] 08/5/2022 10:37

The key issue here is the competence of Fisher's new management team. IMHO the jury remains out on whether the new chairman, ceo and FD are up the job of turning this company round in a reasonably short space of time. None of them appear to have worked in the shipping/marine support industries, and whilst this is not a necessary pre-requisite for a successful turnaround (indeed it can sometimes be a hindrance) there is no real evidence yet from the string of downbeat announcements that the new management team is making anything more than slow progress in restoring Fisher (FSJ) to its former blue chip status.

I am a long term holder of both FSJ and PZ Cousins (PZC), another former blue chip which had lost its way. I might be wrong, but so far I have a lot more faith in PZC's new CEO and FD, brought in from similar industry backgrounds, to turn that company round.

[r2oo] 05/5/2022 10:11

Yes that's steady as she goes in terms of an update with a quietly confident positive forward outlook.Hang in there....!

[illiswilgig] 05/5/2022 07:01

I agree. Fisher have always said that Q1 is their quietest period. Looks good to me, nothing unexpected, and quiet progress in Offshore Oil, Tankships and Marine Contracting. Good to see the Dive Support Vessel fully utilised in the Gulf - at full rates its better than a sale.

cheers

[our haven] 05/5/2022 06:39

The trading update looks to me unexciting, which is a good thing given the share price falls of late. See how we open but IMO market expectations were low.

[illiswilgig] 04/5/2022 19:41

1aconic - Good spot on the ship-to-ship transfers in the med - thank you for that.

I always thought that the downturn in the ship-to-ship xfr was doubly bad luck for FSJ on top of everything else.

cheers

[bouleversee] 04/5/2022 14:55

Long term holders who have built up large family positions over the years are not all willing or able to risk more capital in the hope of recovering some of the downturn.

[1aconic] 04/5/2022 13:54

Yes, fully agree. Elements of the last few reports did look (hopefully not just wishful thinking) like there were strong elements of spring cleaning out bad news and overhangs from previous management. Like you, I'm hopeful (but who knows) that was completed in FY21 and have personally more than tripled my original holding since October's slump. Unfortunately the earlier ones were over 500, but I still consider that a respectable price here.

This is so thinly traded that when (if?) postive news does start to flow the rise(s) could possibly (fingers crossed) be as dramatic as the falls. That theory is hopefully backed by the share price movements that started to happen in March following all the talk of governments doubling down on investment in renewables. Unfortunately the FY21 report killed off that momentum!

There are perhaps some signs of at least some potential positive news tomorrow. A phrase that really jumped out at me from FY21 was "Return to Fendercare record highs from 2020 is not expected "absent significant volatility in the oil price""... well, there's certainly been no shortage of that. Even mainstream media have commented that ship-to-ship” transfers of oil in the western Mediterranean have surged over recent months. Hopefully that's oil of all origins not just Russian, which i'd prefer FSJ to avoid being involved with. Revenues from Fendercare aren't the long term answer here but they'll be very, very helpful in smoothing the transition.

[bouleversee] 04/5/2022 13:24

I have to say that in their shoes I would not be proposing any LTIP until I had got the share price back to somewhere near previous highs and would be mortified by what the shsreholdrrs had suffered and more concerned about them than my own pockets but I suppose I must be peculiar.

[illiswilgig] 04/5/2022 12:33

Yes it's very easy to underestimate the time lag involved in restarting stalled projects or starting new ones - and I'm as guilty as anyone - with funding to be approved, bids invited, tenders summitted, contracts negotiated, work started - and all that before a penny of revenue drops through let alone profit.

As both the Chairman and FD joined in mid 2021 I strongly believe that the 2021 results were a kitchen sink job part2, following on from then new CEO's kitchen sink job part1 in 2020.

Painful at the time - but did give me the ability to accumulate shares at around 300p so must be grateful for small mercies. As you say it should remove further headwinds and perhaps even provide a small following wind in the future,

Looking forward to the ride now,

cheers

[1aconic] 04/5/2022 09:51

I'd have preferred a 3 year average so they're focused over time... It is implicit that results have to turn around but we all know that management has some latitude in when to recognise certain elements. I do strongly wonder whether certain elements of last year's results (e.g. the big balance sheet write downs) weren't a case of getting all the bad news out of the way in order to give a better spin on future performance. Let's face it, ROCE targets are far easier to meet if you've written your capital base down significantly!

Anyhow, fingers crossed for a change of tone now, starting with the pre-agm trading update tomorrow. The recent oil price volatility should have created good opportunities for Fendercare. Probably a bit early for the new big push to renewables to have filtered through yet.

[illiswilgig] 03/5/2022 11:33

1aconic,

I agree that the award is on the 2024 figures.

Could have been worded with more clarity I suppose. The performance in the meantime is implicit - and a windfall clause is mentioned to prevent a result in 2024 meeting the conditions but not through managements efforts.

cheers

[1aconic] 03/5/2022 09:31

Taking another look at the RNS, I'm now leaning towards having being wrong in my previous interpretation. I thought that "based on the Company's earnings per share (EPS) performance over three financial years commencing with the financial year in which the Award is granted" might imply a three year average. But on reflection I think that "None of this element shall vest if the Company's EPS for the 2024 financial year is less than 66p" is pretty clearly focussed on 2024 alone rather than an average of three years. I now don't think "performance over three financial years" is actually going to be taken into account at all other than in terms of building a platform for the all-or-nothing results in 2024.

[1aconic] 27/4/2022 09:51

Illis, I was the same... Wouldn't normally pay much attention but as I glanced over it, the criteria jumped out and I took a much closer look.

One extra thing which I thought relevant was that (although the wording was a little confused so I'm hoping I read it correctly) it's not just FY24 that needs to hit 66p but based on the average over the next three. Very hard to see that being hit this year so if they hit let's say 32, 66 and 100 in order to meet the 66 minimum average for the award to vest then on a pe of 12 it would maybe look like a 1200p-1500p share price in 2024 between any options vesting and all of them vesting.

I'm in a similar situation to you, but have also been adding whenever I've been able to over recent months.

[r2oo] 26/4/2022 22:08

Good post and insight.