Fountains Share Discussion Threads

[9degrees] 02/9/2009 18:17

ggodbye Fnt Hello CNT

[9degrees] 11/8/2009 14:22

as only hold in nominee account = what is the timescale for this ??

[9degrees] 11/8/2009 14:22

as only hold in nominee account = what is the timescale for this ??

[9degrees] 11/8/2009 14:22

as only hold in nominee account = what is the timescale for this ??

[mqhopewell] 05/8/2009 09:26

Hi folks,

Well personally, I was in for the good yield and growth. However, the change for Connaught shares is in my view a point to tell as the Connaught yield is very small and therefore will little "relative" growth it is time for me to sell out.

I'm a newbie, so interested in what are people's thoughts/intentions of reaping profits or keeping for long term?

Cheers,

Mike

[thecoxwellinn] 16/7/2009 16:12

Any other bidders please.

[blackb1rd] 18/5/2009 20:51

Good result for the company. Only noticed with £21m turnover and £0.8m cash inflow, thats only 4%. Anyone know how much the significant items are worth? Then we will know how good the news is. At least they are making a profit in the current market conditions.

[shammytime] 18/5/2009 06:59

Fantastic results - could easily see 65p today. Strong buy

[praipus] 24/2/2009 13:39

Hargreave trying to help you selling any quantity at any price it seems.

[gengulphus] 16/2/2009 10:14

That will be £5m per year of additional turnover, not profits.

Looking at last year's accounts ( ), they made £4.4m gross profits (i.e. turnover minus the direct costs of producing the goods and services they provided) on turnover of £41.8m - a gross margin of a shade over 10%. If they repeat that with this additional turnover, the contract will be worth around £500k per year in gross profits. (That's on the assumption that the existing work for British Waterways is quite small in size - the RNS gives the £5m/year figure for the combination of the existing work and the new contract, not for the new contract on its own.)

That £4.4m of gross profits was then almost entirely swallowed up by administrative expenses - i.e. overhead costs not particularly associated with providing any particular goods and services, but definitely necessary to keep the company running. The net result is that the company made only a tiny overall profit for the year of £177k, or a bit over 1p per share. That's a very measly return of about 2-2.5% on the 48p share price - certainly not enough in itself to justify the price being that high, which means that the price is actually being kept high by hopes that profits will increase.

Hopefully the new contract won't increase administrative expenses by much (increased turnover does tend to increase administrative expenses a bit, as a larger company generally needs more admin) and so would boost overall profits by up to about £500k per year. That's worth up to about 3p per share of profits each year, or 9-15p per share over the 3-5 year duration of the contract - which together with the existing 1p per share would be a reasonable (but not spectacular) return for shareholders on the 48p price of a share. So in itself, this news provides some justification for the price being as high as it is.

On the plus side from here, the company has shown itself still capable of winning a reasonably high-value contract - if it can win a few more, the profits might start to look quite good!

On the minus side, old contracts will run out from time to time, reducing turnover - and companies generally don't announce such events even for big contracts, since they will already have announced how long the contracts were for when they originally announced the contracts. And in addition, quite a large part of the company's turnover probably comes from contracts too small to require announcing at all. So an announcement of a big contract win like this one only gives a hint which way the company's turnover and profits might be going, not anything conclusive. There is definitely a risk that the turnover rise due to this contract might be more than counterbalanced by old contracts running out and a lower level of new contracts in general. (Read the "Outlook" section on page 12 of the above link and you'll see that a "slowdown in work volumes" is definitely a worry for the company.)

In short, while this contract is good news for the company, I see it as mostly saying that 48p is not a clearly-too-high price, and would want more before I decided that the shares were clearly cheap.

Gengulphus

[mqhopewell] 14/2/2009 15:28

RNS Number : 0442N fountains PLC 10 February 2009
British Waterways contract win
Combined with existing work for British Waterways, the contract is expected to be worth approximately £5 million per annum for the next three years, with an optional two year extension.

Please excuse me as I'm still new to investing, but with shares in issue at 15.03m, £5m/annum equates to approx 33p per share? I'm just trying to see why the share price is at a low of 48p?

Any thoughts welcome.

[praipus] 30/1/2009 22:37

Got the annual report today not impressed too glossy for a company that has lost 2/3 of its SP, had a change of management and significantly increased director remuneration and keeps investors poorly informed in terms of take over situations.

And on a £41m turnover produce £45,000.....utter rubbish, gives the impression of being very poorly managed. Next years annual report should be on the cheapest paper possible and not have a single photo unless they can show a profit in excess of 10% of turnover. I would also like to see salaries marked down reflecting terrible performance of share price and profit contraction.

Very suspicous of companies that just talk about good order books.....money in the bank is what counts not promises and glossy picture of the grossly overpaid guys throwing my money away.

[blackb1rd] 30/1/2009 21:45

Or lack of confidence in the company they are investing in. How many shares did they sell? I didn't think it was that many, in terms of how many they hold.

[praipus] 28/1/2009 14:50

HARGREAVE HALE LIMITED must be in big trouble.

[praipus] 21/1/2009 11:43

HARGREAVE HALE LIMITED are reducing their holding on behalf of one of their clients or are they selling to the rumoured bidders?

[praipus] 11/12/2008 14:19

On 5 November 2008 the Group announced that it had received more than one approach which
may or may not lead to an offer being made for
the Group. As stated, there can be no certainty that these approaches will lead to an offer
being made and the Board will continue to strive
for maximum shareholder value. Shareholders will be updated on any material developments in
this regard.

[praipus] 12/11/2008 22:09

What so ever is in the shareholders interests...."more than one approach"!

[charliecharlie2] 12/11/2008 19:45

@ 12 months ago, they turned down an offer of £1.40, surely they are not going to turn that down again? Taken a dive again today,after rallying on monday. Major changes on the way me thinks. Former CEO must be kicking himself!!

[praipus] 12/11/2008 19:32

Showing 70% loss since my purchase so I'm hoping the management will tell them to up the offer to £1.50 or sling their hooks....lol

[praipus] 02/10/2008 08:19

Fountains Contract Win

RNS Number : 8925E
fountains PLC
02 October 2008

Press Release 2 October 2008


Fountains plc

("Fountains" or "the Company")

Contract Award

Fountains (AIM:FTN), the environmental support services company, is pleased to announce a
new contract award from North Lanarkshire
Council. The award is for the Streetscape works for Bellshill town centre and it is expected
to be worth around £1.8 million over a twelve
month period.

Fountains will provide North Lanarkshire Council with responsive works including the
upgrading and widening of pavements, layby
construction, street light and street furniture installation, shrub and tree planting and
carriageway re-surfacing in the town centre of
Bellshill. The work will commence shortly.

Richard Haddon, Chief Executive of Fountains, said: "We have worked with North Lanarkshire
Council previously on a number of
environmental enhancement projects and this new contract award not only bears testament to the
high standards of our past work but also
endorses the excellent added-value services that we currently offer. We look forward to
commencing work with North Lanarkshire Council
shortly.

"As part of our wider strategy, the Board expects further significant contracts to be
announced in the coming weeks."

- Ends -

For further information:
Fountains plc
Richard Haddon, Chief Executive Tel: + 44 (0) 1295 750 000
[e-mail] www.fountainsplc.com

Nomad: Collins Stewart
Mark Connelly, Stewart Wallace Tel: + 44 (0) 207 523 8350

Media enquiries:
Abchurch
Charlie Jack / Stephanie Cuthbert Tel: [phone]
[e-mail] www.abchurch-group.com

Notes to editors

Fountains plc is a leading environmental support services provider. The Company delivers a
diverse range of integrated managed services
for its broad network of clients, in the UK and the US, which include local authorities, rail
networks, energy providers, national parks and
corporate and family landowners. In addition to its traditional service, Fountains has
developed sophisticated geospatial technology
software that creates high quality maps to predict future vegetation growth, enabling
Companies to proactively plan.

Headquartered in Banbury, Fountains was established as a forestry management operation in
1957. The Company listed on the AIM market in
1995 and has since developed into an extensive environmental support service company. Today
the Company employs 800 staff. For further
information visit www.fountainsplc.com

This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END

[charliecharlie2] 25/7/2008 21:00

In response to Blackb1rd. To make cutbacks 2 months before ye would be a pretty bold move, almost suicidal. They seem to be targeting large scale contracts, but these come with a very high mobilisation cost. It seems that cashflow is a major problem and not costs, have they been rumbled by a customer on a big contract????? If historically they are consistently having to reduce costs and staff as stated over the last couple of years, and if they are successful in winning new work, then how are they going to cover costs and have staff available to manage the new contract mobilisation? From experience any contract mobilisation costs are extremely high against revenue for the first 6-12 months.If new work is awarded and commences within the next 2 months all the costs will be in this fy and the revenue in the next fy. Again from experience, reduce the turnover, increase the profit. IMHO they are stretching themselves thinly, particularly where cash is concerned and eventually something may well snap. That may well have a further effect on the share price between now and ye. How many times do they have to have a restructure and cost cutting exercise when the same management team are overseeing it? a IMHO hold onto your hats and sit tight, this could be another fnt rollercoaster ride!!

[blackb1rd] 25/7/2008 19:48

Historically for the past 4 years there has been a dip in the share price around this time of year. Resulting in the share price going back up, maybe not to where it was, but it has gone back up. IMHO if the company has reduced costs and staff for the past couple of years and profits have gone up until now.

Have they got the infrastructure in place for any new work?

If they get new contracts and are losing 100K a month (fillipe said that 650k has been lost in the second half of the year.) Are they going to make more cutbacks or go for bigger contracts to compensate for the negative contracts.

IMHO I think the share price might go down by another 10p and then stay steady until the new year, thats if they are not a target for a takeover with a low share price.

[9degrees] 24/7/2008 21:54

But maybe they had taken too much profit on contracts in the first half assuming the contracts would improve in second half - but alas.........
porviding they don't issue another profit warning then things dont sound too gloomy?Hoping for more contract wins . optimists view