Gresham Technologies Share Discussion Threads

[wh1spa] 15/6/2015 15:26

Non exec for Gresham and a role at Kestrel apparently.

[jadeticl3] 15/6/2015 15:22

Is that for Kestral AND for Gresham, or has he left Gresham now?

[wh1spa] 15/6/2015 11:04

I take comfort in the fact that Chris Errington is now working for Kestrel.

[richjp] 05/6/2015 18:55

Thank you for that. I have usually done quite nicely dabbling anywhere Kestrel goes.

[wh1spa] 04/6/2015 07:45

Not GHT news , but Kestrel have now taken an 11% stake in UBI. For all those that are following their holdings.

[schytalk] 03/6/2015 18:05

richjp

I think concrete financials for the first half are a given, however, that just underlines Gresham as a profitable niche player. The game changer is high volume, here's to the new CEO making lots of money on his options.

[schytalk] 03/6/2015 18:00

Another positive day for the share price but on low volume, 110p here we come as a new threshold level.

[richjp] 03/6/2015 15:57

schytalk, re your post of yesterday the share price may indeed have been contrived but I also think the market was waiting until the new CEO actually arrived before any further share price activity was likely. He was appointed some time ago and I suppose there was always a concern that he might change his mind. I think there is a feel good factor about his actual arrival.

I also have no problem with him being highly incentivised. If he makes a lot of money, so will some of us.

As I have said before, I think it is concrete financials for the first half that we really need to get things moving again.

[richjp] 03/6/2015 15:49

jadeticl, I am an afraid that much awaited trading updates are often disappointingly brief so I was not expecting more.

The half year results were announced on 8th August last year, however I see no reason why they could not issue a trading update in early July soon after the half year closes.

I think it depends on how good the half year is and also on how satisfied the board is with the share price The £3M fund raising in December 2013 was at 125P with various institutional investors. Those investors will not have been happy with the profit warning, although in my view GHT did exactly the right thing by issuing it in a timely fashion. It probably suits Kestrel to keep on hoovering up shares at recent levels, but on the other hand I would imagine GHT would want to be reassuring the other institutional investors that things are back on track.

[thebullyboy] 03/6/2015 13:24

Thank you. I hope they were very busy trying to win new business and usual interim statement proved a distraction.

[jadeticl3] 03/6/2015 13:18

To TheBullyBoy, or anyone expecting a further statement regarding the company position to end March, I contacted the company to ask, and the clear reply was "the May 7th statement re AGM is all that you are getting". I expressed disappointment as the May 7th brief was er...brief!

[thebullyboy] 02/6/2015 16:36

Closed 6 months high.

[schytalk] 02/6/2015 13:04

Well it seems that the psychological £1 barrier has been overcome.

It does seem that the deal to bring the new CEO in (and exit the old one) was somehow calculated (contrived?) at the £1 level. The new CEO's options were based on £1 (plus 10% uplift) and the old CEO has sold shares (at £1) to Kestrel with whom Max Royd (senior non exec) is related.

This all looks very cosy and might explain why the share price had stalled, any thoughts anyone?

[thebullyboy] 02/6/2015 10:04

With 90% of expected review visible in the beginning of second quarter, any new contracts, a few more perhaps, will I hope give positive impact to the year end numbers.

I would be very disappointed if there wasn't a momentum with the new man coming in and we didn't sign more than a few contracts in the remainder of the year.

[jadeticl3] 02/6/2015 09:46

Share price creeping up "just" because HE has arrived? Perhaps not! It must be because, as we have all agreed, this company has a product which, if handled well has great prospects, but has not yet arrived. His arrival is expected to improve the probability that the product is marketed in the best way. He has the incentive to do so with all those options at a low starting price. Let's all expect him to deliver.

[schytalk] 01/6/2015 13:23

Well another Gresham RNS, this time the granting of 1,500,000 options at the price of 110p. I reckon we can expect to see the share price rise to this new level pretty quickly since I think it benchmarks the share price at 110p. Perhaps this was another reason the share price seemed to get stuck at 100p. I look forwards to Ian Manocha making very considerable money from these options.

[thebullyboy] 01/6/2015 12:04

Yes I saw that but I also was expecting something more substantial.

[schytalk] 01/6/2015 11:16

I think with the new CEO now on board we will really see this share start moving to where it should be. There is a very thin market on the share due to the very dominant institutional holdings. I have said before that I think the brokers became very cool on the share following the profits warning fiasco. Given a steady stream of positive news then I think the brokers will start to move the share price northwards.

[jadeticl3] 01/6/2015 10:42

Maybe the statement issued on 7th May is all we are getting. It said it was the Q 1 update. It was very brief, so I was hoping for more.

[thebullyboy] 01/6/2015 09:05

I am sure we are due an interim statement to 31 Mar. Last year it was issued in mid May.

[jadeticl3] 29/5/2015 16:16

Today's share purchases ( looks like about 63,000 buys by 4 investors, all of whom were willing to pay over 100p) with no selling, show once again that this is not moving the share price at all. Movement appears to occur only when new business is won.

[schytalk] 29/5/2015 15:50

richjp

Happy to share any information I have.

My personal view of the historic Gresham shareholders is a positive one, they have lived through more up/downs than anyone, stuck by the company and I for one would be happy for them to be well rewarded.

[richjp] 29/5/2015 15:26

Thank you for your correction. I do remember the name of Sid Green now and possibly the reason for so many shares being in his ex wife's name might be due to some sort of settlement.

I was primarily concerned that some people from that era still held a much more significant percentage that might enable them to cause problems in the future, which is clearly now not the case.

[schytalk] 29/5/2015 08:26

richjp

I am afraid that I must correct you, your post as regards M A Green is wrong. M stands for Maria and she has never been the Gresham CEO. The former CEO is Sid Green, Maria being his ex wife. As for Andrew Walton Green, the CEO who nearly put Gresham out of business, his is a son in law and no blood relation. You might be correct that these two PI's are perhaps wild card investors, something I suspect that Gresham would like sorted since significant private investors can be unpredictable, far better to have institutions. Surely, however, the big player here is Max Royd who with Kestrel controls an influential 10%.

You are correct that at one point Gresham was a sort of family affair being founded in the early seventies. I believe that Sid Green exited due to ill health and now lives abroad, Steve Purchase exited because of his fundamental opposition to direction the company was taking, after I think some 30 years of service.

The CFO during the disastrous years of Walton-Green was non other than the current CEO, one Chris Errington. I for one am very glad that all the 'old guard' are now gone.

Whilst it is no means a given I think Gresham has a great future, certainly a significant niche player and perhaps even more.