Griffin Share Discussion Threads

[sahara] 02/1/2007 13:46

Started to accumulate a holding before xmas.

S.

[markt] 23/11/2006 18:10

In reply to QS9

..they control the company...and can do what they want when they want....

if they have over charged for own services/labour then that cash is in their pockets so they have not lost out....

..and they could decide to concentrate on increasing the share price at the time that suits them best.....

(in my view it does look underpriced, being at 50% of NAV......but the director doubts are not a good factor...)

-----

But then many companies or directors do questionable things...

-Arlington (honesty of MD changing warrants exercising conditions for his millions of warrants, linked/timed to large payments at same time to 2 other directors, esp. 1, 500K pnds....a sweetner ??)
- false accounts from many companies which caused share price falls or collapses. Shell (oil reserves), Regent Inns, SFI Group
- payments to directors and ex-directors. eg. Marks and Spencers

The LSE and AIM are owned by brokers, so inherently will never be that zealous on regulating or punishing themselves. They make money from the flow of stocks and shares; as long as shares keep moving then they make money. If companies die and new ones appear...or any false accounts..it is not a big deal for them as long as there is enough confidence that people are willing to buy and sell shares.
(and the FSA etc probably play squash at the same London clubs as the brokers.....FSA never has had many teeth.....

pensions miselling fraud, Maxwell Pension fund, split funds fraud, Equitable Life collapse etc etc Daily Mail share pump/dump (editor not punished).....they always seem to arrive AFTER the problem happens and people lose their savings,
ie. the FSA does not work)

[markt] 23/11/2006 17:56

JakNife

Do you know the details of Panda Software ?

Was it owned by a Deano company at one time....and sold off at low price...
..and now successful anti-virus software company....?

If so ,...was or is Dean involved in it now ? ... was it all above board ?

I don't know.....just that the name rings a bell in the depths of my mind....

[qs9] 19/11/2006 19:36

Have heard that......... surely with their shares it would be better to take a big pay cut (which is taxed at 40%) and lower the bonuses, get the profits really motoring and therefore the share price, have a share price nearer 20p and a market cap that then reflected the underlying value of the company....they would be able to entertain corporate activity and possibly offload some stock as the supporters came in.....offloading at a 10% taper relief tax rate........

must have cotton wool between the ears....

[qs9] 15/11/2006 20:01

Dog of a stock yet 1p eps and at 50% of NAV.....£8m turnover yet only £300k of OP rest made up of interest.....about time the directors actually took this company seriously and started delivering £1m of OP on that sort of turnover (look at the admin expenses at c.£4m!........p/e of 3......what about any IR on the back of it?????

[diogenesj] 26/8/2006 17:17

Quite so, martest. No sane person in possession of the facts would buy this thing. Nigel Wray, 'the British Warren Buffet', bailed out just in time in May. Even though he bought his shares at half the market price at the time, you have to wonder why he dirtied his hands with them. It's impossible to imagine the real Warren Buffet touching them with a poopscoop.

[martest] 24/8/2006 09:50

PUMP and DUMP rise today i suspect.Dont be be fooled They wont hesitate to sell you near worthless or hard to trade shares.They mainly trade from abroad and have convenient london phone number that relays messages and make sure you DO your OWN research.There are some very shady suspect BOILER ROOM characters about who are expert at parting you from your hard earned cash.Be careful before you trade with overseas financial brokers.

[martest] 24/8/2006 09:48

PUMP and DUMP rise today i suspect.Dont be be fooled They wont hesitate to sell you near worthless shares.They mainly trade from abroad and have convenient london phone number that relays messages and make sure you DO your OWN research.There are some very shady suspect BOILER ROOM characters about who are expert at parting you from your hard earned cash.Be careful

[andysand] 12/6/2006 00:27

Hmm. You're probably right but surely too early to say? Interims out soon I suppose. I don't hold anymore but I am curious....

Andy

[Abuse team] 19/3/2006 20:38

Post removed by ADVFN

[diogenesj] 19/3/2006 20:30

Another crook, this time calling himself LuisCan. They're everywhere.

[Abuse team] 15/3/2006 21:51

Post removed by ADVFN

[longtech] 15/3/2006 21:44

Too right
stay away from this dud.

[diogenesj] 15/3/2006 13:24

Congratulations, Jak. Excellent thread on TMF. It's what investment bulletin boards should be, and so rarely are.

[plainz] 15/3/2006 12:00

Jaknife -i know released a repost, just to keep this in public view.

Author: JakNife
Subject: The Dean factor, why you should avoid GFF





I wrote the post below over on ADVFN last night on a new Griffin Group (GFF) thread, it focuses in particular on the Chairman of Griffin Group, Stephen Dean, and it struck me that perhaps there is a new generation of potential shareholders who would appreciate reading about Mr Dean before they think about purchasing shares in his company......


Griffin Group's chairman is Stephen Dean and controversy follows Mr Dean wherever he treads, Tony Hetherington of the Mail on Sunday refers to him as 'a colourful character', see:



and then goes on to note that:

"In 1992, Chequers Group, a company he founded under its original name of Dean & Bowes, threatened a lawsuit over a £200,000 pay-off he took when he quit as chairman, alleging it did not have shareholder approval.

In 1997, another of his companies, Dean Corporation, admitted 'inadvertent' breaches of company law, including paying £245,000 without shareholder approval to buy a business part-owned by Dean himself.

And in 2000, another Dean company, Artisan UK, admitted an 'inadvertent' breach of the Takeover Code. It bought am shares in technology company Enterprise Asia when it was a possible takeover target in the sights of a separate company, Weatherly."

This brief record alone should alert you to the risks of dealing with any company that is associated with Stephen Dean, but there are other reasons as well.


1. Links to illegal Spanish boiler rooms.
The Mail on Sunday covers this in detail in these two articles:






2. Incompetent Manager
Stephen Dean has been the director of many UK quoted companies but Griffin Group is currently his main "UK operations". Griffin Group used to be known as "Cater Barnard (USA) plc", see:



and used to be a subsidiary of Cater Barnard plc. In turn Cater Barnard plc was the vehicle that Stephen Dean used to use for his main UK operations. Its publicly available accounts show that at 30 September 2000 its net asset value per share was 12.27p. Over the following two years these accounts show a disastrous decline in shareholder value to a mere 0.051p per share at 30 September 2003. This represents a massive 99.6% destruction in shareholder value. It strikes me as more than reasonable to describe any director who has presided over an era of such monumental destruction in shareholder value as "incompetent", I would offer the above as evidence of my why I personally have formed the opinion that Stephen Dean is an incompetent manager.


3. Fat Cattery
But the issue that I personally find more disturbing is Mr Dean's preference to make money for himself, even when shareholders are suffering so much pain.

The total net assets of Cater Barnard plc at 30 September 2000 were approx £14.5m. However the accounts filed up to 30 September 2003 show that payments of the order of £2.35m were made by Cater Barnard plc to Mr Dean and to his personal offshore companies. Hence whilst shareholders suffered a disastrous decline in their investment Stephen Dean feasted heartedly on the carcass of Cater Barnard.

What stops him doing the same at Griffin Group?


4. Griffin Group Overvalued
Regarding Griffin Group itself, this is nothing other than a glorified investment company, its latest accounts can be read here:



As an investment company I would suggest that the main point of reference for calculating a measure of value is its net asset value per share. As at 30 September 2005 the above accounts show that GFF's net asset value per share is 4.71p, well below its current share price of approx 6.75p. In any case, see 2 above for an explanation of what can so easily happen to net asset value per share.

Conclusion
It is rare that such clear red warning lights are flashed in front of investors' eyes, buying shares in Griffin Group would be complete madness.


Note
You might reasonably infer from the above that I have a very low personal opinion of Stephen Dean and his businesses. I hope that I have made it clear exactly where my post is fact and where it is opinion. If anyone believes that I have made an error of fact or that I have expressed an opinion and not made it clear enough that my comments are merely my opinion then please feel free to either post here or email me at:

cweston51 at Yahoo.co.uk

and I will endeavour to make whatever corrections are necessary.

regards

JakNife

[lqs] 15/3/2006 11:51

Makes you laugh though. Wray describes Dean as a colourful character when we all know hes just a crook that wears a suit. The FSA should be having a close look at Nigel Wray.

[diogenesj] 15/3/2006 10:10

Tipped by UK-Analyst.com, who very honestly admit that they were paid to do the 'research'.

Take it as a warning, and do your own research on Stephen Dean before reaching for the bargepole.