Hargreaves Services Share Discussion Threads

[cc2014] 13/12/2017 17:44

We have another shareholder over 3%.

The shares are becoming incredibly tightly held by just a few parties.

As far as I can work out the top 12 parties hold 86.5% of the shares

[cc2014] 06/12/2017 10:09

Chief Exec buys 50k at 325.0 shows a bit of confidence.

Some more decent sized trades going through today so hopefully we will have cleared this seller.

[beeks of arabia] 24/10/2017 16:12

Good ol’ Julie! She is a top lass and thoroughly deserves that award.

[cc2014] 19/10/2017 11:17

Incoming FD's spouse buys £100k worth. Hmm

[meijiman] 19/10/2017 08:54

Sounds like a very sensible investment project. Perhaps the Germans are showing us the way-as usual.

[cc2014] 19/10/2017 07:52

Significant volume yesterday, over 1 million shares and then today we have an RNS.

[meijiman] 15/8/2017 08:04

Great post muckshifter. You write with great authority.

[muckshifter] 15/8/2017 06:10

Reading the latest results yesterday, and then going back over all results since the purchase of Blackwell, it is apparent that this has been a disastrous purchase so far, which is about what I expected. The purchase of assets from the receiver of C J Pryor seems to have been limited to the contractor’s depot in Harlow and hasn’t so far been a success AFAICS, but that might come good in the long term.

Hargreaves management seem to have been surprised and badly stung by the Blackwell bad news, and appear ambivalent about future action. In some parts of the AR they emphasis the future of the earthworks division as being mining quarrying etc, ie. Hargreaves type of work, and in other parts major civils subcontract pure muckshifting work such as A14, HS2, etc. Blackwell, imho, were never really a “mining and quarrying” muckshifter and appeared to rely on a back-scratching system with their opposition to provide them with relatively low profit quarry work used to keep the plant and operatives working, so I don’t really see them providing much advantage to the group in that respect.

The expertise Blackwell had over many years was two fold, imho. They were competent major muckshift subcontractors (and main contractors on muck schemes), but their real unique expertise, was their ability to squeeze the maximum payment out of clients, ie. claims. Ten years or so ago I often found clear evidence in contract tender documents of clients, and main contractors, who had had expensive bad experiences with Blackwell, so this latter expertise was in a way self destructive.
But the big contractors such as Balfour Beatty had, and extensively used, similar expertise in the past, and still do in huge civils contracts on the occasions where the contract terms allow them to.

Basic forms of contract have also changed significantly and been more heavily adopted since those days, but the outcome of these “less combative” forms of contract seems to me much the same as the old ones with, for example, final account settlements commonly at 50 – 100% more than tender values on Crossrail.

So, to me, the future success or failure of the Blackwell element of Hargreaves is perhaps largely dependent on three factors, the types of main contract utilised on A14, HS2 etc, the subcontract terms agreed with main contractors, and still having the expertise after the recent Hargreaves imposed bloodletting to take full commercial advantage of the opportunities. PS and winning the work!

In terms of the group results, the profit before tax, and realisation of working capital, seemed to provide about £30m cash, but the net debt only decreased by £16m, and there will no doubt be a big change in cashflow direction as coaling operation go from positive while selling coal to negative during major coal site reinstatement. I stick with my opinion that realisation of working capital will not yield the bonanza expected by many shareholders.
Regards.

[rhomboid] 08/8/2017 14:50

IIRC Muckshifter flagged up at the time of deal here and or on stockopedia that Blackwell was a poor quality business with the potential to spring some nasty surprises. If he could see this as someone operating in the sector why can't we expect mgt to have done rather better?

That's a big question mark to me on mgt quality to offset the material undervaluation of the assets by the market.

[castleford tiger] 08/8/2017 09:50

The three problematic contracts, which we first reported on in December 2016, have resulted in an exceptional charge in the year of GBP3.4m after utilising fair value provisions of GBP2.7m arising on the remeasurement of goodwill. This represents a material loss of value. Although positive progress has been made with these and other legacy contracts, a number of challenging contractual positions remain. The Blackwell business has already made senior management changes to improve the quality of the management team. The Group continues to consider all potential contractual and other remedies to mitigate the losses we have incurred since the acquisition.

lETS HOPE their DD allows some of this to be claimed back

tiger

[cc2014] 08/8/2017 08:37

Blackwells does look bad as was predicted on this very board.

Nothing wrong with your maths Value Hound. Value might be 450p or might be 550p but it ain't 375p. buy hey - what do we know. Yesterday I sold a few I bought at 165p and the maths was pretty much on the same principle then

[value hound] 08/8/2017 08:34

I still get this to be undervalued by a long way. Running my back of an envelope numbers this morning and I come out north of £140m / 514p per share! What am I missing here?

[robizm] 08/8/2017 07:49

Blackwells looks a bad buy

[cc2014] 08/8/2017 07:36

Taken as a whole it's a really good set of accounts.

Still lots to do...

[cc2014] 07/8/2017 16:41

I can't blame anyone for getting bored with this stock.


Sold a few today at 351.8 for no other reason that I promised myself I'd take some off the table if I could get 343 and it could do anything tomorrow with the interims.

I expect the interims to be good as the stock has been gradually moving up beforehand but who knows.

[bamboo2] 03/8/2017 12:17

A few weeks ago I got bored waiting for a lasting upbreak so sold at b/e.

[cc2014] 03/8/2017 10:31

Mellon 02/08/17 9.31% 2,970,885
Mellon 19/05/15 10.36% 3,325,441

Buyers being forced to pay the full offer even on an 11p spread.

Suggests to me MM's don't want any more buyers as they are collecting them for their friends.

[cc2014] 05/7/2017 14:43

Trading update today to which the market has responded with no trades all day

[bamboo2] 22/5/2017 11:47

Breaking out of the consolidation zone.

[cc2014] 19/5/2017 13:30

We have a new shareholder over 3%. Richard Griffiths / Blake Holdings.

Must have gone over 3% yesterday

[meijiman] 19/5/2017 11:47

I think most left here are looking at an exit once greater value has been generated from the property side. Harworth looks to be a good template of how to do it.

[cc2014] 19/5/2017 11:30

Price starting to move a bit today and buyers taking off all the volume at 336.5/337 over the last 2 days. It will be interesting to see if the buyers keep walking the bid up today and if they meet any sellers along the way

[gingerplant] 18/5/2017 12:44

Thanks CC2104; 15.67pps then.

[cc2014] 18/5/2017 12:33

Malty underground mining equipment worth £5m in books

[meijiman] 18/5/2017 10:57

Sounds like it's more than three shovels and a pickaxe then.Rather begs the question of what they were doing at Maltby in the first place -it probably looked like a good idea at the time.