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HEAD Headlam Group Plc

137.00
1.50 (1.11%)
03 Oct 2024 - Closed
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Type Share ISIN Share Description
Headlam Group Plc LSE:HEAD London Ordinary Share GB0004170089 ORD 5P
  Price Change % Change Share Price Shares Traded Last Trade
  1.50 1.11% 137.00 108,593 15:53:43
Bid Price Offer Price High Price Low Price Open Price
137.00 138.00 138.00 133.50 134.00
Industry Sector Turnover Profit EPS - Basic PE Ratio Market Cap
Floor Covering Stores 656.5M 7.7M 0.0953 14.38 109.46M
Last Trade Time Trade Type Trade Size Trade Price Currency
16:35:03 UT 5,810 137.00 GBX

Headlam (HEAD) Latest News

Headlam (HEAD) Discussions and Chat

Headlam Forums and Chat

Date Time Title Posts
17/9/202419:52Headlam685
05/11/200720:40Important FOOTBALL question3
05/9/200618:18Meteoric rise on the cards?108
01/11/200511:54klhlk-
20/12/200216:18Headlam - Sinks on heavy discounted Institutional sale1

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Headlam (HEAD) Most Recent Trades

Trade Time Trade Price Trade Size Trade Value Trade Type
2024-10-03 15:35:03137.005,8107,959.70UT
2024-10-03 15:14:51137.006589.05AT
2024-10-03 15:13:37138.003,4074,701.66O
2024-10-03 15:13:37138.001,7042,351.52O
2024-10-03 14:53:43137.00208284.96AT

Headlam (HEAD) Top Chat Posts

Top Posts
Posted at 03/10/2024 09:20 by Headlam Daily Update
Headlam Group Plc is listed in the Floor Covering Stores sector of the London Stock Exchange with ticker HEAD. The last closing price for Headlam was 135.50p.
Headlam currently has 80,784,267 shares in issue. The market capitalisation of Headlam is £110,674,446.
Headlam has a price to earnings ratio (PE ratio) of 14.38.
This morning HEAD shares opened at 134p
Posted at 17/9/2024 11:39 by eigthwonder
If it is the warehouse i think it is, the Ipswich facility was only opened about 5 years ago after £ millions spent on it. I am sure there will be a buyer of such a new warehouse, but if HEAD have to take a discount to dispose it could mean a chunky hit to that NAV they keep going on about.
Posted at 12/7/2024 18:11 by eigthwonder
Think they don't as Carpetright were competitors to the traditional HEAD customers. Worth reflecting Carpetright gone bust due to tough trading conditions
Posted at 05/7/2024 11:16 by catabrit
I decided to look into this a bit more and have actually concluded that management are a lot better than I was lead to believe. They have an excellent awareness of the business and the various trends affecting it and the industry more broadly. They are also very candid, particularly as it relates to challenges and solutions.

A lot has been said about their pivot to online, multiple retailers, tradesmen etc. Management's view was that the independent channel was potentially in slow, secular decline and so they decided to move into other areas of the industry that they felt were in secular growth. Obviously you assess the facts and probabilities and make your bet and get on with it. They wouldn't be the first to get the future wrong - look no further than Intel who missed the iPhone, GPUs and EUV lithography!

Clearly Likewise and others have eaten into Head's independent retailer / distribution market share and I don't see that abating anytime soon albeit the former have hinted that their rate of expansion / investment might slow. Nor do I anticipate a recovery in their end markets, at least in the short-term albeit we may get a bit of optimism and relief post the election.

I think it's worth stressing just how badly the roll-up was executed. The legacy of it is a tonne of unnecessary fixed cost and disparate systems (IT), teams and processes. Hundreds of little fiefdoms, basically. I know that a lot of management textbooks tell you that local autonomy is the way to go but it doesn't always work. Particularly in industries undergoing structural change. Sometimes you need the various businesses to talk to one another: to implement the same systems and processes and best practices. When volumes are steady or rising, that can all be absorbed quite easily. But when volumes decline and competitors start to eat into market share, the whole thing unravels. So I think prior management need to be held accountable here and I understand that might be offensive to some of you who are pro Tony (I think that's his name) who previously ran it and now runs Likewise.

There were lots of hints that a big strategic review / rationalisation strategy is coming which could result in a lot of their surplus real estate being sold off. I asked about a sale and leaseback but they said this was not on the cards as they wanted to remove fixed costs from the business, not add them.

The value is quite compelling as it trades at less than its real estate plus inventory so the going concern isn't being priced in. However, I think a dividend cut is practically inevitable and it will be interesting to see if this is announced in September and if so, how the market reacts. Perhaps that is already baked into the share price.

I think the downside is somewhat protected by tangible book value as well as the take private potential. PE love an asset-backed recovery play that requires a restructuring. But I likewise worry that this could get hit if the dividend is axed.

Thoughts welcome.
Posted at 05/6/2024 14:14 by bda3490
There is an article in the furniture trade stating that is disappointing that Headlam don’t mention that the major cause of downturn is quite simply the loss of market share to others ( inc Likewsise) as a result of ?

Trade counters ? Pricing ? Who knows

But it does seem to be the elephant in the room that is ignored
Posted at 14/5/2024 11:04 by aim0raider
Anyone with a small amount of financial nouse would have said, 'this market is poor, our share price is likely to drop, let's wait a little longer on the BB and hoover up more shares at a lower price'

They have advisors and a CFO, both appear to have missed this.
Posted at 14/5/2024 10:39 by jeffian
#641,

Well they weren't alone. That's the trouble with share buybacks (I hate 'em). The theory (reduced shares in issue = greater profit/NAV per share) may be ok but in practice the market will put whatever value they like on the shares. Managers need to understand they can only manage the things under their direct control - revenues, overheads, margins, dividends etc - but they can't manage the share price.
Posted at 08/3/2024 10:17 by donald mcdonald
It’s incredible that eighthwonder condiders Headlam “was left in a mess by Brewer”.

Tony Brewer was fired by Headlam on or around 14th September 2016. The share price was £4.47. The profit reported in 2016 was £40.1 million and the dividend was 22.55 pence per share.

The mess began the day Tony Brewer was fired because there was no one left on the Board who had any knowledge or experience of the complexities of distributing floorcoverings. What is more, in the intervening period, no one with any knowledge or experience of floorcoverings has been added to the Headlam Board.

In the past, 100’s of independent retailers and flooring contractors purchased shares in Headlam. They considered the annual dividend as a form of loyalty rebate. Smaller shareholders did not really follow the share price as the generous dividend was of paramount importance. Several independent retailers and contractors used to attend the Headlam AGM just to get a chance to meet up and shake hands with Graham Waldron and Tony Brewer. Investing in Headlam for them was also invseting in their own future. Before Graham Waldron and Tony Brewer revolutionised the wholesale floorcovering market, an independent retailer might have to wait 7 to 10 days for a cut length of carpet to be delivered to them. Graham & Tony introduced “everywhere, everday” deliveries. The independent retailers loved this because in effect Headlam’s £100 million of inventory was available to them on a next day basis. Carpetright could no longer compete on service with the indepependent retailers.

Headlam have gone all in with their decision to abdicate their core business of independent retailers and flooring contractors in favcour of large customers (Tapi, SCS, et al) and so far 2,000 carpet fitters & floor layers. It is a policy that they will be unable to reverse if they find out in the future that this business plan is flawed. Headlam may be right, but it going to take 2 to 3 years to find out because their business plan for Trade Counters is basically ‘build it and they will come’.

With Headlam currently hemorrhaging so much market share in their core business to Likewise and the many independents, each trade counter needs to get to a break even turnover of £1.2 million in double quick time. Then there is the difficulty of getting to an earning enhancing turnover of £2 million. And that has to happen at every site. If one trade counter gets stuck at £600,000K, another needs to contribute over £3 million to make uo the shortfall.

It is hard to get people from within the industry to go on the record, but privately very few believe that Headlam will achieve its objectives. Trade magazines are reticent to publish Headlam’s bad news stories for fear of losing advertising revenue. Not that Headlam does much marketing nowadays. Manufacturer’s and Suppliers are keeping their heads down in public and waiting to see what develops.

And then what happens if one of their so-called larger customers fails or decides to procure from a different source. It has happended before and lead to Headlam issuing a profit warning to shareholders.

The next 2 years should determine the outcome.
Posted at 27/2/2024 09:14 by tomps2
Headlam Group (HEAD) FY23 results webinar

Tuesday, 5 March, 11:00am

Headlam Group Chief Executive, Chris Payne and Chief Financial Officer, Adam Phillips will host an online investor presentation and Q&A covering their full year results for the period ended 31 December 2023.

To attend, register here: bit.ly/HEAD_FY23_results_webinar
Posted at 02/11/2023 10:25 by pireric
I think I can be more simple here... we are in a downturn in demand, profits are compressed. The valuation is significantly below book value.

I'm not asking them to go and unlock the property portfolio. The point is that you don't see this sort of valuation generally sustain for a long period of time in equity markets. Headlam itself hasn't seen this sort of valuation discount to NTAV persist for a long time. Similarly, the multiple now versus cyclical high or just cyclical 'normal' profitability is very low. Anecdotally, REITs vs. NAV seem to have a very different dynamic to operating companies vs. NAV, though don't ask me why!

We can get in tangles about justifying short term share price movements. I'm more interested in where the stock will be in 2 years time on a cycle recovery/upswing. I could well be wrong, but when the demand environment is going in the right direction, it's going to be incredibly easy for new investors to come in and argue that the stock is materially undervalued. And probably when earnings can justify alone materially higher share prices.


Eric
Posted at 18/10/2023 20:00 by pireric
Hi Cisk,

Beyond simply doing map analysis (which I did part of), it's hard to know on a case by case basis. But ultimately, I don't think anyone is really suggesting that they go around and sell off the freehold assets in bulk and wind down the business. Moreso that historically, it's pretty rare to find non-financials companies that have been consistently profitable trading below tangible book. Let alone a huge discount.

A lot of construction markets are indirect (have distributors) and remain that way without much shift. Whether that's bricks or other material components. The manufacturers don't want to maintain the long tail of supply chain connections, or become their own distribution or logistics plays. Sure, if Headlam gets disintermediated it's a risk, but I don't attribute much chance of that happening... certainly not above what HEAD are trying to do around their own trade counter/large customer initiatives.

I agree lack of positive near term catalysts. Has the cycle bottomed? Maybe not...

BUT in these deep cycles, share prices tend to bottom before earnings bottom. In the GFC, the share price rallied 40% off the lows, while EPS forecasts went off for another 15% cuts until they reached their lows. And even during the GFC, Headlam's trough P/B multiple was significantly above where it is today.

As soon as investors stop thinking about absolute valuation and more thinking it's too early to buy, rough rule of thumb for me is that is quite often a decent place to step in.

Eric
Headlam share price data is direct from the London Stock Exchange

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