Seneca Growth Capital Vct Share Discussion Threads

[barryrog] 09/9/2004 23:22

yep, your right mate,i missed the 650,000.
by my reckoning then less than half have come through.

[ukhawk] 09/9/2004 20:51

Barry ???? They've already sold 1.75m under rule 8 decs.

[barryrog] 09/9/2004 20:38

hawk,
RAB actually sold 1m shares but they are only showing up in dribs and drabs each day to balance the buys.
i would estimate there is still about 400k to come thru.

[ukhawk] 09/9/2004 19:47

Edmond, think that's been on the web-site for a while now. Prospective p/e ratios of 3.97 followed by 2.67. The house-broker is nearly always a tad conservative just so the company can look good by beating expectation.

Must say that the Honeygrove web-site is excellent, and probably the best example I've seen from a so-called small company.

[edmondj] 09/9/2004 19:35

Insinger de Beaufort, HYG's broker, downgraded after interims - looking for pre-tax profit of £4.2m this financial year and £7.6m next, for EPS of 2.9p and 4.3p respectively.

In all honesty I only read this the other day, from a pack I was given on the Swaylands visit. The "at least £4m" in the ST was my guesstimate. I prefer to think for myself than assume what I am fed, but concur with Insinger. It's best to be a bit conservative. HYG could still beat this via land sales.

A 0.6p dividend is targeted for this year and 0.9p next, which is notionally a support for the shares should bid interest tail off.

[ukhawk] 09/9/2004 19:25

If they're bothering to sell 35k @ less than 11p then our "theory" must be right, and the takeover must be close to a certainty lol ! If RAB weren't sure then they would have let the price rise on the back of the shares mag tip, takeover speculations, and Ed's article, etc, and started dumping at 15p !

[barryrog] 09/9/2004 17:12

evening hawk,
i think they dribbled another 35,000 thru today.
i'm not complaining though,i must confess to a little top up yesterday at 11.27
im betting on a takeover.

[ukhawk] 09/9/2004 16:54

More buyers than sellers again to today in low volume, but if sellers outweighed buyers would RAB buy ???

( I still find it hard to believe that they're allowed to influence the market in this way ).

[ukhawk] 09/9/2004 09:43

Morning Barry,

Certainly agree with you on the fundamentals, that's why I made my initial purchase before the takeover news. Although it looked a target below 10p I was expecting to just see a slow drift upward over a long period. Following the Shares mag tip, there's still very little bid speculation premium in the price, thanks to RAB. If these talks fall through, there'll be a huge buying opportunity on the inevitable mark-down. But I'm still putting my money on a successful outcome.

[barryrog] 09/9/2004 07:58

morning hawk,
i would agree if you were actively putting the co. up for sale.
in the case of HYG,this situation has come about simply because the cos.share price,for whatever reasons,has not been reflecting its 'real' value.


lets remind ourselves of the current forecasts (as shown on ft.com)

sales profit eps div
y/e sept 2004 £33.0m £5.4m 3.1 0.6p

the forecasted profit for y/e sept 2005 is 8.8m (62% growth) and revenues for swaysland start to kick in 2005/6.you could throw in a number of other factors such as the real worth of its land bank etc. but lets just stick to the numbers.
the constuction industry as a whole is averaging p/e's of 6. and HYG's is 3.
on this very simplistic calculation,the current share price should be 20p+.

at current share price levels and with building land at a premium in the South East,the co. was screaming to be taken over.
maybe the current low share price is the director's fault or maybe it's not but the fact is that when bid discussions were announced it was sitting at 10p.

[ukhawk] 08/9/2004 23:09

Once HYG have announced they're "in play" they should be soliciting for other bids. The name of the game is to get the best price for shareholders. They may be reluctant sellers due to personal reasons but that has to be put to one side as they're directors of a PLC.
As I've said before, HYG are a nice fit for quite a few companies, so I'm happy they take their time if it means a better price.

[greengiant] 08/9/2004 22:11

barry - agree, believe it will be to show a reasonable return for both parties

[barryrog] 08/9/2004 21:37

edmond,
i would suspect your first reasoning.
i don't think that HYG mgt are attempting to solicit other bids.
in fact i would hazard a guess that they would be reluctant sellers.

[edmondj] 08/9/2004 19:21

To what end? That an offer in the mid teens appears 'respectable'? To generate bidding interest by keeping the 'going rate' at about 11p for the market price and the mid teens for a successful offer?

[greengiant] 08/9/2004 18:46

barry - :-)
still here and still waiting patiently. Looks like it is to manage the sp, nothing more, nothing less.

gg

[barryrog] 08/9/2004 18:43

d8raider,
have you read the posts over the last week?

[d8raider] 08/9/2004 17:58

As a newbie to this - could it be that they are dripping shares out to keep the price at a low level and only do it with a very small proportion of their holding such that when the price rises on the results then they will make sifnificantly more on the balance that they hold?

[edmondj] 08/9/2004 10:57

House & Property Venture Capital Ltd is a Jersey trust benefiting the Johnson (grown-up) children; so if RAB continues to sell they will be less critical to the situation. Johnson family still have a strong element so it may ultimately depend what they want to do (if anything) and at what price.

[dunnie] 08/9/2004 10:45

RAB are adopting a very disiplined approach to the takeover speculation by drip feeding a bit of stock out, at the moment it is just speculation no more. We have seen RAB adopt the same approach when CMR announced that they had been approached, the most difficult disipline in share trading is selling, we tend to dream about the "big one" and hold on to long only to see a potential profit evaporate. If most of us are honest we would have come across many situations when we should have sold on the rise and had the disipline to sit on the outside and allow the share price to come back and had another bite of the cherry. Having said that what is surprising is that RAB are selling at only 11p, i therefore beieve they view the deal as a bit further down the line and RAB may be using the money to furbish any redemptions that the funds are having or using the money to buy the warrants, i favour the latter.
Regards

[ukhawk] 08/9/2004 10:32

Actually just under 50% now following RAB and Streeten sales this year.

[ukhawk] 08/9/2004 10:25

After a quick tot-up , RAB now holding 22%, directors 28%, Johnson family 9%, House & Property 7%, and Pershing Keen 4%.

Interesting figure for RAB + directors !

[edmondj] 08/9/2004 09:49

I agree, this RAB dealing looks so fine-tuned! Whyever should a leading hedge fund group bother with a £11,000 sale?

[ukhawk] 08/9/2004 09:40

Barryrog, another 100k RAB sale announced, as you say, just enough to keep the balance.

CRY sound like a possibility, but in the current climate I'd say there are so many who'd be happy to pick HYG up for under 20p that it's difficult to narrow it down.

[edmondj] 08/9/2004 07:58

The snag for me is that I am posting under my own name; I certainly would not be able to get the thrust of where this thread is heading, past a media editor/lawyer!

I've been saying all along this would take time to resolve, if anything happens.