Internet Business Share Discussion Threads

[aleman] 22/2/2007 15:34

I think some may be confusing seasonality of turnover at AF with seasonality of profit. The turnover trend looks marginally stronger in H1 but profits is clearly H2. Given that turnover is quite strong through the early summer, perhaps there is plenty of travel related sales on which the margins are higher. Perhaps they are expecting it to be more pronounced this year also, with more travel merchants signing up, and they are warning us to watch for it at the interims. I think it is unfair to complain about the lack of information with the results. There has been a lot more this year in the report but there will always be questions. I'm sure a few of us making it to the AGM will be able to get a few points clarified.

[old boy returns] 22/2/2007 14:58

I agree that IBG do need to improve their presentation and communication with investment community. It is a known fact that write-ups will be done quickly so you need to make sure you present them with the appropriate information. From reading the results I can see how Shares have come up with their article. When I read them the 2 big questions I had were:

1. Why is H2 seasonally stronger than H1 for IBG? I had thought that Xmas plus the start of the holiday booking season in H1 would make that the stronger half. You cannot tell from the results which half is stronger due to the rate of growth.

2. How much 'exceptional' investment/development expenditure is planned to be expensed this year? I applaud the prudent treatment of expensing all this development work but the problem is we never get to hear how much it is and so it is hard to see the underlying picture. Even that shocking company DGM manage to tell us how much they are expensing on developing upgrades etc.

3. What were the results from the US side of the business?

I sometimes get the impression that Maz is not too bothered about the share price at this stage.

PS - Stemis - have you thought of offering your services as a Non-exec to IBG? I think you would bring something to the party especially on the financial side.

[hirschnathan] 22/2/2007 14:41

Lb

I do agree that this share will rise, the questionis when

On the point of blaming Maz, I will fault maz and so do most other posters on this forum. The results did not explain the ibg model, Maz has a vague way of putting things, its ok for a small cap, but if he wants to start thinking big, he will have to break down results properly, each division, explain growth forward. To the eye of the pi it says nothing, except there was growth of x%, the statement didnt explain if there still growth, where and how.

Maz didnt even bring a basic, online spend growth statistic, and how ibg is outperforming

[lord buffett] 22/2/2007 12:11

Aleman - She's totally disinterested in everything to do with shares unfortunately, except the money of course. (Bought 50k @ 29.66p)

Costapacket - No it won't, Maz won't sell it cheap - he knows it's worth considerably more and he'd have to agree to any sale.

68steve - It's hardly IBG's fault if investors and journos can't read. As for PR there has been and continues to be institutional interest, but the market cap is still too low for many. Personally I believe only a slight rerating from current levels will see quite a lot a new interest, but that could be next week, next month or next year.

I'm used to waiting for revaluations, but it's usually more than worth the wait. A couple of stocks I've held for a year or two have suddenly started to breakout this week, having gone nowhere for ages. All you've got to do is hold strong stocks and time will do the rest. (IBG is clearly in that category IMO.)

[aleman] 22/2/2007 12:06

Are they for the wife again, LB? I think it's time she started posting.

[lord buffett] 22/2/2007 12:05

Well thanks for the cheap stock everyone!

[68steve] 22/2/2007 12:04

See the IBG PR Team working well again :(

[12345th] 22/2/2007 11:57

What was that article someone posted about online marketing agencies being bought, eg AKQA ...? So even more reason for the share price to be going up rather than down!

[costapacket] 22/2/2007 11:54

At this rate we'll be bought out on the cheap!

[slapdash] 22/2/2007 11:51

AT THE END OF OCTOBER THIS YEAR (EIGHT MONTHS TIME) THIS WILL BE ON A FORWARD RATING OF 10X AND ABOUT 7.25X ON OPERATING CASHFLOW..... STRIP OUT CASH AND THOSE RATIOS ARE EVEN LOWER

RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP..... AND LUDICROUSLY CHEAP IF THE GROWTH RATE IS CONSIDERED

SLAPPER

[slapdash] 22/2/2007 11:07

so in 2 months this will be on a forward calender P/E of 12X and taking out cash below that based on teh current share price....

Seems a tad cheap.... for a quality growth company...

U.S. equivilant Valueclick is reaching record highs...

Slapper

[yump] 22/2/2007 10:52

Perhaps nowadays the idea of holding a real growth stock is a bit old fashioned.

Perhaps if you can just imagine that a stock could revolutionise something and be used everywhere, then that is the right investment approach in a bull market, regardless of losses, funding etc. ie. any company that promises to sell new fangled replacement widgets for everyone that will be greenish, any company that promises to enable everyone to do something to do with the internet or music, any company that has a promise of installing its whatever in every house, any company that has a project of unknown but unlimited scale etc. etc.

Bah humbug !

[kenatbabken] 22/2/2007 10:36

Broke through support!! Disappointing but not unexpected given the selling of
late

[aleman] 22/2/2007 10:23

I think there have been two changes of editor since Shares was "reputable", although it is probably not their fault. I get the impression that they have cut costs over time to bring them into line with sales after a better funded launch. They used to do a good job with smallcaps a few years ago.

There was a quote from Maz which is worth noting: "Our new businesses are still small but if we sensibly exploit even half of the opportunities then we will all be happy shareholders".

[lord buffett] 22/2/2007 10:14

It's strange that a 'reputable' investment magazine can turn a phenomenal growth story into something mildly negative with such misinformation!... But that's Shares magazine for you.

[slapdash] 22/2/2007 10:11

well guys let us say forecast earinings of 1.9p this year and then 2.9p next year....

so at end of April (in two months) this year the calander forecast earnings will be between the two at 2.4p... giving a forecast P/E of 12.5X....

not too high a forecast calender P/E for such a growth company... also if cash starts increasing, which it should, that probably comes down to around 12X...... or less....

so appears farily cheap even though forecasts earnings for this year down slightly (up slightly next year)...

It appears to me that this is a classic dilema for a company.. it could buy a rubbish low growth business on a low PE and boost earnings per share (as long as its P/E is higher) but the future growth goes down....

Here IBG have bought high growth, strategic acquisitions that have had higher P/E's but more growth than the company which the market hasn't liked (EPS down) but which improve the growth prospects.... and so the quality of the business....

Investors also take a short term approach to investment which should boost future growth... but usually a temporary reaction.. look at Bond Int's interims in which the shares fell as it said it was investing for growth but now up strongly...

So I am tempted to stay in this one for the moment...

Slapper

[stemis] 22/2/2007 09:53

Short term earings 'weakness' (i.e. 'only' 27%) is mostly due to run out of tax losses. PBT is forecast to grow by 68%.

I suppose its to be expected from the likes of Shares. They have about 10 minutes to review a set of company results and once they think they've found a nice easy 'answer' don't bother to look any further.

[aleman] 22/2/2007 09:17

Shares 1/4 page results refers to the short term weakness in the earnings outlook due to investment, and says: "it may be best to take profits while IBG does the necessary spade work." . I find it odd they do not even bother to refer to earnings forecasts.

[niggle] 21/2/2007 23:11

Interesting:

Affiliatefuture.co.uk traffic rank in other countries:
United Kingdom 183
Lithuania 1,103
Germany 3,411
Taiwan 3,605
United States 15,485

[niggle] 21/2/2007 22:59

They sem to be trading up 12% after hours. (vclk)

[aleman] 21/2/2007 21:12

VC exceeds expectations in Q4. Historic p/e now 42. 2007 p/e on new guidance now 33. Affiliate Marketing rev grew from $96m to only $112m - although had 52% margin!!! Hope AF can mature to that! AF are already running at 19% of CJ turnover - more than I thought - but it could take some time to catch their media division.

[yump] 21/2/2007 19:08

imo the rise, when it comes will be unpredictable. I say that having sat on DTK for ages and then it suddenly went from 140p to over 170p in a week. That's before results, after a string of announcements which did nothing permanent to the share price and an ahead statement which did nothing permanent to the share price Been a couple of tips which might have been partly responsible, although there have been tips in the past which did nothing.

More inclined to believe that there was repeated selling of shares in an orderly manner over a long period by investors with less than 3% (so not announced). Then, hey presto up we go.

There could be a lot of small (early) investors in IBG who have been selling over a long period, which has held back the sp, despite others topping up. I believe that there are not many investors who top up when a share is not rising quickly. Only those who research well and are confident will top up when a share is apparently not moving. So perhaps a current balance between modest top ups and repeated selling. Any clearing of the selling will be unpredictable imo, but a lot more topper-uppers will feel more confident to top up when the share price rises outside their previous top-up share price range. For that reason, am expecting a sudden rise.

[aleman] 21/2/2007 18:34

Only 3 1/2 months to interims, with the AGM to come before that as well. I posted earlier that we should see some strength from April onwards. Only 2 months for "bored" sellers to get out.