Internet Business Share Discussion Threads

[the blackster] 02/11/2007 16:42

Old Boy - judgement is nothing to do with management time and the rns was a simple, very costly, error in judgement. With several years of City experience under his belt Maz should have been able to measure the effect of saying H2 will be poor, and by the way, so will the next two years. And now we're sat here with results that are ok.

[old boy returns] 02/11/2007 10:10

I think maybe some are being a bit harsh on IBG. When investing we all knew it was a small company with limited management resources. And as such they do not seem to have the internal resources to do everything they should /could be doing and perhaps the size / culture / Maz's position as major shareholder and CEO makes it difficult for them to successfully bring in suitably talented and experienced top management to solve the problem. Recent announcements pretty much say that the online retail division has had to be neglected because management do not have the time to attend to it and develop the affiliate and media side simultaneously. The strategic review is another example in that the decision to undertake seemingly diverted management away from running and developing the business for a few months and so when it was decided not to pursue any of the indicative offers it became a very expensive exercise. So hopefully they have now learned that with the resources they have they are best off sticking to the knitting and letting the rest take care of itself.

[the blackster] 31/10/2007 22:52

The problem here is the shamefully bad rns over the Summer. These results are really not that bad but the RNS said profits would be down and business would not improve for 24 months. This was tantamount to the board putting its own Sell recommendation on this stock. Suicide. Simple as that. Uncertainty is the death of a share price. Knowing what a shocker dgm had which is the clearest comparative, shareholders got the fear when ibg looked like it could be going the same way. The fact that we're now sat here with results that are not a disaster by any stretch makes this even more frustrating. The naivety and incompetence is simply baffling. WTF were they doing?

[andnmand] 31/10/2007 20:58

Merchant numbers updated for the end of October.   UK USA EURO Total OUT IN CHANGE Aug-06 556 124 16 696 26 47 21 Sep-06 555 129 17 701 24 29 5 Oct-06 571 142 18 731 25 55 30 Nov-06 590 149 19 758 33 60 27 Dec-06 602 151 20 773 10 25 15 Jan-07 611 155 22 788 26 41 15 Feb-07 620 161 24 805 22 39 17 Mar-07 623 158 24 805 50 50 0 Apr-07 635 158 28 821 28 44 16 May-07 642 168 31 841 32 52 20 Jun-07 662 173 35 870 20 49 29 Jul-07 665 168 36 869 43 42 -1 Aug-07 667 157 41 865 52 48 -4 Sep-07 661 166 45 872 43 50 7 Oct-07 659 169 48 876 52 56 4  

[kenatbabken] 31/10/2007 18:47

coffeelito

Money in the bank and cash generative,What it has,nt got is sentiment which
after the fiasco,s of this year is understandable.It,ll take some really positive news before the sentiment returns

[nghomi] 31/10/2007 17:44

coffeelito,
The reason PER is so low is that market did not beleive IBG's forecast anymore after June strategic conclusion. I, for one, did not believe that IBG could ever make 1.9p EPS this year. imo the st Helens' note is very plausable and we would gratually see an improvement of PER. So we would probably see 27p by May 2008. The growth forecast is more realistic and more beleivable imo. IBG's rating would be probably less than other peers for some time imo. So I do not expect crazy PER of 30 or so for foreseeable future.

[coffeelito] 31/10/2007 13:40

But £1.4m profit (is that post-tax?) and a market cap of just £10.7m ...!!??? I just don't get why it would be so low. (Plus £1.5m in the bank and no debt!)

[stemis] 31/10/2007 13:36

To a great extent share prices reflect management of expectation. Make £1.4M when everyone was expecting £1.2M and you are a hero. Make £1.4M when everyone was expecting £1.6M and you are a pariah. Same profits, different share prices.

[coffeelito] 31/10/2007 12:55

Despite all that malarkey with bad investor relations, I still don't understand why the share price is sooooo low and why the PER is sooooo low. IBG is being rated, surely, like some very mature boring utility company, not an internet advertiser with potentially explosive growth in the not too distant future! Can anyone explain?!

[nghomi] 31/10/2007 12:00

I booked my holiday using henoo last May. It was overall a good experience and I would use them again. imo Henoo could be potentially a good "brand" name.

[bonio10000] 31/10/2007 11:53

Problem with Henoo is that it is 18 months too late.

Like restaurants - I think if service is rubbish people do not reuse a site.

[nghomi] 31/10/2007 10:42

How much would we get for E-Commerce business? If we get anything close with E-Commerce's annual review, we could see a significant boost to share price. I wouldn't disagree with broker's target of 27p.

[omlaysause] 31/10/2007 10:32

Well the results are as expected, so no surprise there.

They're implementing software changes ahead of schedule.
They're making improvements to Henoo (not before time) as well as cheapholidays, added skiing holidays and reviews.
They're expanding their operations which have included and may well include more staff.
All very positive.

The American Affiliate market is still young and if it takes off in the same way the UK market did then who knows what the turnover may be.

£1.5 million in cash with no debt, that is quite simply superb and with the prospect of not needing to raise cash for future developments can only be good.

No doubt 2008 will be pivotal year in IBG's future expansion plans. I for one think it's worth another years hold.

[bonio10000] 31/10/2007 09:51

I did note the Jan 2008 comment and sold out as a result.

I do not believe they know what they are doing. Gave them the benefit of the doubt after the sale fiasco but just think they are making it up as they go along.

[renew] 31/10/2007 09:47

Bonio
If you want to know the reason see my recent post.
3 atempts to hire a car in portugal through them.Went to opido site worked first time.
Wasnt impressed and Maz needs to sort this out sharpish.
Also note January is back as key period for travel sales. Funny how it moved to the second half in spring at agm. Mmmm

[bonio10000] 31/10/2007 09:27

The main issue for me is why growth is so low comapred to the rest of the industry?

Not a bad set of results - but that is a big issue.

And let's not all pin it on innovations - they seem to be growing less than the market and, therefore, losing ground.

[hirschnathan] 31/10/2007 09:08

New research note from st helens

Still prediciting 22.m for 2008 & ebita £2.5m

Internet Business Group (IBG), the online performance marketing,media and e-commerce specialist, has announced in today's trading update that it has brought forward some of its planned investment in mid-term organic growth into Q4 FY07 from Q1 FY08, the key trading period. As a result, some management attention has been diverted from Q4 sales. In light of this, we are reducing our PBT forecasts for FY07 to £1.4m from £1.6m (Initiation note 30/07/07), EPS to 1.8p from 1.9p and share price target to 27p from 30p. FY08 remains unchanged. Although some short-term share price weakness is likely, we retain our BUY recommendation. Our revised price target implies a 13.5x FY08 PER

Internet Business Group (IBG), the online performance marketing,
media and e-commerce specialist, has announced in today's trading
update that it has brought forward some of its planned investment in
mid-term organic growth into Q4 FY07 from Q1 FY08, the key trading
period. As a result, some management attention has been diverted
from Q4 sales. In light of this, we are reducing our PBT forecasts for
FY07 to £1.4m from £1.6m (Initiation note 30/07/07), EPS to 1.8p
from 1.9p and share price target to 27p from 30p. FY08 remains
unchanged. Although some short-term share price weakness is
likely, we retain our BUY recommendation. Our revised price target
implies a 13.5x FY08 PER.
Areas of investment – new toolset for AffiliateFuture and additional data centre
IBG has developed and deployed a new toolset and user interface for both affiliates and
merchants within the AffiliateFuture affiliate marketing network. This includes improved
traffic analysis tools. The new toolset was recently previewed at the A4U Expo in Excel and
feedback is reported to have been good. A beta version will be made available early next
month with all users expected to switch over by the end of 2007. IBG has also brought online
a third data centre in London to improve AffiliateFuture reliability and uptime.
Expansion of travel features ahead of key January trading period
IBG has had a number of launches across its Media travel properties. It has added a
dedicated ski channel to CheapHolidayDeals.co.uk as well as user-generated content –
Reviews.CheapHolidayDeals.co.uk. There are also a number of developments on
Henoo.com, IBG's holiday search engine and technology platform. These should feed into
revenues in both the AffiliateFuture and Media divisions.
E-commerce – improved performance but not key focus
The new management and processes in H1 FY07 are having positive impact on the Ecommerce
division. Although there are expansion opportunities for this division, the main
management focus remains Media and AffiliateFuture. Management will consider strategic
options for this business during FY08.

[thehardestbutton] 31/10/2007 08:28

Ah Smashing there you are - along with all the other pond life chasing any negative trading updates.

Seems to me this company is still cash rich, still turning an increased profit and medium term has great prospects as well as showing a far lower share price based on P/E than its competitors who aren't nearly as attractive.

If the market wants to punish the share price further I will be adding to my existing long term holding.

[nghomi] 31/10/2007 08:14

Call me mad but I am back in. The results is beating my expectation. In fact imo it is also beating most people's expectations! IBG is a fantastic profitable business with growing profit. If you strip out £1.5m cash in the bank the historic PER is only 6!

[stemis] 31/10/2007 08:07

Hopefully there was so little expectation in the price for IBG, that the fact profits are up (as opposed to having collapsed or IBG having gone bust) should mean the share price doesn't suffer too much.

In fact it'll probably now go up.