Kier Share Discussion Threads

[ltcm1] 10/5/2019 20:52

Minerve was that you averaging down again???

Or are yoy strapping your buying boots on to pick up more at 300???

[azioni2] 10/5/2019 15:45

Just for the record, the 3000 showing as a "SALE" is in fact a "BUY".
Let's hope Woodford eventually gets it right and the share price recovers soon.

[ltcm1] 09/5/2019 20:14

OK - point taken re build costs. But I do think the cost pressures are there.

Minerve 2 you were right about Burford so well done on that call.

[blueball] 09/5/2019 19:59

Terrible company 180p target for me.

[minerve 2] 09/5/2019 17:35

Anecdotal evidence....

[nomdeplume] 09/5/2019 15:25

Itcm1 - I suppose the most significant part of your post is: if true.

[porsche1945] 09/5/2019 15:07

Omg, trying to average down I guess, he doubled up on this cxxp at about 5.50 last Sep, the latest action in his suicide mission for his investors.

[ltcm1] 09/5/2019 13:10

Heard a guy who is building out a development of student flats, a change of use on an existing building, say that his building costs have gone up 50% in three years. I was shocked by that figure but if true you can see how difficult valuation has become with a company like Kier.

How many modular house are these guys currently building? If the property market slows even more they could have a horrendous cashflow problem if they are building in quantity. Modular houseing isn't a building process you can simply turn off.

[ltcm1] 08/5/2019 16:44

Woodford's added!!!

19.40% now.

[minerve 2] 07/5/2019 16:10

Second-hand Porsche for sure. LOL

[porsche1945] 07/5/2019 15:59

Much like Minerve

[zicopele] 07/5/2019 13:28

Kier is in terrible shape.

[gairich] 07/5/2019 12:35

Oh look down again :-D

[minerve 2] 07/5/2019 10:16

Good luck Danny.

[danny baker] 07/5/2019 10:10

I'm relieved that I exited last week at around 377p average price. I feel KIE's now too risky with potential provisions against losses on discontinued operations outweighing any good news on contract awards. Medium term I think it will be ok but I can see the share price dropping to 320p over the next few weeks and Woodford not having the funds to increase his holding. I'm out of GFRD too now but would look to buy again at £5 for a trade.

[minerve 2] 07/5/2019 09:15

He will not be missed by this shareholder. Plenty of better competence available and he was starting to appear a little disingenuous IMO.

[marksp2011] 07/5/2019 08:11

So farewell bev Drew. The FD who was confused between Debt and assets

[qs99] 01/5/2019 12:07

Personally have bought back into NMCN which appears IMO to have "turned" following seller now out and company just bought shares and director and xd this week....DYOR

[muckshifter] 01/5/2019 12:04

No Minerve, I'm not invested in Sirius, but I find the project very interesting. I've always openly stated that I expect to seriously consider a Sirius share purchase when I'm confident that the first deep shaft has passed through the Bunter Sandstone aquifer, and before the announcement that they have hit the polyhalite. But that is a long way away, and the current finance raising exercise is proving as difficult as I thought it would - that's the first serious obstacle, with the shaft sinking being the second.

[minerve 2] 01/5/2019 11:51

Interesting post muckshifter.

I agree, accountants have been given too much power and dominance. Because of their origins they struggle to see the benefit of all the intangibles in a company but where they can see cost. The end result is long-term shareholder erosion. Experience just being one example.

I notice you on the Sirius Minerals thread. Are you invested there and what do you think of their prospects? I know nothing of this sector but the companies mining of Polyhalite has piqued my interest.

[muckshifter] 01/5/2019 11:43

Kier are a company I used to know well with friends working for them in many parts of the world, so their decline is dissapointing.

In the early 1980s Kier was basically an amalgamation of two quite complementary companies, W&C French and JL Kier. French had very successful local area offices in the South East, also built lots of major civils projects in roads, dams, airports, sea defence etc, and also were very strong in Africa / Seychelles in both building and civils. Kier were very strong in major structural work such as power stations, sea outfalls etc in both UK & overseas , with some smaller local works in their home area, and both a localised presence in such as the Carribean / Central America and JVs on big civils anywhere in the world. At that time they were, and had always been, run and dominated by Civil Engineers. The members of the board in those days understood the link between risk and profit well, and were always cautious with profit declaration, with next years profit already secured during the current year iirc, and fairly consistently achieved 5% pre tax. This began to change during the 80s when a chap called Frettsome became CEO and decided to adopt much more of an area office small works approach, losing most of the big project staff in the process.

Since then, the company seems to me to have been more and more controlled by accountants, with the last real major civils CEO probably being John Dodds.

So, the company has ended up competing with local building, civil engineering and services contractors, imo, with lots of local offices and a big HQ function and hungry shareholders which the local contractors that Kier now compete with, do not have to support. I believe that Kier’s average contract size is now something like £11m, which is well within mid sized local contractors area of competence. Because of those changes I just can’t see Kier getting back to levels of profit they used to achieve.