Ashley (laura) Share Discussion Threads

[garycook] 18/8/2016 07:52

Must have been unprofitable.

[uknighted] 18/8/2016 07:29

LA closed a branch in a new shopping complex in La Zenia, Costa Blanca. There are thousands of retiring Brits and second home owners in the area. You would have thought an ideal situation.
30 Second Briefing on LA page 40 of today's i newspaper.
I sold out months ago.

[11_percent] 17/8/2016 23:32

This has scamm all over it.

[flagon] 17/8/2016 22:40

Laura Ashley is to launch in China after years of attempting to target the market.

The British brand, best known for its floral frocks, is to open a website via Chinese online operator Tmall, owned by Alibaba, and will also begin selling clothing in the first Chinese House of Fraser store, which will open in Nanjing this autumn.

Seán Anglim, Laura Ashley’s finance director, said its long-term aim was to find a Chinese franchise partner.

“China is not easy as evidenced by how many have got in and how many have come out. It is all about finding the right partner and doing it at the right time,” he said.

Laura Ashley already has franchise partners in 30 countries and sells online in six. Anglim said the company wanted to expand that further with new websites planned in Hungary and the Czech Republic in coming months.

link ->

Looking at Alexa statistics which measure website popularity I see Tmall is currently the 9th most visited site in China and 38th globally.

link ->

[barnesian] 17/8/2016 22:12

Thorpematt: You are looking on the bright side. I hope you are right. Time will tell.

I have been an investor and strong supporter of this share for some time(see my post of 16 Jan this year)

But I'm unconvinced about the sources of growth you refer to. The hotel business is less than 1% of revenue. The Overseas business is struggling and has been for some time. I thought the new Singapore office and new appointment might provide a new source of growth - but not a mention.

I'm unconvinced by the strength of the brand. It is an aging brand. The shops are rather tired. Have a look at one and the profile of the customers. And Overseas customers are not exactly clamoring for it.

The dividend is barely covered by profit (After tax profit £17.0m, dividend at 2p a year £14.5m). In cash flow terms it is uncovered. After tax cash from operations is only £10.5m. It is also a worry when the operations cash flow is substantially below reported profit. The dividend policy is opaque to say the least. I suspect the 0.5p a half year will be the future norm. 1p on 22p is about a 4.6% yield.

My biggest gripe is the silence about the Singapore office investment. It is unacceptable and rings warning bells.

As always DYOR. You might be right and I might regret selling all my shares this morning. But I will sleep more easily tonight.

[thorpematt] 17/8/2016 20:31

Upon futher reflection I concluded that what we is PRESENTED to us is pretty positive...but lacks clarity and detail which would PROVE it to be so.

I beleive that this company has significant un-tapped potential and that historically its ability to spin off cash and return it to shareholders is telling of the brand strength. The like for like numbers insinuate that the brand strenght is robust and indeed the exploitation of it may very well be improving.

I have always said that there could be more ambition here and that those dividends could have been re-invested in more growth. However that is precisely the opportunity here:-

1. The share price is subdued for a number of reasons (I wo't discuss all) but the lack of growth rate is one (ref: PEG ratio for explanation). An improvement will re-rate the PER values attributed. I perceive this as highly possible/probable.

2. Two areas of growth are available (possibly over-looked by the market). Both tie in nicely with strong branding and with a company which CAN (if it wishes to) access cash form its own operations or loans to accelaerate growth. These are: Hotels and online sales. Both of these are scaleable models, both could transform ALY into an exciting stock with high PERs.

A final note on oversees expansion. I have not really pinned any future predictions on the tail of this particular donkey. Again it's an area for expansion no doubt. The ALY style transfers well to other countries but is not fully exploited IMO. Failure in Australia last year indicates a smooth ride is not always the way of things. It is an area that should provide growth but in my eyes lacks enough certainty for me to price any predictions upon.

[philjeans] 17/8/2016 13:08

The "issues" (either real or imagined) raised above by one or two, are reflected in the price!

The share price is at the bottom of the chart - not the top. Time to BUY, not sell.

World class business - priced as a street market trader.

If you can find a perfect share opportunity, let me know. If you do, the P/E will be over 100 with no yield and massive debt.

BUY for me - just added again.

[gostevie63] 17/8/2016 12:55

Paul Scott likes the results:

[woodhawk] 17/8/2016 12:30

Indeed coxsmn, I averaged down my holding earlier this morning.

[coxsmn] 17/8/2016 12:25

Strong set of results will reassure the markets. Fill you boots for income and growth.Dyor.

[barnesian] 17/8/2016 11:57

Gostevie: I think the article at has been written by a robot!

The giveaway is the sentence "Over the last 30 and 90 trading days the company share price has increased 0.299999999999997 points and decreased 2.75 points respectively."

It is a mechanical derivation. It gives no explanation at all of why Cantor Fitzgerald has set a target price of 30p.

Thorpmatt: I suspect larger IIs will also have difficulty with the "like for like" comparisons unless they have inside information from the company.

Incidentally I suspect ALY is seasonable as the fashion stock is summer wear with no coats etc. The peak will be Spring/ early summer. The latest 17 month period had two peak seasons in it. The previous 17 month period had only one.

[thorpematt] 17/8/2016 11:35

Much like the investors website these results could have been presented in a much clearer and useful way.

It's a poor show IMO. It's not as if the accounting period change is a regular occurrence. The comparison of like for like numbers is clearly causing ssues for some on this thread which may not be representative of larger IIs but it's sloppy.

Clarity and transparency are the mark of a good operation.

------------------

I have further analysis to do on comparison for the relevant peroids in prior years before I make any real conclusions...I suspect I'm not the only one!

[gostevie63] 17/8/2016 11:30

Thanks 11=percent. It does indeed work. Cheers!

[11_percent] 17/8/2016 10:56

No mention at all of the SE Asia strategy out of the new office in Singapore even though it is 17 months since the last full results and this was major investment.

--------------

We don't even know if the office exists.
Just know all the cash gone somewhere.
AIMO.

[11_percent] 17/8/2016 10:50

Gosteve,

Change "hxxp" to "hTTp" and it should work.

[gostevie63] 17/8/2016 10:41

Laura Ashley Holdings plc 36.4% Potential Upside Indicated by Cantor Fitzgerald



(Does anyone know how I make that hyperlink work?)

[carcosa] 17/8/2016 10:27

You also have to factor in the store closures/openings with a net reduction of 4.2% selling space. However even doing this the overall business appears not to be progressing as well as I had hoped.

However it is possible that this is the 'bottom' because their online business is going great, Australia will be contributing yet again, the China strategy will hopefully make progress, and minimum wage costs have been absorbed.

The problem with ALY is that being run by Malaysian's for themselves and not other shareholders means that their intentions are very opaque; just like todays non-proforma results!

[barnesian] 17/8/2016 10:18

Hmm

Revenue in last 74 weeks is £401m.. 52/74 times £401m is £282m which is down 7% from last year's £304m. Profit is even more down on a like for like basis.

Yet "Total like-for-like* retail sales are up 4.1% with like-for-like* growth across all categories." It says "*All references to "like-for-like" refer to a full 74 weeks comparison." However it is not clear whether this is pro-rata or a comparison of the 17 months to end June 2016 with the 17 months to end January 2015 which is muddied by seasonality.

Dividend is 0.5p for 5 months (which is down pro-rata as explained above), and will be paid "in due course." Odd.

Payables are down £18m from £67m financed by short-term borrowing of £16m. No explanation given.

Cash and cash equivalents in balance sheet of £19.8m includes a £14.8m overdraft (which is called restricted cash in the notes).

No mention at all of the SE Asia strategy out of the new office in Singapore even though it is 17 months since the last full results and this was major investment.

The only attraction is the notional dividend yield but there must be a question mark against this.

I have a bad feeling about this share and have this morning sold out at 22.06p a share nursing a loss.

[carcosa] 17/8/2016 09:35

speedsgh; I'll adjust my view and agree with you! ;-)

[speedsgh] 17/8/2016 09:28

Don't think the level of dividend going forward is clear. In recent yrs the dividend has been paid on a 50:50 interim:final split (supplemented with occasional special dividends).

1.00p was paid in Oct 15 for the 26 wks (6-months) to 1/8/15 (Interim Results)
1.00p was paid in Jul 16 for the 26 wks (6-months) to 30/1/16 (2nd Interim Results)
0.50p now being paid in TBC for the 21 wks to 30/6/16 (Final Results)

So the dividend announced today has clearly been adjusted to take account of the change in accounting periods. However the adjustment applied does not appear to be commensurate i.e. 21/26 x 1.00p = 0.80p.

Maybe are taking the opportunity afforded by the muddying of the waters resulting from the change in accounting period to pay a slightly reduced dividend + payments will resume at the previous level going forward? However I cannot see any guidance/clarification on the dividend policy going forward so for now I would say that the level of the future dividend is not entirely clear. Aimho

[pictureframe] 17/8/2016 09:14

Carcosa - agreed

[carcosa] 17/8/2016 09:03

I believe you may have miscalculated given the change of year date. The 0.5p is an adjustment figure. Normalised its a 2p dividend for a 52 week year. Hence just below 10% yield.

[shepc] 17/8/2016 08:50

10% divi! I think not, I love these, but the divi has dropped, .5 means 1.5p for last 12 months, but 6.8% is still very good for year

[pictureframe] 17/8/2016 08:44

I expect to see some interest from high yielding funds

[philjeans] 17/8/2016 08:41

Forgot to mention the £5M net cash with no debt!

Don't rule out Chinese TAKEOVER - they could buy this for peanuts now and they love the brand. Mr UK investor isn't interested, so why not?