Leeds Share Discussion Threads

[arthur_lame_stocks] 08/3/2007 17:47

I don´t really mind if they do buy something with that cash, as long as it´s a genuine fit with Hemmers. It´s the fact that 5m of cash is sitting on the balance sheet doing nothing. If they could buy 500k profit a year with it it would be better than things are at the moment, a bigger more profitable company should attract a higher price.

Then again they might just buy a pup, it´s not as though PG doesn´t have a record in that department.

Back to the wait I suppose.

[poacher45] 08/3/2007 17:34

If any shareholders do not like their ideas well they are really happy for the company to continue to buy back the shares.
The piece of land in Yeadon has been declared a village green. They are looking carefully at this decision and have not decided on whether to fight it or not. To sum up if it is a village green it is worthless. If the directors had been awake a few years ago and fenced it off then it would have been worth something. That just about sums it up part time directors half asleep.

[poacher45] 08/3/2007 17:24

Last year I was optomistic this year I am pessimistic. I can understand why Vin Murria has left. She had more get up and go in her little toe than the rest of the board put together. In other words she wanted to move the company forward but the others were holding her back.
Unfortunately arrived late after a long horrendous journey but I did not seem to have missed anything. Ewen Wigley is no longer employed by Peter Gylenhammar so he tells me he is now independant. The reason why the results were 6 weeks later this year is because they work part time. There reasoning is it does not matter when they announce them as long as they are within the stock exchange rules.
I suggested they should sell Hemmers and give the money back to the shareholders. No chance more the opposite view. They think there should be rationalsation of the textile industry in europe so they might lead the way and take over a european firm. Anyway they say it is not worth selling Hemmers because it would not fetch a very good price.

[deswalker] 08/3/2007 13:07

Arthur,

I wasn't at the meeting. Once again the statement is very low key and has had the desired effect on the share price (small selling after the RNS).

There is a slight but maybe significant change of emphasis between:

The Board continues to explore possible ways to apply the cash resources at its disposal for the benefit of shareholders and will make further announcements in due course as appropriate.

and the Outlook statement from the Finals:

... Board continues to work to identify suitable acquisitions that can strengthen the Group while creating and enhancing shareholder value.

I'm hoping that this signals a move away from acquisitions and towards a cash return once they've bought back as many shares as they can at 21.5p

I've bought 30k more today. Eventually value will out, but not until the Swedes have done their best to squeeze as much as possible.

Regarding the 10% rule, I checked exactly this point this morning. The resolution at the back of the AR talks about 10% more shares than the ones currently in Treasury so they have another 3.6 mill to be going at for this year. However, in a similar vein to BP. they may have to start cancelling shares if they reach 10% in Treasury (if that's the rules ?).

Des

[arthur_lame_stocks] 08/3/2007 11:03

If anybody´s been to the AGM an update might be nice, i´ll be really disappointed if they don´t report a profit this year, without it being clouded by exceptionals, unless of course it´s the disposal of Hemmers for a big pile of cash.

I wonder what they´ll do once they´ve bought back 10% of the stock. I think that´s the maximum you can hold in treasury, so they will either have to cancel them or stop buying in stock. Although i´ve been moaning about them not paying a dividend, they have returned nearly 400k over the last year or so buying in stock and always at a deep discount to NAV so I suppose we should be glad.

[deswalker] 08/3/2007 08:21

AGM today at 10am. Hopefully they'll give us a trading update after the meeting as they have done in the past.

Since the results we've seen 415k more shares bought for treasury at 21.5p.

As an aside I was reading Dunelm's results this week. I have always found their shops to be very popular but until now I didn't realise that they floated last year. They have big expansion plans in this country but what about a new entry into Germany :-) Surely it's worth our Swedish friends pitching the idea to them so if anyone is planning on getting in touch with management then it might be worth mentioning it. They could even pay with shares.

[deswalker] 22/2/2007 13:41

Thks for the interesting posts above. The points about the reduction in Director compensation and the inter-company loan are very well made.

I've been looking at the NTAV growth of Hemmers. Some numbers ...

Hemmers NAV
4243 (2004)
4559 (2005) = 7.45% rise
4970 (2006) = 9.02% rise (accelerating)

Hemmers NTAV
3292 (2004)
3706 (2005) = 12.58% rise
4213 (2006) = 13.68% rise (accelerating)

Looks good to me.

Des

[arthur_lame_stocks] 19/2/2007 17:10

Another 100k bought in. I guess we're getting there slowly. The trading seems a bit unusual though. If the company bought 100k at 21.5. what was the other 70k odd at prices similar or slightly above.

[gromley] 13/2/2007 23:15

Yes,

Before seeing the AR I had assumed that we had already seen a large part of the cost reduction resulting from MW's departure - when in fact because of the termination payment he was paid more in 2006 than in 2005.

I'd be a little more conservative in my estimates than some here, but even so I think we should be expecting a 100-150k reduction in HO expenses in the coming year.

One other thing of interest (ho ho) that I don't think I'd seen explictly before is in note 2 (segmental information) Hemmers owes £1.371m to the holding company. I think this explains some of the disparity in interest charges raised previously.

[valhamos] 13/2/2007 23:13

Diviner - MJ Wilson ceased to be a director in January 2006 so the £38k salary is only for a few months. The termination payment seems more reasonable considering the full previous year salary was £142k. Also I note he retains the company secretary role. As Vin Murria is a non-executive director I would have thought a termination payment unlikely.

[valhamos] 13/2/2007 19:51

ALS - Received the AR a couple of days ago and noticed the same thing. Looks like Head Office costs will be minimal going forward.

Des - Many thanks for your earlier work on the preliminary statement.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 13/2/2007 19:07

I've just been having a look at the AR too. One thing I thought was interesting is the director's pay.

JC and EW only took 13k between them! MW, CR and VM took 215k between them but they've all now gone.

If PG is going to take a similar sum to JC then directors pay is going to drop by over 200k, depending on whether they give themselves a big pay rise or not I suppose. It looks as though the two big shareholders a managing this for capital and not income gain. I might send EW another mail and ask him to confirm this point. 200k is a hell of a lot to this little company. Even if they paid 30% tax on it it's still an extra 140k net. I make that about 0.4p in eps.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 13/2/2007 18:38

So they have started buying in stock again. I hope they get a bit more aggressive with this from now on but I won't hold my breath.

[deswalker] 12/2/2007 17:40

The AR is now on the website.

I can't see anything particularly exciting. The numbers agree with the ones I gave above but a little more detail is given about taxation, particularly the two one-off charges (75k & 32k). Nothing further about the stock write-off.

If anyone spots anything then please post it here.

Des

[arthur_lame_stocks] 08/2/2007 17:14

Well we got a bit of interest today. I wonder if that was the company buying in that 50k.

[langland] 06/2/2007 13:24

Arthur,

I am here but just reading not writing.....been very busy but will drop you email to ask for copy of the Wigley mail. Will be in touch. Cheers L

[arthur_lame_stocks] 06/2/2007 12:20

Good to see you bringing cheer to the this and the DWSN BB cg. What´s your take on the results then?

Where´s langland too?

[cg1953] 06/2/2007 09:25

roomey.
agree with everything you say.
companies like ldsg is what is now giving AIM a bad stench.
imo the big stench though will come from an overseas company listing in the uk.
we have yet to have our 'enron', and hubris rules in london.

the diviner.
'give them the benefit of the doubt'
they have [jc/pg] managed/manipulated ldsg for the last 7 years !!!
my guess at .22 pence the value is fair given the uncertainties and history.
if we had some 'real' corporate heroes at the helm a premium would have long since been accorded.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 05/2/2007 16:58

So are we agreed that Hemmers pre exceptional operating profit was 1046k? If this is afer charging 93k of goodwill then the underlying operating profit was 1139k. That´s an excellent result really.

That puts the shares on a multiple of about 6.7* Hemmers operating profit and ignores the 8p a share net cash figure. Stripping the cash out put Hemmers on an enterprise value of about 4.3* operating profit if the net cash figure is used and operating profit is quoted before interest.

Or about 3.1* operating profit if gross cash is used and Hemmers operating profit less interest charged is used.

The shares remain cheap, I hope they take all of the stock that was sold when the results were published last week.

ps i´ll send out the email tomorrow to anybody that hasnt got it yet, that way I can do it in one go. There´s nothing in there that´s price sensitive, I think it just clarified a few things for me but I didn´t want to put it up on the board just in case it upsets Ewen Wigley who´s shaping up to be quite helpful.

[lqs] 05/2/2007 11:50

Me too. Thx

[deswalker] 05/2/2007 11:48

Arthur,

I've sent you a mail. Many thks in advance.

Des

[arthur_lame_stocks] 05/2/2007 11:43

I´ve had an interesting and helpful reply from Ewen Wigley to an email I sent him with some questions about the results. I think it answers a few of the questions that have been raised here.

If anybody wants a copy please email me at:

[e-mail]

and let me know who you are over here and i´ll forward it on.

[the diviner] 03/2/2007 01:36

Hi roomey,

The articles that you posted are very interesting.

We do not know that anything fishy is planned and we should give them the benefit of any doubt.

When the results came out, I did not like the way in which the Hemmers results appeared to be downplayed and were difficult to judge. (I felt then that it could justify some form of cut price management buyout, (which is one of my pet hates).

These days the problem is that most of the 60% shareholders are likely to be locked into a nominee account were votes are either difficult or impossible to obtain. (I tend to hold shares in a way that entitles me to automatic information and voting rights - I often wish that others did the same).

Regards,
John