Leeds Share Discussion Threads

[clangor2] 26/4/2008 18:33

Good point. Do Capital Gains losses count as an asset ?

[arthur_lame_stocks] 26/4/2008 09:45

Have you written your will?

[clangor2] 26/4/2008 07:54

Thanks jonak. Four years is roughly the timespan before much progress is seen in a lot of my investment sorties so I've brought my Thermos and a few sarnies !

[jonak] 25/4/2008 22:02

well, you're in the right place, clangor ! welcome

[clangor2] 25/4/2008 08:44

Decided to dip my toe in the LDSG pool this morning. Sorry chaps but I have a tendency to get attached to slow-moving situations so be warned !

[jonak] 24/4/2008 20:42

ooo exciting, 0.5p

[deswalker] 22/4/2008 17:13

Well somebody got out of bed this morning and bought 50k. Wonder if they got a sniff of the results ?

[arthur_lame_stocks] 04/4/2008 14:08

I'm hoping the results will be quite good, although the underlying performance of Hemmers might be masked by the costs of the expansion program.

I would hope that with turnover and profit growth underlying eps will be 3p+ this year.

I took some comfort in the fact that they were buying in 10&20k lines of stock. Why bother to do this if you know your results are going to be poor.

[the diviner] 02/4/2008 07:19

FWIW, I bought a few more last week and I bought another 5000 yesterday, which should slightly outweigh the 2000 sell that Des referred to. (Don't ask why I bought more as I am not too sure. It is probably just habit).

The downside appears limited but progress is painfully slow.

I am not happy with the lack of a dividend which would make up for the slow progress and prevent some of the cash from being wasted.

[jonak] 02/4/2008 01:36

SP is getting awfully close to the cash per share....I'm thinking its getting time to add, despite my concerns over the scanwegian alliance..

[deswalker] 01/4/2008 10:57

Bang on cue the company steps off the bid until the Interims and the price opens lower. Then someone panics and sells 2000 shares without realising the the price movement was to be expected and the bid drops another half penny.

Interims around 10th May I guess.

[jonak] 27/3/2008 22:42

Looks OK
here is summary page copied from annual report (18th Dec 2007):
full report at


Financial Highlights

- Group profit before tax was £760,000 (2006: £743,000 before
exceptional costs of £838,000).

- Hemmers-Itex sales were 7.4% higher at £17,523,000 (2006:
£16,320,000) and profit before tax was £662,000 (2006: £712,000).

- Investment in people and infrastructure taking place at Hemmers-
Itex to exploit growth opportunities.

- Further reductions of £42,000 in Central Costs.

- 3,325,618 shares bought back in the year at a cost of £735,000, of
which 1,698,603 shares were cancelled.

- Net asset value per share increased by 10% to 34.4 pence.

- Earnings per share from Continuing Operations were 1.5 pence
(2006:1.0 pence).

- No dividend proposed while Board continues search for suitable
investment opportunities.

"The Board continues to look for other acquisitions or investments that will
strengthen the Group and benefit shareholders. In the meantime, Hemmers-Itex
continues to perform in line with the expectations of both its management and the
Board."

[arthur_lame_stocks] 27/3/2008 18:15

I notice the bid is up to 19.25p, there's now an unusually narrow spread. Do you think the company are trying to chase out a last little bit of stock before the period end?

I don't know why they don't just pay a bit more if that's the case, they were happy to pay 21.5p until recently.

I'm hopeful the results will be pretty good, otherwise why are they going to the lengths of buying in 10k & 20k blocks of stock?

[deswalker] 27/3/2008 09:28

There's the confirmation. 250k at 19.5.

Edit: Treasury shares now over 11%. Imagine they'll be cancelling some in due course.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 26/3/2008 17:48

Hopefully we'll get a trading update at the end of this month. I take some heart from the fact they think it's worth buying in 10k of stock, suggests the results aren't going to be a disaster otherwise why bother?

Hopefully we'll see turnover up and underlying profitability up but I wonder if headline profit won't be affected by the cost of expanding the business?

At least they're doing something with the cash.

[deswalker] 26/3/2008 17:40

Arthur,

My "dot" post earlier was to say that it looked like the company had stepped off the bid prior to the half-year end until the interims in May, but by the time I'd written it the 19p bid came back so I deleted my post.

Hopefully another buyback.

Des

[poacher45] 26/3/2008 17:31

I am still here Arthur but I am glad I am not in Lupus.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 26/3/2008 17:22

It looks like the company may have bought back another 250k, maybe more. Bloomberg are showing two trades of 250k and a cross of 250k but total volume of only 500k.

I wondered why the price dropped to 17.5 earlier, it looks like somebody wanted out. Anybody going to own up?

[arthur_lame_stocks] 22/3/2008 21:04

I think they're going to have to be a bit more aggressive if they're going to get stock in any size.

Could this suggest we're in for good news in the results, the fact that they're chasing small blocks of stock before the period end?

It'd be nice to think so but then this is Leeds Group...

[deswalker] 20/3/2008 17:19

Company buys back 20k shares at 19.5p

[deswalker] 17/3/2008 12:10

Company buys back 10k shares at 19.5p. Huge deal :0)

[deswalker] 13/3/2008 16:57

Yes, couldn't believe my eyes. As you say I guess it's the company looking for stock.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 13/3/2008 16:49

Is that really a slight tick up in the price today of all days?

Perhaps the company are going to buy in some more stock prior to the year end and have got fed waiting for sellers.

We'll see.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 12/2/2008 23:16

Well Hemmers made an operating profit of 917k last year, after charging 90k of goodwill and after absorbing extra costs in trying to win their old competitors business.

If they double the business as they plan then assuming margins say the same and they might actually increase a bit thanks to economies of scale so in a couple of year they may be looking at making an operating profit of 2.2m a year.

After charging interest of perhaps 200k a year they could be making a pre tax profit of 2m a year.

40% tax (I think that's the rate Hemmers pay) would leave them making 1.2m net or about 4p a share.

The land could be worth another 6p as a bonus and the holding company has cash of 12p a share.

It's not hard to see substantial value in these in the future.

It could all go wrong though.