Lsl Property Services Share Discussion Threads

[theoriginalface] 06/1/2009 12:15

how is this company worth £70m??

[domwilliams] 23/12/2008 11:28

At least the company secretary and in-house lawyer is able to make use of her time with some outside interests:

[domwilliams] 23/12/2008 11:23

Will be interesting to see how these divisional numbers from November's IMS stack up for the full year:

Turnover for the ten months ended 31 October 2008 compared with the same period in 2007 was as follows:

- Group turnover for the period was down by 22.4%

- Surveying turnover was down by 6.4%

- Estate Agency and Financial Services turnover was down by 33.3%




Not much business can have been occurring over the last two months of the year as the Guardian story above states. Overheads will be hurting LSL in this environment with little revenue to be made.

[davidosh] 23/12/2008 11:04

Not only new mortgages down but remortgages too. That means very few surveys to be done and valuations. What will the army of LSL surveyors be doing ?

[davidosh] 19/12/2008 15:28

This non exec did not stick around very long and the fact that he had a new job at the West Brom BS is a lame excuse as most non execs have full time jobs.



I doubt he wanted to be linked to any headaches further down the line

[domwilliams] 18/12/2008 12:54

LSL issued a pre-close trading update on 3 January 2008 (with results late-Feb) so hopefully will do so again in two weeks time.

I'm not sure how they called it a pre-close update either!

[davidosh] 18/12/2008 12:48

The director buying was the only thing that I could see that spooked a few maybe. When is the next reporting date ? IMS maybe

[theoriginalface] 18/12/2008 12:44

It can surely only be short covering. I am amazed it has a market cap of £65m. It is now loss making and has net assets of c£38m including intangibles of £105m. I fully expect goodwill write offs with the next results. Wouldn't be suprised to see a placing/rights issue sometime soon give the gearing levels also.

[domwilliams] 18/12/2008 12:29

More short closures going on today - anyone have a view on this? I thought it was short-closures before though when it popped up to 52p but it didn't slip back.

[theoriginalface] 26/11/2008 12:18

can only imagine its someone closing out short positions, maybe prior to december expiry? or a forced close?

[domwilliams] 26/11/2008 12:09

Not a lot of volume reported yet - anyone know why this may have spiked up?

[theoriginalface] 26/11/2008 10:45

another good selling opportunity presenting itself here i see

[davidosh] 14/11/2008 10:15

The surveying division will be living off a few remortgage valuations and repossesssion work as buying has dried up to just one or two purchases per week via agents....that must be a workload down by 75% or so. I will be surprised if they are not reducing headcount as no likely tick up until 2010

[theoriginalface] 14/11/2008 09:22

The interesting thing about the statement was how poorly the surveying division has performed in the last few months.

At the interim stage surveying turnover was up by 12% yet at the 10 month stage it is down by 6%.

I guess its a question of like for like, as at the interims the current year figures were including last years acquisitions, whereas last years comparatives weren't. However even including a part years current year effect in the last 4 months this does point to quite a downturn, especially as at the interim it was all about how well surveying was doing in the downturn!!

[domwilliams] 13/11/2008 15:53

Thanks for the tip-off, davidosh - just opened a short at 39.03 with Spreadex. If anyone is interested they still have 11,000 shares you can short against (at mid).

[davidosh] 13/11/2008 14:06

Just out of interest....Did Simon Embrey gain some payments or sell shares when the company floated ? Maybe he is re investing and now taking a larger share. I cannot see the outlook being better for a couple of years at least and the debt will be increasing.

Are the management expectations the same as market forecasts ??

[domwilliams] 13/11/2008 13:54

Thanks, tof - I'll check them out.

[theoriginalface] 13/11/2008 13:32

worldspreads

[domwilliams] 13/11/2008 13:31

Would love to get a short open on this again, especially as there looks to be a bit of short-closing following the CEO purchase. Does anyone know of a SB firm taking shorts on LSL?

[theoriginalface] 13/11/2008 13:28

Last time he bought shares was back in march and he was happy to pay £1.25 - £1.30 then.....talk about throwing good money after bad.

[theoriginalface] 12/11/2008 12:56

It should be noted that their estate agency and financial services divisions are loss making, at the interims they were down 25% and 13% down on turnover, making combined losses of £5.2m.

Now after 10 months of the year these divisions turnover is down by 33.3%, so its safe to say there is no turnaround there in performance or profitability.

In the annual report it can be seen that these divisions have a combined goodwill attributable to them of £61m, this is without worrying about impaired intangibles.

The company has net assets of £38m at the interims stage, and has more likely than not been loss making since then. A significant write down of goodwill would virtually wipe out all of these assets.

[theoriginalface] 12/11/2008 09:28

difficulty for them is that their assets comprise mainly intangibles, which will be impaired in their next annual accounts given the outlook for the foreseeable future. depending on the level of impairment this could leave the balance sheet in a very poor condition.

certainly given that lsl won't turn a profit this year and its assets are largely worthless its hard to justify its value at the moment.