Marston's Share Discussion Threads

[iaincc] 06/8/2018 16:25

I think a property value crash would force the hand of management.

Not sure if the banks will be happy to fund 4 times the equity.....

[janekane] 06/8/2018 14:24

Change direction stop building more pubs sell off unprofitable ones and start selling the land bank
Pay off the lease deals ,this will take time but will move us north
Get a new CEO with a different work plan

[illiswilgig] 06/8/2018 11:30

I am far from convinced that there is any quick fix or financial engineering that city whizz kids can apply to get Marstons share price motoring upwards. More likely to end up with it tanking downwards. Even faster. Though it might provide a quick spike for shareholders to exit - if they are quick enough - and others want to buy.

Greene King is doing a great job of showing just how difficult it is right now to extract the benefits of mergers in a declining market with an oversupply of outlets and a fairly difficult economic outlook.

That's not to say that Marston's won't succeed and the share price recover dramatically, just that it doesn't seem the most likely outcome to me at the moment.

cheers

[dinvester] 05/8/2018 13:14

JaneKane. I agree.

[janekane] 04/8/2018 05:31

The board need to put pressure on the CEO to change the work formular
The city is not happy with the build and then lease out for 25-40 years of these pubs
The problem being no one can foresee the future it's flawed
The biggest shareholders should also put pressure on the CEO to change or go

[spacecake] 03/8/2018 11:15

And... not a activist investor insight. The large holders are happy bunnies, those that aren't can sell the shares.

[jeffian] 03/8/2018 09:57

Hmmm! Not sure about C&C. They've had plenty of problems of their own.

[chrisdgb] 03/8/2018 08:22

A reminder of the Telegraph in June:

Pub chain Marston’s could solve its “Gordian knot” by striking a merger deal with Magners owner C&C, City analysts have speculated.

An all-share merger between the pair would solve Marston’s problem of “balancing debt, dividend and capital investment”, Shore Cap argued in recent research notes.

With an equity raise “out of the equation” at its current value, Marston’s should explore merger and acquisition options to address decade-old concerns over its balance sheet and cash flow, analyst Greg Johnson explained.

Marston’s has shed a fifth of its value in the last year – its share price recently slipping back to levels around 2012 – and management have pinned hopes on World Cup fever driving drinkers to pubs after trading in the first half of the year was hit by poor weather.

City analysts believe that the pressure on the pub should begin to ease if cost pressures from the weakened pound begin to fade and the squeeze on consumers continues to lift.

[chrisdgb] 03/8/2018 08:16

This is horrible, the management need to be looking at some corporate developments to get this price going somewhere..........

[11_percent] 02/8/2018 22:42

Post from the VLG BB.

-----------
redartbmud
30 Jul '18 - 08:45 - 20062 of 20118
0 2 0
attrader

I could write a thesis on Mars, and how not to run a business.
It would take a long time to explain, but.
1. Management poor and obscenely overpaid.
2. Older pubs in the wrong sector, under-performing and many closed.
3. New pubs based on low margin, poor quality, cheap but, even at those prices, overpriced and poor quality food.
4. Huge securitised debt pile that they cannot pay down.
5. Dividend cover thin.
6. Their refurb programme, for each new pub, likely to be £1m every 7 years.
7. Messing about with lodges, next to pubs, on the Premier Inn model.
8. Keep changing how they report sectors, so that you cannot compare like for like.
9. Bought up breweries consistently, and supply supermarkets on a highly competitive brutal price controlled market.
10. Never see any positive returns from advertising campaigns, but look at the size of competitors in the beer market.
11. Better opportunities, in other players, in an overcrowded market, who are better placed.
12. Spend by customers, in the sector, is declining.

Just a couple of negatives.

red

[careful] 02/8/2018 15:46

once you demonstrate that you are mega generous with the CEO's renumeration package,
you will always be in demand.

some hold several non exec positions.

[llef] 02/8/2018 15:23

yep, its a sellers market if you are female and a non-exec director...

[mr_spock] 02/8/2018 15:14

There's no indication that the directors are bailing out. Two Mars non-execs are also taking up non-exec posts with other companies. Nothing unusual about that.
You could argue that it's good that MARS non-execs are in demand.

[jeffian] 02/8/2018 15:07

I think this shows a grasp of corporate affairs right up there with the '41 Directorships' fiasco.

[careful] 02/8/2018 14:55

are these non execs leaving or just picking up more cushy little numbers.

they usually do about 1 day per month, good pay and expenses.
All they need to do is to be sound and make sure the CEO is over paid.

if they leaving in droves we get that nervous CLLN feeling.

[illiswilgig] 02/8/2018 14:37

yep, I am Confused too. Which directors bailing out?

cheers

[gswredland] 02/8/2018 13:44

Directors bailing out??

[janekane] 02/8/2018 13:37

The directors are bailing out do they have inside information we don't
What's the saying about rats and ships
It's not that I can't remember the saying ,it's the very thought that worries me

[aleman] 02/8/2018 11:58

Small and mid cap income shares have been getting clobbered by rising savings rates and their own natural cyclical nature - mature companies that often grow by debt-driving acquisition. They tend to lead the wider market's interest rate cycle and suggest recession is coming, as do flattening yield curves. Be careful if you think $ earnings will save you since US small and mid caps are seeing quite a lot of warnings, too, and a few bigger US companies have warned this week - it's only tech stocks carrying the market there.

The rest of the large caps only carry the day while they can squeeze small and mid caps and they start to fall when they run out of suppliers and costs to squeeze. There is some evidence that profit warnings are spreading to larger companies and not just in the UK. Some emerging markets are in turmoil. I'd say we are going into a global slowdown because everyone is struggling with rising costs. They are all announcing reduced capex and cost cutting - that is what causes recessions once the early signs of consumers tightening wallets feeds through. (UK personal insolvencies were up 27% in Q2, back to 2008 levels as they hit the end of the borrowing line.) The job losses follow. Yield curves are flattening for a reason and central bankers are stupid for ignoring them and raising rates while hitting reverse on QE. The UK has just followed the Fed in going one rate rise too far. Our 30-year bond yield of 1.80% is asking for rate cuts and the US curve is flatter than ours. Things are deteriorating around the world and the US is only riding a temporary boost from Trump tax cuts which are already starting to generate a deficit hangover.

[tim 3] 02/8/2018 11:43

Good post ccNever has it been more true that a share is only worth what people will pay for it at any given time.

[123trev] 02/8/2018 11:35

Don’t start collecting this stock just yet because it will fall further.

[123trev] 02/8/2018 11:34

Well you have to look at the companies that make up the FTSE I would have thought and look at the biggest members to see what their doing!

[cc2014] 02/8/2018 11:33

I subscribe to the so many under-priced shares as well.

FTSE is full of large companies with foreign earnings, which given state of cable makes them look attractive. Many oil but HSBA as well.

If you believe Brexit gets sorted cable will move, dollar earnings will stay the same but FTSE will fall. So, I'm avoiding those having sold out all my oil far too early about a year ago.

I have lots of UK focused stocks and these are just falling and falling until the dividend yield is getting crazy. I appreciate bond yields are going up so this makes high yielding shares look less attractive but the balance is too far out.

However, with savings rates at an all time low, less and less money pours into the stock market (pensions aside) so it's all a matter of demand and supply I guess.

I consider a 8% yield pretty fantastic but clearly if no-one wants to buy as they would rather spend their money on a house, a car or living in the moment and don't have money left over to invest in a simple savings account never mind the stock market that's where we are.

All the speculative money is going into crypto and P2P lending. Until that changes I'll be collecting stocks such as MARS and reinvesting dividends... Maybe I'm old fashioned...

[pj fozzie] 02/8/2018 11:18

Careful,

You write "I never remember seeing so many underpriced shares." - and I've seen similar sentiments expressed elsewhere. Yet the FTSE is in kissing distance of all time highs and other pundits are predicting the market is overheated and we're due another crash (trade wars/brexit/blah blah/etc).

How do you reconcile those two opposing views?

Cheers,
PJ