Mccoll's Retail Share Discussion Threads

[spectoacc] 07/1/2020 09:14

Morrisons results - rather like McColl's recently - were fairly poor, LFL drops everywhere. Everywhere, except, convenience.

So on the one hand, probably not strong enough to move on MCLS yet. On the other, plenty of potential to in a year or two.

I'd quite like to see a halfway house at some point - eg MRW taking a stake, with shares issued at a premium, in order to also reduce MCLS debt levels. Just a thought.

[loganair] 07/1/2020 09:09

Just to confirm - Morrisons to convert 20 McColl’s stores in two months:

Morrisons is to trial its Morrisons Daily fascia at a further 20 McColl’s convenience stores over January and February. The move comes after it began a trial in February last year at 10 McColl’s stores in the North West, which also saw the stores sell Morrisons' own-label products. McColl’s signed a deal with Morrisons for the supermarket chain to supply its convenience stores in January 2018.

[loganair] 07/1/2020 08:40

Makes a lot of sense for McColl's to have waited for the ex-Co-op stores to come on line from being supplied by Nisa, as on the whole these stores are larger then most of the existing McColl's stores.

[spectoacc] 07/1/2020 07:27

"Sales at the first ten conversions from McColl's to Morrisons Daily convenience stores are strong, and together we plan to extend the trial to another c.20 stores during January and February to further tailor and test the proposition as we begin to transition McColl's remaining ex-Co-op stores to Morrisons wholesale supply. "

[sentimentrules] 30/12/2019 21:49

To be honest I don't know the fundamental situation. What I said was purely flow based and certainly , without fundamental view, can't suggest anything beyond a quarter

Might be better value say, for buyers to compound a bit later than soon, in the year

As for the longer term, could be a gold nugget. No idea. Just a case of where the value isn't for the very near term re at this price to compound

Needless to say could be very wrong . Only a brief look on alert

[cleverinvestor] 30/12/2019 21:47

Cliff Edge

Patience is the virtue. Its a recovery play.

I bought recently pre trading statement and sold at a small loss. I will be back in again pre preliminary results in Feb.
It just need a bit of spark just like PETS. Buyers waiting in the wings.

[cliff edge] 30/12/2019 21:24

It would be interesting to know what the mix of sales in the 10 Morrisons Daily trial stores is, my guess is that they are not over indexed on sweets, papers and tobacco?
They should know by now as this has been the longest trial in the history of mankind with no published results?

[loganair] 30/12/2019 20:58

McColl's have acknowledged their biggest problem at the moment is how around 50% of their sales are currently in low margin News, Chocolate and tobacco while less then 40% of their sales revenues are in the much higher margin foods and alcohol.

The company said they are slowly, most probably too slowly addressing this problem as they wish to reduce the percentage of News, Chocolate and tobacco to only 30% of revenue by sales.

Half of this reduction will come from the continuing closing of their newsagents and smaller stores when their leases expire.

[sbb1x] 30/12/2019 20:52

Very interesting post, I'm watching this for the rerate.

[cliff edge] 30/12/2019 17:04

No one lost more than the CEO himself who saw his holding of 11,399,500 shares fall from a peak of £2.95 to todays 38p a loss of £29m, despite this he increased his holding by 250,000 shares on the 5/9/19 to 11,649,500. Another big loser was Aberforth partners Mc Colls largest shareholder who lost a similar amount, they also increased their holding by 1m shares to 14,534,277 shares 12.6% on 25/9/19. I am down £60k here personally but I am not concerned, and I have also increased my holding by £10k. This stock is totally misunderstood and grossly undervalued IMO, this company is the only listed Convenience store group on the stock market and as such gets sucked into high street "sentiment" and supermarket competition from discounters and the increase of online shopping effect, when in reality none of these factors really apply to what is essentially a local neighbourhood store group. All of the other Convenience store groups have already been snapped up by the supermarket groups ie, Tesco, Sainsburys etc. Morrison currently the worst sales performing supermarket are being squeezed and are in need of a sustainable growth channel, well here it is!

[harry3021] 27/12/2019 10:23

anyone in here who believes in this company who has lost a lot (and still believes that it will turnaround?). I've just dipped my toe by buying a few shares but I'm wary as the vast majority who got into this ended losing money.

[cliff edge] 22/12/2019 20:06

Mc Colls also currently have a portfolio of 7 profitable petrol filling stations for sale, all of which are within a few miles of a Morrisons filling station.

[loganair] 22/12/2019 15:37

At the moment McColl's are opening 1 new store for every 10 smaller loss making stores they're closing. Each new store is on average 70% bigger with 2.7 times the turn over compared to the size of the stores they are closing.

Around 75% of the stores they are closing are newsagents while the other 25% are the smaller poorly performing stores.

There maybe a need for McColl's to keep open 50 or so of their newsagents in out of the way country areas and tourist spots where there are generally no other stores and therefore no real competition in the local area.

[cliff edge] 22/12/2019 15:18

Mc Colls closed 41 Newsagents and "smaller" Convenience stores by the half year stage this year, a figure that I would expect to be around 100 for the full year and conversely opened a handful of "larger" Convenience stores as it continues to reshape the estate with an emphasis firmly upon retaining and acquiring the larger units more suited to conversion to fresh food Convenience stores. It makes sense to me to either sell off or close, when no longer profitable, the stores that do not fit the above criteria, rather than just close them for the sake of saying they no longer exist.
Personally think that the next few months could be interesting, as MRW takeover full supply.

[loganair] 22/12/2019 12:28

GlobalData analyst Thomas Breton said McColl's was on the right path to recovery, but was moving along that path 'too slowly'.

'While McColl's has identified areas it must improve in – such as increasing its sales mix of food and alcohol from its current low base of 35 per cent – it has been sluggish in reducing its dependency on tobacco, news and confectionery,' he said.

McColl's admitted that it remains "over-indexed" in declining sweets and chocolate categories, along with news.

What Thomas Breton seems to be saying is that McColl's still have far too many newsagents and are not closing them quick enough.

It seems to me that McColl's only closes a newsagent when its lease runs out, rather then saying we're going to close 250 newsagents in one go and just be done with it. Most probably McColl's are closing the newsagents the way they are, when the leases run out as it is a more cost effective way of doing so.

Once a further 160 newsagents of the around 265 McColl's still currently has, have been closed which will take around 4 years, I can see the sales mix of food and alcohol rising to 50% plus.

What will also help next year is the nearly 300 shops brought from the Co-op, which are currently supplied by Nisa, will also be supplied by Morrison's which will help to lower costs having one single wholesaler supplying instead of two.

[loganair] 20/12/2019 20:12

Sentiment is really against McColl's at the moment and therefore would not be at all surprised to see the share price fall further down to 30p.

Damn...another one of these shares where I came in too early, started buying in at 89p, then 59p & with my biggest investment coming in at 46p.

As Warren Buffet has said that an investor should not be investing unless they are willing to see their investment go down by 50%, before going back up.

As long as debt continues to fall, even though it is only doing so slowly and they hold their dividend at 4p then I think everything is going to be alright in the end.

When McColl's first listed in 2014, 60% of their out lets were newsagents today this is down to less than 20% and by the end of 2020 will be down to under 15%.

[loganair] 20/12/2019 16:57

The RNS states date crossed was the 19th December.

Over the past few days I have not seen any large sells go through or even any large buys go through therefore this 457K reduction in his holdings may have been a private transaction between himself and another party.

[strutt12] 20/12/2019 16:30

I am wrong he held 13,118,391 and today it's 12,661,890.
The figures I'm quoting are total amount of shares in issue. I'll get my coat!
Sorry

[spectoacc] 20/12/2019 16:30

Presumably recently, and crossing a 1% threshhold, hence the (unclear) RNS.

[strutt12] 20/12/2019 16:21

Jaknife,

Can you explain to me please how you arrive at "him selling" when...

03/10/2017 Klarus Buys McColl's As Co-Founder Sells Up they held 115,172,774 shares

and today 20/12/2019 he holds 115,193,909?

[spectoacc] 20/12/2019 15:06

Year-end tax loss? It's not a clear Holdings RNS either.

Good luck if he wants to sell the rest into this market.