Media And Income Share Discussion Threads

[sageinthehills] 21/1/2002 14:49

I see that approx. 40% of MEI is held by :-

Aberdeen
Exeter
BFS

surely, it would be in the interests of all if these groups pumped in funds to form a support portfolio - to see MEI out of trouble.......

[sageinthehills] 21/1/2002 14:41

surely, it would be in the clients best interest, the fund managers best interest, & the directors best interest --- to diversify the portfolio to improve the immediate groth potential, & thus avoid danger.......

[redsonning] 21/1/2002 11:35

I see the small buyers are tempted out again this morning at 6p. But you are all paying too much. The Ords NAV will most likely drop below zero over the next few days.

[redsonning] 18/1/2002 23:18

Prefs now down to 3.7p - the sound of this trust creaking is audible.

[redsonning] 18/1/2002 12:22

I wouldn't argue roughly with your estimates, although people will no doubt continue to speculate on the situation whenever there are brighter market periods which may result in some spurious attempts to display life!. But as you correctly indicate it would be quite a while before there is any real underlying improvement in the Ords asset backing. Additionally there is quite a serious danger that the trust may get pretty well forced into returning some of its cash to the bank so as to reduce the gearing more permenantly (this has already happened to several trusts which were in similar difficult positions). The effect of this would be to reduce the gross income which the trust can generate, and also to make it harder still for the Ords to ever recover any asset value.
By the way as of yesterday even the prefs were in danger of running out of assets. They were quoted at under 5p of assets, which means they would go under zero with as little as about half a percent slippage in the total gross asset value of the trust.

[sageinthehills] 17/1/2002 11:19

would it be reasonably fair to assume that MEI ords. will start to pick up once FTSE ( lacking any other overall indicator ) goes up past 5,500 ?
(ie, the point where the ord.s. plummeted from on the way down )

ok, I know we need to take the additional cash mountain into account, which has replaced some equity, & some will have been paid out in divs; but I suppose I should raise the trigger to nearer 5,800 - depending on what the underlying equity portfolio currently consists of.....any one know ??

[redsonning] 14/1/2002 10:20

300 thousand Ords offloaded at 3 pence this morning by somebody. As I say, there are still people trying to get out of this one! For anyone keen to buy I should think the market makers would be happy to pass on some of those at 6p - nice work if you can get it!

[redsonning] 11/1/2002 12:00

mali7 - I suggest that you take a good look back over the discussion which took place earlier in this thread. This has discussed in some detail the structure of the trust etc. But briefly to re-state, many people looking at this seem to make the mistake of reading the Pref Incs NAV (latest 34.04 pence) instead of the Ordinary NAV which is .... ZERO. In fact the Ords are effectively some way below zero, since any increase in assets which the trust accrues at present will simply continue to enhance the Pref Incs asset value. At the same time the Zeros keep accruing entitlement, and the bank loan keeps accruing interest. Therefore the price of the Ords is simply reflecting rising and falling speculation that the trust might do well enough in due course to recover the poor position for the Ordinary shares. Additionally as we know from the last dividend announcement the trust is now in a difficult position as regards the continuing payment of dividends, and it remains to be seen what happens in this respect in future.
Lastly, the large spread is common in this sort of situation - there are very few shares being traded and the market makers are not prepared to buy the stock (ie Bid) at anything like the sort of price which some speculators are buying (ie Offer) since they have some greater concept of the risks than certain other traders. Obviously the market makers do not want to risk getting caught with large lumps of this stock on their books in case the situation should deteriorate further, and therefore they tend to keep the Bid very low to discourage sellers, but as you can see from the trades, even around this very low Bid price there are still people trying to get out of the Ords of this stock!!
It is certainly unclear whether the time will ever be right on this one!

[mali7] 10/1/2002 22:07

anyway could anybody explain the falls although high NAV, and why the spread is so large.

[mali7] 10/1/2002 22:03

redsoning right said, the higher risk the higher reward.
For info. I have no shares in this company but maybe when time is right.

[novision] 07/1/2002 23:38

I understand - was just interested in your thoughts - no sweat

Hope they go well for you.

[redsonning] 06/1/2002 18:50

Novision - Sorry to be cagey here but I’m really not very keen to give this kind of information away. As I think you already know I tend to be a fundamentalist in terms of the analysis of these types of situations, and I believe that I make most money from the buying decision. To that extent I am one of the world’s worst bears – by which I mean that the lower the price of a good stock goes, the more prospect there is of making good money from buying it. As a fundamentalist I have no need to talk good stocks up; they do this for themselves over time. The longer and deeper is their bear period the better I like it since I have more time to accumulate them. The other factor involved here is that I tend to be interested in stocks which are not very liquid, and to that extent even a very few buyers can start moving the price up before I would prefer to see it beginning to rise. It is very different from, for example, saying that I like Marks & Spencer where my particular view cannot have any measurable effect at all on the trading price – I do believe that people take notice of what I say here and to that extent I have no wish to shoot myself in the foot.
On the other hand I do think that you, of all correspondents, have learned a lot from our exchanges and you are actually well equipped to find your own stocks from this knowledge (most people, no names mentioned, are too lazy too do much real research and would rather rely on punting). Furthermore it is absolutely in your own interest and long term benefit to do the research yourself and find your own stocks – there are plenty of opportunities and the relative buying position is changing almost daily, so that there is no simple answer to what is the best buy at any particular moment. Also personal risk profiles differ enormously and the best judge of your own risk profile is yourself.
Sorry if this is not what you were looking for, but I hope you will respect my reasoning.

[redsonning] 04/1/2002 12:44

SpikkyMikky - It's wonderful to see your optimism in full flow (although one might be tempted to think you have acquired some of these and are trying to talk the price up). Unfortunately your predictions are not going to be delivered (even if you are substantially correct on the FTSE recovery). You continue to display a lack of understanding about what this is really all about, but then so many people seem to want money for no work. These Ords are going nowhere. However I can tell you that if you are right and I am wrong then I will be a very rich man indeed, since I have some alternative selections which will do far better than this one if there is a market recovery. Anyway to anyone who wants to follow Spikky... good luck!

[novision] 04/1/2002 11:33

redsonning - agree re SM's views - what do you like in this field?

[spikkymikky] 03/1/2002 10:14

Market will be back on its feet in April 2002, and MEI will practically flatline until then. Next div is also due in April 2002 sometime and it will be full and paid as the FSTE would have moved up as markets recover from the bottom this Jan/Feb). In March 2002 (correction) MEI will move up to 31.25p. The move will be in large increments and the spread will narrow as liquidity improves.

[spikkymikky] 03/1/2002 10:11

Market will be back on its feet in April 2002, and MEI will practically flatline until then. Next div is also due in April 2002 sometime and it will be full and paid as the FSTE would have moved up as markets recover from the bottom this Jan/Feb). In March 2001 MEI will move up to 31.25p. The move will be in large increments and the spread will narrow as liquidity improves.

[emmanuelclave] 02/1/2002 08:48

Nice little jump today

[redsonning] 27/12/2001 10:25

Good morning all. There seem to be one or two people getting excited over this again (not quite sure why!!) Does anyone want to own up to it and explain your thinking?

[redsonning] 24/12/2001 18:25

The only way the Ords of this trust will move up in any sizable chunks is if the market stages a sizable rally. I would think we need to see around another 4-500 points on the FTSE before there is much prospect of any real underlying asset value getting back into the Ords. However a smaller rise in the market say 300 would uderpin the overall dividend paying ability of the trust, and this in itself would be supportive of the Ords.
However all in all I agree with your last sentence at this stage of affairs!
Merry Christmas!

[novision] 23/12/2001 12:16

I agree it would be a very speculative buy at 4p - but then I wouldn't put any more than I was prepared to lose on it. The spread is an issue but if it moves at all it is likely to be in big chunks rather than small increments, don't you think?

( But to be honest I think I'll be looking elsewhere until the market improves. )

[redsonning] 22/12/2001 17:07

Personally I would not be buying this at 4p, although I do understand that some others take a more speculative approach than I do. You might make a bit of money if the movements go right for you, as Novision has demonstrated. However, the spread on the share is too large for my liking to make this a practical proposition, and I think the odds are stacked against you with this. However I shall continue to follow Novision's gut feelings with great interest!

[redsonning] 22/12/2001 12:04

Nothing too strange here - just the arithmetic of split caps at work.
Firstly, I presume you refer to the Prefs - as you see from the daily NAV release the Ords have no assets at all to their credit.
So far as the Prefs are concerned, there is a small amount of the trusts assets (about £1.7m as of yesterday) covering 11.1m Prefs, giving an NAV for the Prefs of about 15p per Pref.
The Zeros have around 108p per share made up of about £30m of the trusts assets.
The rest of the trusts assets is spoken for by the bank.
So the total assets of over £130m has only to fall a little way for the Prefs assets to be wiped out to add to the woes of the Ords.
Since there is not much headroom over the bank loan, the bank is wanting to see a good proportion of the assets kept in cash.
All in all a pretty sorry state of affairs.

[novision] 22/12/2001 01:12

timing is.......................everything with this share.

Buy at 4p?




....maybe