Moss Bros Share Discussion Threads

[confucius1] 31/10/2006 15:06

100p most likely.

edit: from respectable source

[bletherer] 30/10/2006 21:47

Thanks for that, Mike. The news seems to have been worth a few % on the share price today but I agree with you that it's a bit discouraging if true. MOSB was above 85p less than 6 months ago and although summer trading was a bit disappointing it wasn't catastrophic. If the news is true it suggests that current trading must be pretty dismal, as I can't see how the board could recommend an offer of less than £1 on the basis of what we currently know about the business. If Baugur are trying to get it for even less than 85p I'd have thought the response should be to tell them where they can go.

Edit - just spotted the "no comment" response from the company about the reports. Bit surprised as while politicians can get away with that I thought companies were usually obliged to confirm or deny if news leaks out and the share price starts moving. The form of wording used suggests to me there is something going on; let's hope then that the Mail has got some of its facts wrong.

[mikepompeyfan] 30/10/2006 18:29

Here you go. I had to dig deep to find this article. I'm not too impressed by it. An £80m offer by my reckoning would only be worth about 85p per share. I'd want a special dividend payment on top of that !

Icelanders eye up Moss Bros
By Lauren Mills
ICELANDIC retail raider Baugur is in talks with struggling menswear group Moss Bros in a bid to take over the company in which it holds a sizeable stake.
Baugur already owns close to 30 per cent of the company through Unity, the £1 billion investment vehicle it formed with Icelandic investment company FL Group and British retail entrepreneur Kevin Stanford.
He is playing a pivotal role in negotiating the deal. In July, he transferred his 28.2 per cent stake in Moss Bros into Unity to strengthen Baugur's bargaining position. Stanford still owns 6.5 per cent of the company.
Gunnar Sigurdsson, head of Baugur's UK division, has held a series of meetings over the past weeks with the Moss Bros board, led by chairman Keith Hamill.
While Hamill is understood to be prepared to recommend an offer of close to £80 million, Baugur believes that overvalues the company, which has a stock market value of £69 million.

[bletherer] 29/10/2006 11:19

Mail_on_Sunday is suggesting that Baugur is in takeover talks with Moss Bros, apparently. I've just seen it as a news digest item so if anyone has the article I'd be interested to hear more. Let's see if that helps the share price on Monday.

[confucius1] 27/10/2006 08:58

poor ol confucius indeed...and getting poorer;-) still long.

[badtime] 25/10/2006 17:41

gawd..poor ol confus..wonder if he closed his long n went short the stock wud zoom up :)

[bletherer] 25/10/2006 17:33

To be honest I'm at a loss to explain what all this pinging up and down on low volume is about. Hope the whipsaw is not hurting you too much, confucius. Personally I'm just holding my long position until it becomes clearer what is going on and why.

[bletherer] 19/10/2006 17:09

No idea what caused the end-of-day buying but the stock has now made a clear break above the downward sloping trendline of the last year and a half. There's still the declining tops line formed from the two peaks this year to take out (cutting at about 85p now) but at the very least it looks as if the downtrend is weakening. Confucius, hope you closed that short (and ignored my advice on AXN, which has rallied even harder in recent days...).

[bletherer] 16/10/2006 17:42

confucius - maybe you should try your luck with AXN instead, as their recent trading performance is much worse than MOSB's, and the share price is in a much clearer downtrend (perhaps the two are connected!). Personally I am long both as I like the dividends and balance sheets and think prospects in the sector must improve at some point in the next few years. Short-term, though, there could easily be more downside.

[confucius1] 12/10/2006 11:14

I've gone short - rating too high.

[bletherer] 11/9/2006 21:59

Nice recovery recently but unfortunately the next 6p is likely to be a lot harder than the last 6. We are now back at the declining tops line and should MOSB manage to hurdle that it would still have the June/July peaks and the 200 day MA to take out. It has never managed a close above the 200 day MA since the falls early last year so a move back to 82.5p at this stage would IMO be an early sign of a big turnaround in prospect. I suspect we will need some good news (or at least a good rumour) before that comes about, though.

[meenan] 09/8/2006 09:20

Well, Times today recommends a hold and up the share goes. Was going to sell my Corus and buy in but wasn't fast enough to catch this bounce/rise!

Moss Bros

ANYONE who has rented a dinner jacket is familiar with the journey to a Moss Bros store. The menswear retailer, which also trades under brands such as Cecil Gee and Savoy Taylors Guild, claims to be the leader in the UK hire market, with a 25 per cent share.

Royal Ascot and an increase in the number of people wearing morning suits provide Moss Bros with a solid customer base. However, figures out yesterday showed that sales had turned negative. The company blamed the hot weather and the impact of the football World Cup, which it said had cost it £1.1 million in lost sales. Utility and rent costs were up 6.6 per cent on a like-for-like basis, double its usual increase.

Philip Mountford, the chief executive, said that the poor trading was only a blip. The company trades at 12 times prospective earnings, a slight discount to the sector. The shares have halved since February and may fall farther in the short term, but this is a well-run company that is 28 per cent owned by an investment vehicle partly owned by Baugur, the Icelandic group. Hold.

[bletherer] 30/7/2006 10:59

Telegraph's "equity view" recommending a sell today. Hot weather, World Cup, possible increased competition from M&S...

[mikepompeyfan] 02/7/2006 11:31

Here's a copy. Let's hope it makes for a lively share price tomorrow.

Moss Bros Group FL confirms launch of UK retail venture with Baugur, Kevin Stanford
LONDON (AFX) - FL Group hf said it is launching an investment vehicle,
called Unity Investments ehf, together with fellow Icelandic investment firm
Baugur to take strategic stakes in listed companies, in particular within the UK
retail sector.
The statement confirmed British press reports from yesterday.
Unity will be owned 37.5 pct by FL Group, 37.5 pct by Baugur Group and 25
pct by retail entrepreneur Kevin Stanford.
This decision comes after the successful investment by these parties in
Marks & Spencer earlier this year, FL said.
The consortium members have transferred stakes in several retail players to
Unity, including 20 pct in French Connection, 28.5 pct in Moss Bros Group, and
12 pct in Woolworths.
Baugur, FL Group and Stanford will have no remaining direct interest in
these companies, FL added.
[e-mail]
lam

[loafofbread] 29/6/2006 08:19

Advfn news feed this am. Sorry no time to find/post it.

[corrientes] 29/6/2006 08:15

Source please.

[loafofbread] 29/6/2006 08:10

Looks like the deal between Kevin S and our man from Iceland has created a bit of interest. £1B to spend in our high street!!!

[corrientes] 23/6/2006 16:40

Very erratic movements over the last few days.

[mikepompeyfan] 22/6/2006 17:40

Can anyone explain exactly what the significence of today's news item about the two warehouses is please ? I can see the price is up a bit but am not sure why.

[corrientes] 31/5/2006 11:10

Yes,very well indeed.

[bletherer] 25/5/2006 18:25

I note that Alexon's trading update, released the same day, showed a 5.7% like-for-like drop. In the circumstances Moss Bros is really holding on very well.

[bletherer] 25/5/2006 16:43

Much better finish after an ugly looking first half of the day. Was anybody at the AGM and if so did anything extra/more positive come out to account for the recovery in the second half of the day?

[bletherer] 25/5/2006 09:56

Delayed reaction to the AGM statement - unfortunately appears to be down. Hardly surprising as the report of continuing "challenging conditions" is hardly going to get people rushing to buy. Like-for-likes still up rather than down, though, so nothing disastrous.

[bletherer] 12/5/2006 10:57

Thanks for the link, Mike. Well spotted.