National World Share Discussion Threads

[red ninja] 22/11/2024 09:43

Red Army,

Agree it is a low ball offer.

I hope the funds invested in NWR are not desperate for a quick profit.

[red army] 22/11/2024 08:27

The offer is far too cheap as company had £13m in bank after 6 months this year likley to rise to £15m and profit likely to be around £12m at year end due to improved performance in second half as suggested by Chairman inc acquisition benefits and cost control .

[flyer61] 22/11/2024 08:24

Any chance of anyone else coming out of the woodwork for these?

[clanger66] 22/11/2024 07:17

Good timing by Rockwood.

[saltaire111] 22/11/2024 07:12

40% premium bid.

[red ninja] 19/11/2024 09:25

From Rockwood Strategic interim results :-

National World

For the very first time we have repurchased a previously realised investment. This will be a very rare occurrence. The company was formed via the purchase of the Johnston Press regional media assets from administration, shorn of debilitating debt and pension fund liabilities it had built up, by the media industry veteran David Montgomery. We initially invested in January 2021 at 10p. This investment was realised in March 2022 at 28.9p. Subsequently profits and sales have grown and a number of bolt-on acquisitions have been made. The market expects c. £100m of sales and £11m of profit in 2024 with net cash of c.£12m. Due to a small company fund wind-up process we were able to repurchase shares for 13.5p and we have subsequently increased our equity stake to over 5% of the company which was capitalised by the market at c.£40m at period end. On current market expectations, the shares were valued on an EV/Ebitda of 2.4x for their financial year 2025, at period end.

[red ninja] 01/11/2024 16:49

bingham,

You're right as a small cap. I thought they where AIM.
I'm not sure why they are not AIM as a smaller company the cost should be lower.

However, I've checked you are correct.

They are held by Rockwood Strategic who hold a lot of AIM shares, but obviously not all AIM.

[bingham] 01/11/2024 16:08

Red. I think you`l find that NWOR is not an AIM share.
I certainly got charged stamp duty on both my two purchases.

[red ninja] 01/11/2024 13:37

This must be one of the shares which gets very little attention on AIM.

Many see it as a value trap.

Still if they can maintain the 0.75 dividend they've payed in the last year.

It's a decent dividend payer and has cash ( £13.0 million) on the balance sheet.

[red ninja] 22/10/2024 21:44

Bought a few more today.

I’m hoping that NWOR can survive the Ni tax raid, new workers rights and CGT hit on investors.

Hopefully Labour won’t remove the AIM inheritance tax break assuming they don”t want to finish off the AIM market.

[rivaldo] 22/8/2024 11:26

Good to see a 0.5p move up after a 25k buy just now. Perhaps not much stock around.

[red ninja] 19/8/2024 19:03

2 x 500k unknown trades today that must have been the factor that presuambly raised the share price.

[flyer61] 19/8/2024 15:41

Bought more today....feel an uptick in the share price is seriously overdue.

Next results should surprise to the upside.

[napoleon 14th] 10/8/2024 10:17

Thanks, Rivaldo. Dowgate's assesment reads well too.
P/E c. 5.5 backed by progress ahead of expectations.
Only thing wrond is the share price!

[rivaldo] 08/8/2024 08:11

Dowgate Capital's update after the interims notes that the adjusted PBT was well ahead of expectations - £4.8m compared to the forecast £4.4m.

The £13m net cash - 30% of the entire m/cap - was also well ahead of the £10.5m forecast.

Here's their summary:

"Interim Results

National World has reported interim results that are ahead of our expectations and which underpin our FY24 forecasts. Group revenues advanced +17% to £48.8m (Q1 +19%, Q2 +16%) driven by acquisitions including Midlands News Association. Within this, we were encouraged to see strong growth in Digital (+12% to £10.0m) and a near doubling of Events (to £2.5m). The group continues to restructure its operating model, including an increase in automation.

Adjusted Operating Profit leapt +65% to £4.7m, comfortably ahead of DCe £4.2m, with margin expanding +2.6pts to 9.6%. Adjusted PBT increased +50% to £4.8m (DCe £4.4m) and Adjusted EPS rose +56% to 1.4p. The group declared an inaugural interim dividend of 0.2p, as forecast. It finished with net cash of £13.0m, ahead of DCe £10.5m.

We believe that National World continues to make strong progress in rebalancing its revenue streams, developing expert and specialist content (notably business and sport) and growing its national footprint. The group has been successful both in acquiring heritage assets and developing other revenue streams, notably in events. This has facilitated the evolution of the group to provide increasingly specialist content that can be monetised through multiple channels. Further, it is creating local digital marketplaces using the information gleaned from platform registration walls.

We view the H1 results as encouraging and they underpin our FY24 PBT/EPS estimates of £11.0m/3.0p. National World shares have been left behind compared with other B2C peers and we view them as anomalously valued at under 3x EV/EBITDA.

• H1 Results. Adjusted PBT rose +50% to £4.8m, ahead of DCe £4.4m.
• Revenues. Group revenues rose +17% to £48.8m with Q1 +19% and Q2 +16%. The six acquisitions completed in 2023 contributed £11.8m of revenue in H1 vs £2.0m in H1 last year. Print revenues rose +16% to £35.4m, Digital +12% to £10.0m and Other +48% to £3.4m, including Events revenues nearly doubling to £2.5m. Revenues in July are up +13% benefiting from acquisitions, new launches and heritage brand relaunches.
• Operating Profit. Adjusted Operating Profit rose +65% to £4.7m with margin expanding +2.6pts to 9.6%.
• Balance sheet. Net cash finished the period at £13.0m, equal to 5p per share. The group has no defined benefit pension obligations or earnouts.
• Forecasts. We view the encouraging H1 results as firmly underpinning our FY24 PBT/EPS estimates of £11.0m/3.0p."

[rivaldo] 07/8/2024 08:29

Cheers napoleon 14th, reads very well. The interims which were out whilst I was away on hols were excellent, with NWOR well on track to meeting and perhaps beating the 3p EPS forecast.

And the £13m cash pile represents 30% of the entire m/cap. With no pension liabilities, unlike RCH.

Also good to see an NED buying 30,000 shares after the results at 17.6p, well above the current share price.

And Harwood have been buying again - they're now up to 5.07% with 13.575m shares:

[napoleon 14th] 03/8/2024 11:55

Forensic analyst Small Caps Live writes very +ively:

National World (NWOR.L) - Half-Year Results. Strong results and outlook here:

"Revenues in July have increased by 13% year on year. The Company will continue to benefit in the second half from three key drivers - the acquired businesses, new launches and relaunches of heritage brands. Tight cost management remains a critical factor as in the whole sector.

Adjusted EBITDA of £5.0 million, up 61% and adjusted operating profit of £4.7 million, up 62%."

Not all of this is organic, where revenue is likely flat, if not down slightly. This would be much better than Reach, though, which they have an apparent dig at:

"The Company's primary focus is to build a sustainable and monetisable content business, embracing its news provision tradition but with a wider agenda across all platforms. This pivoting of the business has continued unabated despite the economic headwinds in the first half."

Broker Dowgate join in the Reach pile-on:

"Balance sheet. Net cash finished the period at £13.0m, equal to 5p per share. The group has no defined benefit pension obligations or earnouts."

They also say:

"We view the encouraging H1 results as firmly underpinning our FY24 PBT/EPS estimates of £11.0m/3.0p."

This is down from 3.1p but a very minor change. There is scope for their dividend forecast to be beaten, though, as National World has declared an interim dividend for the first time. They don’t say if they will reduce the final dividend accordingly but think there is a chance that this beats expectations for payout. The high dividend payout is one of the reasons some investors take the risk with Reach. However, fast forward a few years and Reach may be forced to cut theirs, given the weak balance sheet there, so National World may overtake their yield unless prices change to reflect the valuation disparity.

Like Reach, National World is a company that likes their adjustments, and for both companies, you could argue that restructuring is part of their business model, not a one-off item. Here, the figure has reduced to £ 0.6m from £1m, and the rest of the exceptional are goodwill write-downs, which we think is usually correct to adjust out,

So Mark would go for £4.1m operating profit, not the £4.7m declared, to be the true underlying, but this makes it still pretty much the cheapest UK trading company on an earnings basis.

So far, the share price rise has been modest, reflecting the confident but in-line outlook. However, this doesn’t even reverse the drop on no news that happened over the last month, presumably from boredom amongst smaller investors.

Running the numbers and assuming the restructuring costs are part of normal business and adjusting for cash, then this works out to be a P/E of 5.7 for FY24 and 5.1 for FY25 at the current buy price. On the same basis (and including agreed cash payments to the pension trustee), Reach is on 10.3x for a much riskier business that, in our opinion, is not run as well. We get the concerns with declining revenue and why some may want to avoid the sector, but it seems nonsensical that investors would prefer Reach in the sector on double the rating.

[gasheadmicky] 01/8/2024 06:47

positive statement but mostly seems to be 'in line' as saucepan says which is usually news that doesn't lead to a decent increase in the share price, all good news longer term though.

[saucepan] 01/8/2024 06:23

Pleasing interim results, including a maiden dividend and a strong balance sheet. Management sound bullish, despite sticking to "in line" forecasts for the full year.

[thebd11] 31/7/2024 11:15

Got a first meeting with David, Sheree and Mark next week. Any specific questions people have for management do share....

[rivaldo] 23/7/2024 13:11

Has to be good news for NWOR - Google has just shelved its plans to kill cookies for advertisers:

[saadia110] 28/6/2024 11:35

Today seems to be a significant day for buying.

[rivaldo] 26/6/2024 09:27

Yep, great to see the esteemed Christopher Harwood/Rockwood buying in and now with over 4%, or 10.77m shares.