Nb Private Equity Partners Share Discussion Threads

[ali47fish] 15/6/2022 07:29

dont know why but i find rns not easy to understand- you dont get a clear message whether is good, bad or indifferent- what is specifically absurd

[spectoacc] 15/6/2022 07:26

"The listed stuff has fallen - let's upgrade the unlisted".

Perhaps unfair, but find it hard to believe the unlisted is doing so much better than the listed - presumably a DCF valuation that changes very little with market conditions?

[kinbasket] 15/6/2022 07:23

Agree it looks absurd and the private valuations add some re-assurance to my concerns.

Not a buyer yet but that's because I'm not a buyer of anything at the moment. Macro looks V.bad.

[skyship] 15/6/2022 07:13

So - May shows an increase in NAV - not the anticipated fall!

NAV = 2345p; but adjust to the current exchange rate and the figure = 2458p. At which level the discount = 46.6%.

This is getting rather absurd.

[skyship] 15/6/2022 07:09

Highlights (at 31 May 2022)

NAV per share of $29.55 (£23.45)

# 2% increase since 30 April 2022, driven largely by updated Q1 2022 private company valuation information
# All private direct equity investments are now valued based on 31 March 2022 valuation information, delivering a 2% uplift in value relative to 31 December 2021 for the private company portfolio
# Year to date, this increase in private company valuations has been offset by a decline in NBPE’s listed portfolio company valuations, resulting in a 5% NAV TR decline year to date
# Total announced portfolio realisations year to date of $120 million
# Well positioned to take advantage of investment opportunities - $368 million of cash and undrawn credit line available

[essentialinvestor] 14/6/2022 15:26

Looking at some of the cyclicals I've followed for years Page Group (formerly Michael Page) and Robert Walters, the market looks in big trouble - barring something left field like Putin being removed. Then again, none of us have a crystal ball.

[skyship] 14/6/2022 13:35

The next NAV statement will certainly be an interesting one as we are on a notional 42% discount and 5.4% yield. With the £ on the floor the discount for Apr'22 return is now more like 44%!!!

[skyship] 14/6/2022 13:28

ali - Could overshoot down to 1288p; but we are within 4% of that level and buying the dip has been a profitable trade, so added today.


free stock charts from uk.advfn.com

[toffeeman] 14/6/2022 13:07

I don't see any reason to buy (anything) until the big drop happens - which I think will come soonish.

[ali47fish] 14/6/2022 13:03

many of the comments like kepler, numis et al are very positive and i am thinking this might be a good entry point to add

[essentialinvestor] 14/6/2022 12:05

Second week of March 2022 looked like the beginnings of a new bear market
then we bounced, that pattern repeated in May before another rally.
Now markets have sold off hard again over the last week. Just to clarify I am referring
to wider equity markets not NBPE.

NBPE is well in to its own bear market with a decline now of over 30%.

[ali47fish] 14/6/2022 08:10

what do uyou mean essential

[essentialinvestor] 13/6/2022 18:59

I've thought this twice recently and markets suddenly rebounded, think it's a key couple of weeks ahead though.

[toffeeman] 13/6/2022 15:38

Looks like the start of the big market correction.....

[essentialinvestor] 09/6/2022 15:59

Can anyone make a buy case at under £14 atm?.

Recession, or something very close now looks inevitable across multiple industrialised countries.

[my retirement fund] 08/6/2022 14:02

Anyone remember Jamjar.com ? I bought my first ever brand new car from them, still remember the vision of the lorry pulling up with my car sat proudly hidden in the back out of the kitchen window. Fantastic service.

Anyway it was privately owned and venture funded by Directline and they pulled the plug on that after 3 years or so simply because it was an unworkable business model and lost so much money.

You have to ask yourself if the business model failed then, why the hell would it suddenly work today ? The only difference between now and then is we ordered stuff on our laptops and PC's instead of on phones and tablets.

Crazy really, I guess it took the market that long to forget that it was an unworkable stupid idea !

[spectoacc] 08/6/2022 13:52

And yet the Hill Report was desperate to loosen UK listing rules to allow the likes of Cazoo (-85% last I looked) to float here rather than in the US.

The US can keep them, I say. No founder shares, no tiny free floats, no chronically unprofitable rubbish. Can buy any number of Baillie Gifford UK-listed ITs for those.

[essentialinvestor] 08/6/2022 13:51

Do any of the predominately online car retailers make a profit?, little wonder
they are now beginning to acquire physical dealerships.

Can you imagine the cost of delivering a vehicle to someone's doorstep in the
UK with current labour shortages and fuel costs.

Institutional investors have largely underwritten this largesse, not for much
longer in some cases would expect.


One of the UK motor trade publications last year highlighted a loss of approx £300 per car sold,
la la land stuff.

[ali47fish] 07/6/2022 16:39

director buys wonder if ir is a positive sign!

[toffeeman] 06/6/2022 16:58

Constellation own webuyanycar.com; Cinch; CarNext.com

Cazoo is a UK company listed in the US.

[ali47fish] 06/6/2022 14:07

thank you sky so hopefully porfolio is not affected unduly

[skyship] 06/6/2022 13:42

ali - Constellation Auto is our 2nd largest holding @ 5.6% of portfolio. Personally I don't see a strict read across from problems in the US.

[ali47fish] 06/6/2022 13:14

toffee what all this long article to do with nbpe

[toffeeman] 06/6/2022 11:21

The online disruptors like Cazoo, Cinch and Carzam have over-promised and under-delivered

Car Dealer Magazine

Time 12:04 pm, May 24, 2022

Our feature was prompted by recent news reports of US-based Carvana shedding 2,500 jobs after posting a $260m (£208.2m) loss for the first quarter, rumours Carzam is looking for a buyer, and Cazoo’s share price plummeting by 82 per cent in nearly six months.

You can read exactly what our experts said here, but one of our participants comments were so fascinating we’ve run them in full here.
He’s what Steve Young, managing director at the automotive retailing research and strategy specialists ICDP had to say.
There is, and always will be, a small percentage of car buyers (new and used) who would ideally like to buy their car 100 per cent online without any physical visit.
Our consumer research indicates that only around six per cent prefer this option. Although no quibble guarantees, high quality imaging and use of finance to remove the mental hurdle of a large up-front payment all help, the vast majority of buyers want to conduct some part of the process face-to-face.
That does not mean that the pure online model is impossible to operate, only that such players are confining themselves to a specific customer segment, and it will be tough for them to break out of that without more investment in physical capabilities in some form. For example, 74 per cent of UK used car buyers take a test drive, with some evidence to say that logically this is more important on younger higher value cars.
For me, the main issues for the new players are the unsustainable level of marketing spend and the challenges of sourcing at competitive prices in the required volumes. Advertising makes an impact when it is relevant to the customer, and most of the time, most consumers are not in the market for a used car, so you have to be relentless with the advertising.
That need is reduced if you have an established brand and a network of showrooms like Arnold Clark, so although the unprompted brand awareness for the likes of Cazoo and Cinch is impressively high for young businesses, Arnold Clark does the same with a fraction of the spend.
This high spend has been funded by investors rather than by operating profits, and if that tap is now turned off as seems to be the case from the last fund-raising round by Cazoo, then they cannot afford to continue to generate the awareness.
Personally I’ve not seen any advertising for Carzam which may reflect a more prudent approach to spending, but may also hold them back in terms of growth.
On sourcing, the newcomers in the UK are operating in a closed market with very sophisticated competition. This is not true of their counterparts in continental Europe, such as Auto1 and Driverama who routinely source cross-border and are competing against franchised dealers and used car traders who are nowhere close in most cases to the sophistication of Arnold Clark, Lookers or Vertu.
In the UK, there is no ‘low-hanging fruit’ for them to buy, so they will need to compete for every unit, and this will squeeze margins. The fantasy that Alex Chesterman promised of a 15 per cent margin will remain just that, at least in the UK, and other players in continental Europe are starting to wake up too.
I accept that the general market conditions have affected share prices for Cazoo and Carvana in the US, but other listed groups there and in the UK have not suffered to the same extent.

[skyship] 06/6/2022 09:08

Problems at Cazoo? Enlighten us please - last news item there was for new branch in Spain last month - can't see anything else...