Ncc Share Discussion Threads

[rivaldo] 06/5/2015 11:36

Panmure Gordon reiterate their Buy and 253p target here:



The average broker target price is 242.75p, so there's some way to go.

[igoe104] 06/5/2015 07:31

Trading update.

Looks good to me.

"We are confident that we will maintain our double digit organic growth and strong cash generation for future years to come."

[rivaldo] 06/5/2015 07:28

Today's trading update reads pretty well to me:



Trading for the year is in line and the CEO is bullish, talking about it being "an exciting period of controlled growth".

Revenues are up nicely, order books are up and the Domain Services division remains on track.

A decent start.

[boadicea] 04/5/2015 19:43

Useful background - Thanks.

[welsheagle] 03/5/2015 12:45

Thanks for the spreadbetting info, Measurenguy

[effortless cool] 01/5/2015 15:37

If everything pointed to it, they would be there already.

[igoe104] 01/5/2015 15:04

I Expect this these to creep back up to over £2.20 over next week.

Well, everything points to it.

[masurenguy] 01/5/2015 15:00

I understand that the existing ACM shares will be converted to NCC early next week alongside the payment of the financial component. For those who also have a long spread position on ACM (as I also have), 80% of this will be converted into a new NCC long position and 20% of the closing ACM value will be credited to your account in cash. This should also happen early next week.

[rivaldo] 01/5/2015 14:36

Goodbye ACM, hello NCC :o))

Still steadily climbing here. Now in the final month of NCC's year - they issued a trading update last year on 17th April, but there's no requirement to do so now, so hopefully we'll get one just after the 31st May close.

[boadicea] 27/4/2015 16:11

Good to see a new thread with some activity. The old NCC thread was curiously quiet, even moribund.
Even better to see some recovery in both ACM and NCC sp's. My view, as previously stated, is that ACM went too cheap but I suppose the upside is that we are now in NCC which got a bargain, so I have opted for all shares.

The concentration of holdings probably makes corporate actions easier to execute, on which basis further developments could easily follow in an attempt to build a major group.

Who are the likely targets? There are some embryonic operations with interesting approaches (such as the reborn TGL) which would be quite digestible.

On the downside, this could see too much concentration developing within my own holdings and the search for alternative attractively priced entries is becoming more difficult.

[mazarin] 27/4/2015 13:33

This is what we want to see more of. It makes me wonder just how the share price was so effectively depressed during the lead up to acquisition of ACM, I would have expected it to have been up simply on the prospect of getting ACM for a 'knock-down' price, but may be I'm just a little biased...!

[rivaldo] 27/4/2015 11:20

Thanks for the new thread.

Looking better here now for us NCC newbies....

[masurenguy] 26/4/2015 13:54

None of the top ten institutional holders in NCC had a disclosable interest in ACM.

[mazarin] 26/4/2015 11:13

Your welcome and I reckon it would be quite interesting to see if they were also major holders of ACM, as it may perhaps throw some light on the intriguing decision to sell...?

[masurenguy] 26/4/2015 11:00

Thanks for the link. For my future quick reference

Institutional shareholders as at March 2015

Mawer Investment Management Ltd. 25.29m 12.11%
Liontrust Investment Partners LLP 24.61m 11.78%
Montanaro Asset Management Ltd. 20.73m 9.92%
Legal & General Investment Management Ltd. 15.92m 7.62%
Capital Research & Management Co. 10.84m 5.19%
SEB Investment Management AB 7.11m 3.40%
Aviva Investors Global Services Ltd. 6.33m 3.03%
Baillie Gifford & Co. 5.72m 2.74%
Henderson Global Investors Ltd. 5.70m 2.73%
Hansa Capital Partners LLP 5.25m 2.51%

61.00% held by the top 10 institutional shareholdersholders

Website:

[mazarin] 26/4/2015 09:46

Hi Masurenguy, The link is effectively there, by navigating to 'Home' tab from 'Investor Relations' in the header and away you go - NCC revealed. As of 24/04/15 61.04% of NCC appears to be held by just 10 major shareholders, the highest being 'Mawer Investment Management Ltd' at 12.11% as listed by FT.com, for further details see -

[effortless cool] 25/4/2015 17:53

Thanks, Mazarin, good idea.

[masurenguy] 25/4/2015 16:52

Cheers Mazarin. Perhaps you could also provide details of the main NCC shareholders and a link to the company website in the header.

[mazarin] 25/4/2015 12:34

I thought it's probably the right time to create a new NCC thread, now that I, like many former ACM holders are shortly to hold NCC for the first time. Just for the record, I note that ACM actually closed up 3.18% (+1.125p) at 30.63p and NCC also showed gains of +5.5p (2.75%) on the eve of the merger to finish at 205.5p. Lets hope the future is just as promising for us all.
NCC's Half Year Financial Report :

[mazarin] 25/4/2015 12:28

!
NCC Group formed in June 1999, was formerly the 'National Computing Centre' and admitted to AIM in 2004. Since then NCC has acquired several related Companies and developed a global presence with operations in Europe, United States and Australia. In 2014 it realigned itself into 3 complimentary divisions: Escrow, Assurance and Domain Services. In Jan 2015 it acquired Open Registry Group to offer a ‘one stop shop’ for secure domain services for global corporate clients. Last year acquired Accumuli, Fox-IT Holdings and since acquired PSC, a major US payment security consultancy hopefully adding further future value.



NCC aims to make the cyber world a safer and more secure place.

[hedgehog 100] 29/3/2015 20:56

Technology security is the hot investment topic of 2015.

"Business demand for information security set to grow in 2015

Warwick Ashford
Wednesday 11 March 2015 12:15

Businesses expect the pressure to secure their organisations to increase even further, according to the 2015 Security Pressures Report from security firm Trustwave.

While 54% of IT and security professionals felt more pressure to secure their organisations in 2014, 57% of respondents expect to experience more pressure to secure their organisation in 2015.

However, a greater proportion of enterprise respondents (64%) expect increased pressure, compared with the corresponding 48% of their small and medium business counterparts.

Most respondents (84%) cited reputation or financial damage as their biggest fear of a breach at their organisation.

“No matter the security maturity level at a given organisation, the pressure is on,” the report said.

The report is based on a survey of more than 1,000 information security professionals. Respondents also reported pressure to roll out cloud and mobile IT projects, despite unresolved security issues.

The security threat of emerging technology

More than three-quarters of respondents said they had been pressured to unveil IT projects that were not security-ready.

Nearly half of IT and security professionals were most pressured to use or deploy the cloud in 2014, up from 25% in 2013.

The report notes that adopting emerging technologies – such as cloud and bring your own device (BYOD) – overtook advanced security threats as the top operational pressure facing respondents.

Other challenges included understaffed security teams as security threats mount, and increasing pressure from C-level executives to protect data despite resource constraints.

Some 61% of respondents said they felt the most pressure from owners, board and C-level executives – up from 50% in 2015.

While 70% respondents believed they were safe from cyber attacks and data compromises, 84% wanted the size of their IT security team increased.

Just over half said they would like to see their security team double in size, while just under a third said they would like to see it grow to at least four times its size.

Low estimation of internal threats

Asked about the nature of the threats, 62% of respondents were most pressured by external threats, compared with internal threats.

Weak passwords were cited by just 9% of security professionals as the insider activity they felt most pressure to fend off, despite previous Trustwave research showing easy-to-crack passwords contributed to nearly a third of all breaches.

In the light of increased demands, 78% of respondents said they are likely to, or plan to, collaborate with a managed security services provider (MSSP) in the future.

“All signs point to turbulent times for IT and security professionals, and our findings back this up,” said John Amaral, senior vice-president of product management at Trustwave.

“Overall, pressures for IT and security professionals increased from 2013 to 2014, and even more distress is expected in 2015,” he said.

Threat landscape grows ever more hostile

Amaral highlights that the survey found the decisions security professionals make are not necessarily the ones they want to make.

“Many report they do not have enough resources and in-house skills to deploy a defence-in-depth security programme without confronting a mountain of pressure while doing it,” he said.

Christina Richmond, programme director of security services at analyst firm IDC, said the pressures IT professionals face are growing.

“Cyber criminals are increasingly crafty, new attack vectors are emerging, budgets are tight, skills are at a premium, security policies are either incomplete or disregarded, and many security solutions are proving too complex to manage or too basic to be useful against a professional adversary,” she said.

Richmond said these pressures are driving businesses to increasingly look to partner with MSSPs who can help control complexities related to security technologies as well as mitigate and respond to advanced security threats.

Seven recommendations for security professionals

The report makes seven recommendations for information security professionals:

1. Accept that everyone, including you, is at risk: Operating under the belief that breaches are inevitable allows security professionals to better prepare their strategy;
2. Acknowledge that outsiders and insiders can equally hurt you: Attacks waged by outside adversaries attract the most headlines, but threats posed by insiders can be as destructive;
3. Turn to advanced solutions: Companies must turn to more advanced threat management solutions, such as next-generation SIEMs, file-integrity monitoring and anti-malware gateways;
4. Think security first: Automated vulnerability scanning, ongoing and in-depth penetration testing and web application firewall deployment can help keep reduce the risks;
5. Narrow the disconnect between the security group and senior management: Organisations that deploy strong IT governance, in which security-conscious leaders regularly communicate and collaborate with those responsible for security and ensure priorities are being met, are less likely to experience damaging breaches;
6. Embrace the revolution: Companies must recognise the exploding risk potential of disruptive and emerging technologies, assess them for vulnerabilities and deploy security controls such as network access control, data loss prevention and encryption;
7. Accept a helping hand: There is no shame in turning to an outside partner for help on threat, vulnerability and compliance management."




As well as NCC, I like TGL, which owns high tech homeland security company GOS Systems.

At 0.55p the market cap. is only £3.3M., and there has been big insider buying recently. GOS has been compared to GCHQ:

Singray105 6 Nov'14 - 10:32 - 2029 of 4659 3 1
"Indeed chesy, well everything is a gamble of course but look at what we are getting for a Market Cap of a mere 1.5 miln GBP. Been showing GOS to some friends who understand this sort of stuff and they are saying WOW! Its like a private version of GCHQ."

[2lb] 24/3/2015 11:01

NCC historically always buys on numbers - this time they have gone down the revenue and product route, which is fine expect that its very big compared to all other M&A activity at £55m so I imagine the market is right to be cautious.

I'm not convinced the synergies really exist and that this may prove to be too much of a distraction / diversion from day to day business.

[wjccghcc] 24/3/2015 10:49

I suspect it's more holders of both reducing their NCC to keep their exposure at a similar level.