Northern Bear Share Discussion Threads

[rmillaree] 23/12/2024 10:48

I think £0.4m extra cost for the 400+ directly employed staff. That would mean a 20% reduction in next year's profits.


Potentially yes - you are presuming though that they wont put up prices to maintain margins - it would need a 0.6% price increase across the board to clawback 400k extra cost
So there is potential for them to pass on this "cost increase" to customers as is the norm when prices go up. compare this increase to the increase in materials costs they would have had over thne last few years and i would say there is scope of profitys not to drop by 400k - they will be in the same boat as any other business that has material labour costs.

Note they updated the market at the end of November - so they had an opportunity to flag up any specific issues ref NI then - they seem confident ref medium term poer that update so whilst there is scope for future updates to be lowered in then absence of anything when they updated i am kinda guessing its just another cost increase that needs to be dealt with similar to wage increase / materials increases etc.

[dean44] 23/12/2024 09:58

They have a lot of employees and will be hit hard by the NIC increases next year. Hybridan haven't made any changes for this yet in their forecasts.

I think £0.4m extra cost for the 400+ directly employed staff. That would mean a 20% reduction in next year's profits.

[aimwinner] 20/12/2024 12:05

ed
Agreed
Looking at the numbers from the presentation they made £400k in the second half last year which was weather affected. If the make the same this year that would be about 3p in earnings on top of the 8.4 from the first half making 11.4. If the weather is better and they continue to trade well then 12p could be nearer the number.
That makes them cheap.
Please check my numbers as think this should be on at least 6 times eps so upper 60`s to mid-70`s short term.

[ed_derby] 20/12/2024 10:31

Keep the faith Zangdook

There’s lots of encouraging signs - so let’s hope the board can continue to deliver

[zangdook] 20/12/2024 04:05

"no specifics" "no detail" "see where we go" - yes, that's exactly the problem. Would it kill them to say "we will not be declaring an interim dividend for the year ending March 2025" or "we will return to one dividend a year"?

Instead we get "FY24 dividends were declared pre-tender offer"???

[this_is_me] 19/12/2024 22:57

Yes, in other words we will use our brains and, after we bought out Baryshnik we will get our cash/debt sorted out and see where we go from there, over the next couple of years.

[rmillaree] 19/12/2024 15:00

I want clarity about the dividend policy.


its there in the annual update - they obviously arent pinning themsleves down to specifics though - so in that regard you wont get granular detail you would like . That should not be a problem just presume you will get one decent dividend after year end based on results (ikf things are good) and if you get something earlier treat that as a bonus. if the wheels fall of the bus in year then they will explain themselves so now guar

seems every uncomplicated to me

Our priority is to now invest, with a view to future growth and creation of shareholder value, through a combination of organic growth, strengthening our teams (including via new business ventures), and, in due course and where accretive, acquisitions. We are already considering new ventures for this year and investing in our people and facilities in order to drive organic growth within our building services businesses.

We also recognise the importance of a regular dividend to the Company's shareholders.

As a result, the Directors propose the payment of a final dividend of 2 pence per ordinary share. This would be payable on 25 September 2024, to shareholders on the register on 30 August 2024. This is subject to shareholder approval at the Annual General Meeting, to be held on 19 September 2024.

Our intention is to continue with a progressive dividend policy, subject to the Group's relative performance and after taking into account the Group's available cash, working capital requirements, corporate opportunities, debt obligations and the macro-economic environment at the relevant time.

[zangdook] 19/12/2024 14:24

I want clarity about the dividend policy.

After three whole years of thinking about it, Baryshnik changed the dividend policy from one dividend in August to two dividends, in September and March. That policy makes no more sense than anything else Baryshnik did. Now, in the first year after we finally got rid of him, they seem to have reverted to a one dividend policy, but they haven't explicitly said that. We don't know if there's an interim coming in March or not. We don't know what the policy is for future years. The brief mention of dividends in the presentation sounds like an attempt to explain what's going on, but as I said earlier it's incorrect and so it's impossible to infer any policy from it.

In a normal company with a two dividend policy, there would have been something in the interims, either a dividend declaration or a statement that this year they won't be paying one because they'd rather repay debt (or whatever). Baryshnik's brilliant policy innovation was to wait until the year end and then declare the dividend for the whole year, but to pay it in two parts. Is that what they're still doing? We don't know.

I'm not trying to make any comment about eps or dividend level.

[aimwinner] 19/12/2024 14:07

zangdook

In the presentation the say that they have paid off £500k of the loan early, that is a better use of cash at this stage. What sort of eps and dividend are you hoping for?

[zangdook] 19/12/2024 13:30

My concern was about the lack of clarity about dividend policy now they've finally got rid of Baryshnik.

It's worth noting that the 5m shares they bought back are sitting in treasury. 1m of them will reappear via the options granted a couple of months ago.

[thebd11] 19/12/2024 07:28

This has been previously announced in the recent trading update

[dorian12] 19/12/2024 07:20

The Northern Bear CFO, Tom Hayes has just jumped ship to Abingdon Health plc.Why no announcement of his departure?

[zangdook] 19/12/2024 02:39

The dividend policy is rather confused here, and the latest presentation doesn't help.

"FY24 dividends were declared pre-tender offer. We paid a final dividend of 2p per ordinary share in Sep 2024."

No, The tender offer was November 2023 and the FY24 dividend was declared in July 2024.

They used to pay one chunky dividend a year, in August following the March year end.
Then Baryshnik came along and did his long-drawn-out review of dividend policy, the result of which after three years without dividends* was the very unsatisfactory policy announced in April 2023 of splitting the dividend in two and paying one half six months later; payments in September and March. Then in July 2024 after some waffle about how much they had borrowed to buy Baryshnik out they announced one 'final' dividend paid in September.

The recent interims were very good but they said nothing about future dividends. They should either announce that they're cancelling Baryshnik's ridiculous policy of delaying half the dividend, and reverting permanently to one annual dividend in August/September, or say they want to stick with two dividends a year but behave like a normal company and announce the interim dividend with the interim results. As it is I can only assume we'll get nothing in March and something unpredictable in September.


*three years without dividends thanks to Baryshnik:

2020 - covid
2021 - covid but we'll start again next year
2022 - no we won't pay a dividend although we have the money, because we're still carrying out Baryshnik's "review"

[thebd11] 18/12/2024 12:20

There is now a presentation available on the website -

[value hound] 29/11/2024 07:53

Agreed This_is_me; extremely undervalued IMO.

[this_is_me] 29/11/2024 07:45

Solid progress reported.

Paying off the buy back loan quickly is a good sign. It is good to see investment in areas that are doing well.

It looks like H Peel is suffering along with the leisure industry. If this doesn't change and it can't expand into new areas it might have to be downsized or even get the chop.

Overall it just shows how undervalued the company is and how big the potential for dividends is when the term loan is paid off.

[taylor20] 28/11/2024 20:00

Results tomorrow? Weather been pretty rough so not expecting fireworks.

[rmillaree] 11/11/2024 13:45

obviously one additional item is employers NI increases - NTBR will deffo have extra costs there so to me the marekt may be factoring inm stuff before the company updates us?


per stocky current year eps figures have dropped recently from 14.5p eps to 10p eps. Stocky should NOT be relied upon as being accurate and this is perhaps tardy update from July news ? eg if brokers updates had been withdrawn and stocky was stuck with outdated info in absence os formal estimates Current net profit is showing up as being excpected £1.38 mill this year - 1.55 mill next year and 1.62 from previous year.

the comments below should have led us to perhaps expect lower numbers in 2025 so thats no shock to me - perhaps its just taken time for peoiple to realise earnings will likely be going backwards before going forwards. Many investors might simply move on rather than hang around for promises of beter things in 18 months time.

To be fair to then board tehy have not give me any reason to worry about long term prospects. Hopefully they are being cautious and upfront as to where they are. Perhaps there is reason to hope they might actually deliver better than expected later on so- they wouldnt dampen expectations to aid with sharae options beiong ranted now would they (tongue in cheek comment)

Perhaps the main danger here is that peak earnings have passed if costs are going up and they cant easily get increased pricing from potential customers - everyone should be in the same boat though in that regard.


per company at year end time

We have made a satisfactory start to the FY25 and results to date have been in line with management expectations. That said, the new ventures referred to above will have a short-term impact on profitability due to investment in overheads (primarily people costs) expected to be c.£0.3 million in FY25. We are targeting that these ventures will be trading profitably and generating cash by the following financial year, ending 31 March 2026. In the event that they do not progress as planned, we have not made any long-term cost commitments.

[tiswas] 11/11/2024 11:29

Gee, now what?

[rmillaree] 23/10/2024 14:54

yes - its probably was too good to be true this holding up in price whilst that maain seller was exiting the building - i thoughtb that storm being weathered was a positive sign. As you say until we get passed the budget most aim stocks are probably simply no go. Shame i havent sold every time this spikes up past 6p ready to buy back later - i could have actually made some money with this share over the yhears if i had employed that tactic - sigh

[tiswas] 23/10/2024 14:06

Looking pretty damn cheap again. Pre budget worries presumably but looking good for the long term imo.

[rmillaree] 30/8/2024 10:18

on stocky i have eps expectations for 2026 showing up and thats only for 10p eps - compared to 14p for the current year. Seems slightly odd they are expecting a material drop into 2026 - anyone got any clues as to why that might be the case. Hopefully its just ultra caution ref future years - thats fine by me as with tis company "it is what it is" i dont think we can expect their crystal ball to work as far out as 2026. Having said that if they expect to do 14p that year shame they dont have the conviction to go on record. Note with stocky sometimes removed/outdated guidance can be present - so i dont even know if thats a curent live broker estimate or not.

[rmillaree] 30/8/2024 10:14

based on recent past and comments below i would be hopeful 4p per year might turn up (2p each 6 months for last 18 months). the reality is it will fully dependent on operating performance and available cash - on the basis 10p plus eps is expected 4p per year seems very do able.



this is what they said last month -



We also recognise the importance of a regular dividend to the Company's shareholders.

As a result, the Directors propose the payment of a final dividend of 2 pence per ordinary share. This would be payable on 25 September 2024, to shareholders on the register on 30 August 2024. This is subject to shareholder approval at the Annual General Meeting, to be held on 19 September 2024.

Our intention is to continue with a progressive dividend policy, subject to the Group's relative performance and after taking into account the Group's available cash, working capital requirements, corporate opportunities, debt obligations and the macro-economic environment at the relevant time.