Northern Bear Share Discussion Threads

[its the oxman] 15/4/2019 19:23

Little bit of buying interest returning today.

[graham1ty] 12/4/2019 15:11

Unless they engage with shareholders......all of this is speculation. The RNS was fundamentally unclear, shareholders were spooked, the share price dropped. Simples.

Being NTBR there will be no further communication until the results.

[rmillaree] 12/4/2019 09:11

I think the term "collapse" in profits gives the impression that there has been a fundamental shift in the outlook of the business. I don't think this is necessarily the case - but we are all agreed updates really don't look more than 3/6 months into the future for this company it seems - so the lack of comment makes it hard to work out where everything is trending

Looking at h1 this year compared to h1 last year the difference in profit is 220k - for a company with an annual turnover of 53 mill. Normally this would probably be seen as very consistent that you are either 200k ahead or behind at half year but the year end result is the same.A difference of this magnitude is as likely to be a timing issue or natural variability as anything else - so the "collapse" in profits (if we are using that term) doesn't appear to necessarily mean its the same with the underlying fundamentals.

I guess the thing here is if we don't like how the company assists in keeping us up to date then we can sell out and move onto something else.

Lets end up with some good news though they have secured some decent landmark (in our neck of the woods anyway not on national scale :)) type contracts in the near future so hopefully if nothing else the tone of the next update will be at least be head above water than below.



hxxps://northernbearplc.com/major-new-contracts/

[graham1ty] 11/4/2019 17:24

Oxman, yes, on the face of it, very cheap.

However, from the RNS ( and that is all we have as they refuse to speak to investors: and there are no brokers forecasts), from the RNS 2H has seen a collapse in profit. At the interims operating profit was up 30%, but the RNS says operating profit for the year will only be in line with last year ( ie 2H must be down by c30% to negate the gains made in 1H).

Earlier trading statements were upbeat, and they say that they are ahead of management expectations.....yet, they only expect to match last year’s result. So.....management were actually expecting a fall in profit.

All that analysis may be wrong, but until the Company engages with shareholders we will never know. The RNS was hopelessly ambiguous, so we have no idea if it is actually cheap or not. It may always look cheap

[its the oxman] 11/4/2019 16:13

And still v v cheap sub 70p

[this_is_me] 12/3/2019 15:31

having bought a heap at 13p years ago I am happy!

[tiswas] 11/3/2019 21:23

This is me

The share price peaked at 90p over 18 months ago and has since come off about 25%.

And as people posted above, it is not clear from today's announcement if they are still growing profits in the second half.

Still, as long as you are happy.

[this_is_me] 11/3/2019 20:52

I like it the way is - just let them get on with making money instead of spending time and money on PR etc.

[eggbaconandbubble] 11/3/2019 15:57

A corporate PR company would be very useful here!

Anyone know anyone. Business to be had maybe!

[tiswas] 11/3/2019 14:18

I agree with everything that has been said here, the position is confused and uncertain.

[fozzie] 11/3/2019 10:41

They have been like this for as long as i can remember. It's mainly why i sold out earlier in the year. This rns the latest in a long line of really poorly written statements that leave the market scratching its head.

[mathewawood] 11/3/2019 10:18

The trouble is, it all comes down to the fact, they don't have a broker and they don't inform shareholders (probably just us PI plebs) what their expectations are for the year.
Hence we get this ridiculous scenario of a "ahead of expectation" and a 15% drop in the share price Bonkers.

[its the oxman] 11/3/2019 09:44

Unclear update doesn't help, but operating profit should similar to last year so trading remains pretty strong, will have to wait to see if div increased or special is paid. Nice opportunity sub 70p though, very cheap, suspect we will climb back up over the next few weeks. And expect further acquisitions in time which should add to the story. Personally, still hoping for 100p, but perhaps I'm a dreamer. Also wonder is there anyone who might bid for ntbr. They must be attractive to someone themselves.

[meijiman] 11/3/2019 09:04

Whoever wrote this release needs to have a long look in the mirror......

[rmillaree] 11/3/2019 08:12

I am trying to work out the consistency here with regard to how they are not now expected to not be ahead of the previous year but give i up. Perhaps last years "outstanding" trumps this years simply exceptional(h1) - perhaps the lack of a decent superlative being applied for the last couple of months means we should expect that they will have a poor last couple of months.

all i can guess being less silly is that when they say management expectations they are talking about what their expectation were at the start of the year - so although we are only inline now after being ahead this is still a slightly better result than they predicted at the start of the year - that's reasonably consistent with the previous year being an "outstanding year"

All slightly disappointing as i was hoping this company was heading for decent growth this year and hopefully beyond. I can't really see that the company is going to change its style anytime soon so more tea leaf reading probably needed to work out where they expect earnings to be trending next year (or this "broadly")

[this_is_me] 11/3/2019 08:09

last year there was a special dividend, presumably because they thought that the outstanding results last year were a bit of a fluke and winter weather could have been a problem in subsequent years. If the results this year come out as similar to last year that should be taken as a positive sign. Eliminating debt and having cash on the balance sheet would give a war chest for any excellent acquisition opportunities that might emerge in the future.

It looks like we should have the same dividend and special dividend as last year or perhaps a slight uplift.

[graham1ty] 11/3/2019 07:57

And this year they have the first full year contribution from Peel. In the acquisition RNS it said Peel made c£0.5m of profit prior to acquisition. Strip that out and is the rest of the business below last year ?

[impvesta] 11/3/2019 07:48

simso, I have assumed that the special dividend of 1p will not be repeated but, if there is a special dividend, at any level, so much the better.

[eggbaconandbubble] 11/3/2019 07:43

confused dot com!

[simso] 11/3/2019 07:42

Impvesa, I presume they will announce a similar dividend to LY of 4p,given similar results, so the yield would be around 5.5% if that is the case...and depending how the share price reacts to this news!

[impvesta] 11/3/2019 07:38

"Based on management information for the ten months to January 2019, the Group has traded ahead of management expectations and in line with the outstanding prior year results."

Even though we are nearly halfway through March they only appear to have management information to the end of January. Perhaps their accounting function isn't very sophisticated?!

Historic dividend yield of nearly 4% and I will continue to hold in the expectation/hope of future growth.

[simso] 11/3/2019 07:31

Presume this year adj EPS will be around 12.5p in line with last year. A P/e of 6*.

[graham1ty] 11/3/2019 07:29

Last year they did 1.37m at the interims, followed by £1.4m in 2H to make £2.8m.

This year they did £1.7m at the interims, and they say the full year will be the same as last year, £2.8m. This implies 2H will fall to just £1.1m ?

Isn’t that what is says ?