Pittards Share Discussion Threads

[clocktower] 26/5/2021 15:19

I might have posted this link before but it is well worth a read as it mentions Scottish Leather's trainee scheme and a bit of the background of Mulberry.

[smithie6] 26/5/2021 13:27

looks like ~25k shares sold
& then a buy mopping them up, which I guess is a share buy back to reward the dirs.

[clocktower] 26/5/2021 11:09

Down with a bump I just noticed this morning but looking at that trade for 10k it looks more like a buy than a sell, as a MM went on to raise the bid soon after, unless there is another buy not yet being shown I guess, which could be larger I suppose.

[clocktower] 25/5/2021 15:45

LOL S - A leather burger, bit hard to swallow but a good chew. :-)

Maybe more will be used on clothes as in these links S.

[smithie6] 25/5/2021 14:43

storing 1 year's worth of turnover.
nuts imo.

a cost for storeage space & keeping the humidity at an ok level, & insurance etc

hopefully the next update will show a big reduction in inventory (& great cash generation from selling existing inventory where the cost of producing it has already been paid for)

[smithie6] 25/5/2021 14:39

maybe they could start selling burgers in the café !! ;-)

----

maybe just 6 weeks till we get the trading update & hopefully a rise in profitability & the share price

[clocktower] 25/5/2021 10:11

I wonder where most of that £15 million of stock is located S.

I was looking at the Satellite view of Pittards on Google and it seems to me that there could be an awful lot of stock stored at the rear by Flushing Meadow entrance, not that I can make it out very well. However, another thing is one can see how close the new McDonalds will be to the huge Pittards Car Park - the car park looks empty in this shot as I guess it could have been taken at a weekend but if you turn to street view you notice the main car park is packed with cars (staff cars I expect) the car park by the shop/coffee shop is relatively empty, as one would expect.

You can also see the Nissan Garage which is opposite and is to become the McDondalds, and with a good bit of signage, I guess they could attract some to go to the cafe if they were to put a young child's playground up by the cafe, on the large grass verge, you would then attract young mums to pop in, grab a coffee on a regular basis making the shop look busy if nothing else.

[smithie6] 24/5/2021 21:39

btw
Vivobarefoot
turnover to end June '20 was £14 million
& Pittards Ethiopia turnover was quite low, was it £2 million, & that includes sales from the tannery for sales to anyone & fabricated products

so, one could imagine a positive impact on the financial numbers for Ethiopia if they got just 10% of the annual turnover from Vivobarefoot (£1.4million) it would be a big jump for the Ethiopian subsidiary, (& ~20% would be ~£3 million, a sizeable change for Pittards Ethiopia (& various costs would see little or no change, electricity, directors' pay, security, personnel dept, wages accounting dept. etc, so the bottom line profit/loss would improve)

[smithie6] 24/5/2021 21:26

interesting idea, Chinese or Japs buying Pittards Ethiopia

& getting the UK bit thrown in !

whereas most of looked at the other way around (Ethiopian part being thrown in)

the value in a takeover would be higher than current cap. value.

~ £15 million of stock
& then the value of the sites & machinery etc

(the UK site is owned)

[clocktower] 24/5/2021 20:03

Spot on S
If demand has recovered, as reported in China, so will have the demand for leather.

In addition the Chinese have set up a lot of the shoe production in Ethiopia and will I expect be having to find completed supplies of skins to meet production demands.

Your last post and comment about other brands will I expect do as you say and turn to Pittards or even consider buying them as not only is it the quickest way to market but you obtain all the skilled staff at a knockdown price plus the British tannery and business.

Why they have not already jumped in while the COVID situation caused the share price to fall along with some of the business, as it was bound to recover sharply as vaccines became available. If the likes of you and I could find the cash to remove the BOD and then run the show, I am sure the company would become as successful as SL.

[smithie6] 24/5/2021 19:08

Ethiopia

"only 50% of hides and skins potential are being utilized currently"

'Ethiopia is 9th in the world for number of cattle'

"Export of leather, which was US $ 23 million in 2013 reaches US $ 133 million in 2018."

"Policy and Strategy [of Ethiopia]
In the GTP II, the leather sector export and employment target by 2020 is USD 800 million"

other brands want production in Ethiopia, eg. from Japan, a good chance imo that some of these will decide it is easier to contract Pittards Ethiopia rather than pay the set up & management costs to have their own factory.

[smithie6] 24/5/2021 18:55

thanks for those links

the vivobarefoot accounts were ...different !

a bit whacko perhaps
they claim they want a new world, new economy, but the cost of the directors is about 1/5 of the total staff costs, at £0.9-1 million it is a lot for what was a startup not long ago
& seems very much 'old world' !!

& where the MD narrative for the review of the year reads like a sequence of randomly hopping from one disaster to the next !, under his guidance !!

sounds like they had real production problems in China, so moved to use Vietnam, & again problems, which then imo gave Pittards Ethiopia a chance. Hopefully the years of experience making gloves (intricate/complicated) & UK owners giving some guidance/supervision/help to local directors has given a good production experience for Vivo using Pittards.

The amount of overheads at Vivo as a % of sales looks too high imo, but I guess they are trying to grow so profit now is not their driving goal.

£34 million in those accounts to end of June 2020.
Fingers crossed that Pittards Eth. saw good business from Vivo since then.

[clocktower] 24/5/2021 14:56

It seems we are the only ones now on this thread S - and it seems much like Mulberry there is little interest at present in undervalued stocks that are unlikely to casino stocks the likes of TERN and a host of companies that are anything to do with Covid-19 research.

It is undoubtedly going to take more positive news for it to jump past 60p but a TS is due I guess in July or there might be other positive news before then, if there is any substance in the rumours that were published a while ago.

[smithie6] 24/5/2021 11:43

hxxps://leatherukdirectory.co.uk/directory/holmes-halls-processors-ltd/

looks like a biggish one in England

& 1 in Devon
J & FJ Baker

& Sedgwick & co . Walsall
in 2015 became part of Clayton Leather group

& 1 in Bristol

with Pittards I think those are the 4 biggest in England for processing tanning beef/cow hides
& Scottish Leather is the biggest in Britain (so their entry says, & they use Scottish animal skins)

-----

Pittards is I think the only one that is listed on a stock market & the only one that also has a tannery & a lot of workers in another country, Ethiopia.

Mulberry is also based in Somerset, like Pittards, & they say, I think, that they make 50% of their bags in the UK, they have 2 factories in Somerset, the 2nd one opening in 2013
& they don't have a tannery, so it looks almost g'teed that they get a lot of their leather from Pittards & if they have surplus demand it would be logical to use Pittards

Mulberry have their own shops & big digital presence & a big catalogue & sell >£1000 million/year
so, they probably don't see Pittards (with Pittards UK having a turnover of only ~£13 million (& only a % coming from selling ladies bags etc), as a risk to them

Mulberry have seen a tick up in business in recent months.
one would assume Pittards as well (& since Pittards is so cheapily valued wrt its assets it's share price could easily rise a fair % if there is a 'good trading announcement')

[clocktower] 24/5/2021 09:02

How many Tanneries are there in the UK I think you asked S,so I have provided a link for anyone that may be researching anything about it or PTD's prospects.

leatheruk.org provides a list of nearly all tanneries I believe, it is also a useful source of other information about the industry.

[smithie6] 23/5/2021 15:29

I read an article that Scottish Leather is one of the biggest tanneries in Europe
& that most of the UK skins go abroad for processing to China/Asia & Italy.

Scottish Leather seem perfectly able to do tanning & make money doing it. Decent margin & got ~£30-35 million in the bank !!

( will Pittards now start to achieve the same after their Capex in recent years ??)

The costs for shipping a container to/from China have apparently gone x3, in last 18 months
(noting that to transport raw skins to there to then make products in China & sell bags etc in the UK the material has 2 trips, there & back, so is there is quite a delay, & I assume an import tax to pay) (& some tanneries in China have closed due to pollution reqts; & China is having a big push to improve water & air quality) so these things help Pittards

& the Suez canal was blocked for a time

[smithie6] 23/5/2021 14:48

other tanneries in England

Thomas Ware Ltd
Bristol. only ~35 staff. quite small.

& Pittards UK is small imo, ~160 staff, & ~13 million of turnover from PTD UK

somewhere there must be a big tannery in England, since for all the milk & beef there are a lot of skins

[smithie6] 23/5/2021 14:45

I've seen that video

[clocktower] 23/5/2021 10:48

The chairman is the deal maker, that is why he stands to get very well rewarded if the share returns to previous high levels or had an instrumental hand in striking a deal that is beneficial to some, and the likes of you and me S, that already are just in the blue but I agree with your morals and reasoning about what might be regarded as ill gotten gains though the adjustment of awards.

However, I would rather they be rewarded than fail to even recover some old investors money, even if is only a part of it, it is better than them loosing the lot.

It seems that very few people have a conscience or sense of moral duty and integrity when it come to money these days. No longer is ones word ones bond and that goes all the way back, even to the Monarchy when they gave their word for peaceful talks, then arrested them, only to have them hung drawn and quartered.

Nothing much changes, the place is still run by a mafia one way or another. The market handles money made from illegal drugs one or or another, which is legal in some countries, and yet the country jails people for cannabis but not for money laundering because it has been earned in a country where recreational drug use is legal.

Or one could suggest that it is drugs that the police want or are informed to crackdown on as they are a threat to others that run the mafias.

Still PTD is a clean business and at least every bit of leather is biodegradable, and SL are also concerned about animal welfare and base their business on good practice.

Going back to what you were talking about China - their is a You Tube video of Pittards from a couple of years ago, at the HK show talking about the importance of the market in the Far East.

I will look for it tomorrow.

[smithie6] 23/5/2021 10:10

who are the big tanneries in England ?

there must be some

if Scottish leather sells £100-130 million/year in hides (all Scottish skins) with ~500 workers then England must produce £500-1000 million/year !

(or many raw skins are just binned & not processed)

[smithie6] 23/5/2021 10:01

10%

10% of all of Pittards UK & 10% of Pittards Ethiopia

!!

well, fingers crossed that trading is good & that we see the share price rise, it has to get to 70p to make about 1/2 of the options exercisable.
& sliding scale to 100p to exercise the other 1/2.

(but why they should get 5% of Pittards for the share price returning to where it already was, without any increase, beats me. And 0 for managers & workers !).

----

the chairman gets 30% of the options & he is only part time !!

& he sits on the committee of 3 that awarded the options scheme. :-(
so, he awarded the options to himself !

[clocktower] 23/5/2021 08:29

10% is a great incentive to accept a decent offer when your in your mid 60’s and you have been with the company for a fair while and can see a way of getting a very decent pension pot, at a time when the very large stakeholders might be looking for a way to make good their long held investment.
One really has to wonder why the major stakeholders would have allowed the award changes that you so rightly pointed out would reward the directors so well compared to other members of staff if the share price reached a certain level or of course if an unexpected offer was received for the company, that would be hailed as a outstanding success, as it would secure jobs and help the company achieve its environmental targets due to SL having the most advanced solutions to achieve the objectives that PTD had set.
Also note, it is not that long ago that new blood has headed up SL.

Only a guess but a nice fit and as you also pointed out they are very good at stock turn,which would really breathe life into PTD if the stock turn was x 7.

Even if a bid does not come along you can see the potential from looking at SL accounts and now everything is opening and PTD have two sectors that SL do not seem to cover well - gloves and shoes - the time is right to see the rewards that mirror those of SL particularly with all the companies sports related technologies that they now seemed to be focused on.