Porta Communications Share Discussion Threads

[guildedge] 12/5/2017 20:30

Yeah not a great review from Paul Scott. Porta have been writing down assets somewhat aggressively and this has exacerbated the losses here. It's been very hard to judge how the underlying business is doing.

Excluding exchange rates their like for like figures were up 4%. Some of these costs from new hires will have impacted cost figures too. The exchange rate part explain Newgate PTY (Aus) 40% increase in revenue to 10m. We know the pod businesses are making over 2m combined.

As for Newgate UK. I think if these hires are now proving their worth. It will have a strong impact in 2017. They have already stated 2017 is substantially ahead of 2015/2016 and their own forecasts for 2017.

They plan to issue 160m shares. 3m of this appears to be for debt. The rest appears to be for acquisitions of pod businesses. So it's not a full 50% dilution for 3m as they are acquiring chunks of Newgate Aus/ HK?/ Singapore? and Redleaf? We know they are obligated for at least 3 of these in 2017. It would make sense to do it in one go. If they can lower the debt coupons in the process that is not bad news. We could use more details here.

From the results these payments to the third party owner came to nearly 900k. Adding 500-600k back to Porta bottom line would be a big boost.

They still appear to have about 1.8M cash equivalents in bank. If they get 3M more they could almost be in a position to pay off 5m debt? Which in turn adds another 600k+ to bottom line.

I really can't see directors buying any shares here when they are in negoitiations over debt and acquiring more chunks of pod businesses. That will pretty much lock them out as it's market sensitive information.

Yes Porta have issues to resolve here. I don't think it will happen over night.

[kimboy2] 12/5/2017 18:54

It looks as though their Executive share incentivisation plan last year didn't work.

I expect that they will want to reset the hurdles.

[speedsgh] 12/5/2017 15:09

I would suggest they are unlikely to splash any personal cash when there is a 50% share dilution in the offing. If you're lucky, they might subscribe for a few as a gesture in the fundraising. Aimho

[go_baby_go] 12/5/2017 12:17

Are we going to get any Director purchases to show that they have faith going forward with this new set up.

[markie7] 11/5/2017 14:20

- From Paul Scott’s Small Cap Value Report Blog

Porta Communications (LON:PTCM) - just a brief comment, as I consider this share uninvestable.
The main reason is its car crash balance sheet. The capital structure is all wrong, with Bob Morton's expensive loans propping up what would otherwise be an insolvent group.
The P&L looks awful too. The adjusted EBITDA numbers are meaningless here, as we've seen before how aggressive the accounting is. Every year there are loads of restructuring costs, and other items which are massaged out of the way. The reality is that this company doesn't really make any money. Anything it does make would be needed to repay the expensive loans.
Overall then, I think the existing shares are worth nothing as things stand now. At some point the group has to do a financial restructuring. It's a safe bet to assume that Bob Morton will come out on top. So why put your money lower down the financial hierarchy than this known sharp operator?
I think the Board departures here were positive. Maybe new management will be better? Their main priority is to sort out the horrendous balance sheet, and the whole capital structure.
On the upside, current trading sounds good. If management is able to convince a different lender to finance the repayment of Mr Morton's loans, then there could be light at the end of the tunnel. Do I want to punt on that happening? No.

[speedsgh] 11/5/2017 11:09

Welcome to the world of dilution... 50% dilution.

"Despite generating £1.2m of net cash from operating activities (2015: £1.3m), year-end net debt was £7.6m (2015: £6.2m). It is clear to the current Board that an equity injection of up to £3m should be sought to support ongoing growth, and discussions with strategic investors are underway to enable this to happen.

To this end, in order to maintain the Group's flexibility to raise further funds for such an equity issue, as well as being able to issue shares in relation to legal obligations that already exist including contracted follow-on acquisitions, the Board proposes to seek authority at the forthcoming AGM to issue up to 163.1 million new shares (being approximately 50% of Porta's existing issued share capital) with 130.4 million of the authority to issue new shares (approximately 40% of Porta's existing issued share capital) being on a non-pre-emptive basis."

[qs99] 11/5/2017 08:54

don't hold your breathe mate, statement talks of "incentivising management".....code for muchos options going their way IMO...DYOR

[jefftwo] 11/5/2017 08:44

I would like to see some director buys given their rather bullish statement I am not sure about the results at the moment but I know this would help to sway my mode of thinking into having yet another dabble

[jefftwo] 11/5/2017 08:10

Seems this year doing wellGood news about debt re negotiations SP needs to improve quickly before any fund raising imho

[sdtreble] 11/5/2017 07:43

Always kept this one on my watchlist for signs of improvement as it always seemed like a vanity project with no intention of creating value for shareholders. Nothing to change my mind this morning with this intention to issue yet more shares!

[markie7] 11/5/2017 07:20

Ok. They came on advfn late. I take that back

[markie7] 11/5/2017 07:13

No results? Must be doing some last minute spell checking, they've done them in a rush after all.

[markie7] 09/5/2017 07:44

Good grief what a load of garbage.

[kimboy2] 09/5/2017 07:35

I don't think that £13k of shares being bought is indicative of a takeover frenzy.

[guildedge] 08/5/2017 20:13

[...]

'Meanwhile, Porta Communications PLC (LON:PCTM) also added to a near 24% surge last week by taking on another 27% to 4.13p.

The City seems to think that news of the departure of David Wright as Porta’s chairman might pave the way for a bid for the communications and marketing group.'

Well if someone did want to buy they would have to offer BM a good return on his shares as his holding company pretty much own Porta. Unless BM himself wanted to buy the firm? At present he holds the key to Porta and it's future. Wonder how Proactive Investor came to this conclusion?

[guildedge] 08/5/2017 17:31

Yes some big movements today. Seems all due to lack of supply of shares. It fell back slightly after 1-2 sells. There was no movement on Friday even with those buys.

Not found any Newgate or Porta news that might of shifted the share price here. All seems related to management changes and background buyers from more positive online forums.

[kimboy2] 08/5/2017 13:33

Clearly not many shares about so if by some chance there happens to be some happy news this will move north pretty quickly.

I think that the situation was summed up by last year's AR outlook statement;
The Board remain confident that organic growth in fee income will remain strong, particularly as the planned recruitment of a number of high quality executives gains
momentum, although these inevitably will have some impact on the bottom line in the short term.

The figures from last year will not be great, or the bottom line at least. The question will be how much have they improved with all these names that they have recruited.

[qs99] 08/5/2017 12:11

5p today at this rate, blimey! Dyor

[jefftwo] 08/5/2017 10:49

Are you back in GBG

[go_baby_go] 08/5/2017 10:13

Well I think most people wanted DW pushed out, I think the shift in sentiment reflects the change in price
.

[qs99] 08/5/2017 10:07

blimey well I did say it would move back to 5p and looks like it will get there sooner than I thought IMO! GLA DYOR

[qs99] 08/5/2017 09:50

been a while since PTCM was on the leader board!

[jefftwo] 05/5/2017 08:52

If all this talk is correct This share will hit 5p without long even with the forthcoming report showing a loss imho dyor

[kimboy2] 04/5/2017 20:08

Guild
Porta did £17.8 but Newgate did £15m.

I can't believe 2016 is that hot given that they didn't issue a TU.