Promethean Share Discussion Threads

[gopher] 03/2/2011 11:21

Well I have sold out for a 10p a share loss. THe Smart share price decline was the deciding factor.

[boonkoh] 02/2/2011 21:32

Thought I would add my two-cents in!

From my work in digital strategy, I get access to web traffic reporting companies like Comscore and Hitwise, as well as other third party analytics providers. While I can't measure what sales have been, I can get a good measurement of traffic to the Promethean Planet website. Surely there is a correlation between sales, and more users of Promethean Planet.

While traffic to Promethean Planet last year grew on average 20% year on year, this rate has slowed down in December and January, and now is barely 3-5% higher than year on year. Although not a direct signal, it suggests to me that perhaps sales of the whiteboards haven't picked up in recent months.

I'm contemplating what to do before the results are out. Another set of bad results and these shares will tumble further. Some stabilisation of sales numbers, and they will quickly go back to a P/E ratio of around 11-12 at least.

[masurenguy] 02/2/2011 14:35

Continuing to head in a southerly direction - support is at 52p !

[masurenguy] 01/2/2011 21:35

SMT closed at $8.97 after falling nearly 9% over the past 2 trading sessions. The first time in 10 weeks that the stock has closed below $9. No recent newsflow but Q3 results are due next Tuesday (Feb 8th).

[masurenguy] 01/2/2011 21:03

A 'Speculative Buy' from last month !

PROMETHEAN WORLD
Fully quoted on the London market, PRW is a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology. Its 'ActiveClassroom' product is an industry-leading comprehensive classroom solution. The company was floated on the London Market on 17/3/2010 at around 200p. At the end of April it published an Interim Management Statement which revealed first quarter revenues up 49% to £53.9m and reported that the positive trend was continuing. Shareholders were assured that 2010's earnings were set to emerge at the higher end of expectations.

The bad news which emerged mid 2010 was that US customers were savagely cutting back on orders. This ultimately pushed the share price to below 50p, some 70% below the issue price. The fall in the share price made it the worst performing new issue of the year.

There are signs that the company is recovering and the share price has moved off the bottom to the current level. The Chairman remains optimistic that the figures for the year to 31/3/10 will not disappoint. Three research houses have recently published research on the PRW. The consensus is that pre-tax profits could emerge at around £23m. This implies that the shares could be trading on a prospective PER of 8.6 and a yield of 3.6%. Consider as a speculative buy.

[gopher] 01/2/2011 13:12

The Smart share price is a mirror of PRW with a low in Nov10 although it has recovered somewaht since. SMT is capitalised at 410ml dollars and finished down 3% down last night. Seems there is a seller in PRW with numerous lots of 100000 going through today.

[masurenguy] 01/2/2011 11:27

Price still sliding and I'm still watching !

The closing ALT was 52p at the begining of December - could this be heading for a double bottom at that level ? The year end results and forward outlook for 2011 is due in 4 weeks (March 1st) and that could be the next catalyst for the price direction !

[jimelson] 31/1/2011 10:26

Yes, would be foolish for me to invest here right now....I'm waiting for signs of recovery first....still feel there is more bad news to come.

[masurenguy] 27/1/2011 10:27

It will be interesting to compare SMT Q3 and PRW year end in terms of both actual sales performance and outlook. Meanwhile the slide in the share price here relentlessly continues !

[gopher] 26/1/2011 23:10

Masurenguy - A read across from the Smart results and especially any outlook comments before a decision?

[masurenguy] 26/1/2011 15:42

In the US, a non-scientific poll amongst school users seems to favour Promethean IWB over Smart Technologies products by an overwhelming margin.



No position here yet - still monitoring the company and market developments.

NB: Smart Technologies due to announce Q3 results on Feb 8th while PRW are due to publish their 2010 year end results on March 1st.

[gopher] 25/1/2011 18:36

Down below 60p today, disappointing and I reexamined the business case for this technology.

Studies show that use of whiteboards does have a positive impact on learning outcomes (Government website/KS1) and Promethean interactive technology additionally mitigates a major criticism 'Whiteboards lend themselves to Teacher talks - class listens style of learning".

My view is that use of technology like this is inevitable longer term but we are not at a tipping point where not it to have it is seen as retrograde, I am sure this must have all being preseneted to the City a year ago to get the IPO away.

[mrphil] 20/1/2011 08:55

Sorry, make that -23%!

:-(

[mrphil] 20/1/2011 08:35

Averaged down on these but still looking at a 20% paper loss and looking forward to some positive news!

[jeanpenty] 18/1/2011 11:23

Ok NYB- convince me this is worth a look

[ny boy] 18/1/2011 10:56

Hi NYB how are you?

OK thanks, netting all the gains me self :-)

All set up for a big up move into the next channel.

[ny boy] 17/1/2011 13:40

A bit of resistance around 68.38p but once cleared we move out of the down channel and into a break that could take us to 118p target resistance.

[ny boy] 17/1/2011 11:47

I'm surprised not many others liking this one, still always quiet being ahead of the crowd (hopefully he says!) I take my lead from recent insitutional buying. Sooner or later we take off here from the lows of the past month, chart already showing recovery has started!

[ny boy] 17/1/2011 08:12

Happy holding from the recent lows, creeping up now, can't be long before we get a re rating, recent fund buying supports the share price I feel.

[she-ra] 14/1/2011 17:37

gopher - Fair enough.No I dont have any industry knowledge of PRW but then again I dont need to. Across most of the west cut backs are the order of the day. That cant be denied and whiteboards are not a neccessity when other things such as maintaining buildings,higher fuel costs,teaching staff etc become priority with tighter budgets.

Already we are looking at higher interest rates for Europe, this just does not bode well for the industry and others have suggested there was a veiled proift warning in the last statement for 2011.

However when you look at emerging economies such as Brazil,India and China (if you can call China emerging I dont know) they present an opportunity.However without sounding like a bigot dont the Chinese just nick the West's technology and then produce it themselves (eg. current Renault electric ip furore)?

[masurenguy] 14/1/2011 13:15

A bit more market background and some Whiteboard sales statistics relating to the two major players in 2010 - Smart Technologies and Promethean.

Interactive Whiteboards to reach 900,000 unit sales, says Futuresource Consulting

DMN Newswire--2010-12-21--The Interactive Whiteboard phenomenon continues to take hold on a global scale, with 750,000 boards sold worldwide in 2009 and the market on track to reach close to 900,000 unit sales in 2010, according to new research from Futuresource Consulting. "With global classroom penetration sitting at just 7%, these numbers only represent the tip of the market potential iceberg," says Colin Messenger, senior consultant at Futuresource. "This ever-expanding penetration of IWB and other associated technologies has helped drive a significant evolution in interactive education from a relatively passive one-to-many learning experience. "There is little doubt that IWBs are radically changing teaching styles and the full potential of digital interactive learning is being harnessed. Certainly there are still elements of passive learning, there probably always will be, but digital technology is allowing passive styles to evolve, as educators are able to draw from numerous multimedia platforms and create more visually rich content."

How the interactive display will look in the future is still unclear, with flat panel products gradually coming to market and interactive projection units also gathering traction at the low end. However, with so many countries still only at the starting line, the outlook is extremely positive for interactivity in education. Against this backdrop, Futuresource Consulting is pleased to announce that it is the exclusive 'Knowledge Partner' for the BETT education show, taking place at Olympia, London on 12 - 15 January. BETT is the largest education solutions exhibition in the world and provides the opportunity to view, touch and test all that is new in the industry. As well as free entry and fast-track into the exhibition, attendees will also receive exclusive whitepapers provided by Futuresource, which give an overview of the education technology landscape now and in the future. Futuresource representatives will be chairing and moderating conference sessions, and will be on hand to answer questions. For more information, visit the BETT website



I would guesstimate that Promethean sold close to 190,000 whiteboards in 2010 based upon an extrapolation of YTD sales over the first 9 months and allowing for a slight decline in Q4. If more or less correct this would give them circa 21% of the global market (estimated to be 900,000 by Futursource Consulting) and my guess is that their main competitor, Smart Technologies, will have sold circa 425,000 in 2010 for a 47% share, based on their H1 sales. If these estimates are correcet then SMT and PRW collectively have nearly a 70% share of the current global market.



The Interactive Whiteboard Revolution Continues Apace

The Interactive Whiteboard phenomenon continues to take hold on a global scale, with 750,000 boards sold worldwide in 2009 and the market on track to reach close to 900,000 unit sales in 2010. With global classroom penetration sitting at just 7%, these numbers only represent the tip of the iceberg of the market potential. This ever-expanding penetration of IWB and other associated technologies has helped drive a significant evolution in interactive education from a relatively passive 'one-to-many' learning experience to become more collaborative and inclusive.

There is little doubt that IWBs are radically changing teaching styles and the full potential of digital interactive learning is being harnessed. Certainly there are still elements of passive learning, there probably always will be, but digital technology also allows passive styles to evolve, as educators are able to draw from numerous multimedia platforms and create more visually rich content. However, it is the area of collaborative learning which is fast becoming engrained within the modern teaching ethos. IWBs allow teachers to create customized dynamic sessions where each lesson becomes a bespoke learning experience. In essence, students become part of the teaching experience themselves. Consequently, learning becomes more interactive, fun and appealing, which itself drives greater engagement and content retention. How the interactive display will look in the future is still unclear, with flat panel products gradually coming to market and interactive projection units also gathering traction at the low end. However, with so many countries still only at the starting line, the outlook is extremely positive for interactivity in education.

[gopher] 14/1/2011 09:09

I know you remain a bear she-ra and I did realise that investec were the advisers. My view is that investec will have advised PRW they must guide them on figures that will definitely be met to retain a buy rating and rebuild credibility. The cautious words in the investec note seem to bear this out. I think I said they were a punt but believe there is some upside.

Do you have any specific industry knowledge of PRW?

[she-ra] 13/1/2011 19:56

gopher - Investec are Promethean advisers.

Advisers only tend to put out a sell note when no-one believes there is any concievable hope left and to go against such a grain would lead to questions of credibility.

[gopher] 12/1/2011 12:40

Here what Investec (their brokers) say. interesting they are valuing it on their estimates of a 2010 PE of 8 with profits falling in 2011 to imply a PE 10, in the meantime there is a divi of 3p. IMO a decent punt at this level as negative news is built into price although very negative is clearly still on the cards


Promethean has this morning, as promised at the time of the December profit
warning, released a statement to update the market on current trading
conditions. We are somewhat reassured to see that our 2010E revenue
downgrades appear adequate and that management now expect sales for the
year to be at the top of current market expectations. We continue to see a level of 2011 forecast risk, but remain Buyers on the basis of the longer term
opportunity and retain our 70p target price.

Valuation and recommendation We leave forecasts unchanged at this juncture,
but look to gain some visibility into 2011 at the preliminary results in March. We understand that the company is currently in the process of conducting market demand surveys in the US and that this should provide some insight into 2011 spending intentions in Promethean's key market. We continue to see a material degree of forecast uncertainty going into 2011, but remain Buyers based on our belief in the longer term market opportunity. We retain our P/E-based target price of 70p