RSM Tenon Share Discussion Threads

[imastu pidgitaswell] 14/12/2011 08:52

13m shares traded yesterday. Somebody - probably a muppet pension fund manager, with no ability to think for themselves and just following the 'buy high sell low' model, playing with somebody else's money - has had enough and got out.

Or is it Odey Asset Management, being forced out of its CFD position?




Watch out for the Holding in Company RNS.

[still waiting] 13/12/2011 22:43

c'mon wig keep up. B-

[knigel] 13/12/2011 22:36

Simonhatter "I have never boought any share were a company has any debt". I might be wrong, but doesn't this drastically reduce the number of shares you can invest in? I mean, even Vodafone and Glaxo have debt!! It is servicing it and leaving pently of headroom that is important, I presume?

[nigelpm] 13/12/2011 19:33

two weeks late Wiganer - I posted it then.

[simonhatter37] 13/12/2011 19:20

I personally have never bought any share were a company has any debt.

Simples.

[still waiting] 13/12/2011 19:19

strip out the £180m of intangibles which will be severely impaired on the next results due to client loss etc and you will see this entity is worthless....

no wonder a few holders are heading for the hills ASAP.

[simonhatter37] 13/12/2011 19:17

BUST by Xmas.

[still waiting] 13/12/2011 19:15

they have surplus staff for the reduced workload which will increase costs to get rid off....

profit warnings come in 3's and with high levels of debt this looks increasingly like covenants will be tested...

[chrissey] 13/12/2011 14:50

well, this was also a TW tip, I hope not too many people jumped on the bandwagon on the back of that at 22p or so.

he is most probably still telling people to hold fast and to wait for things to improve!

[nigelpm] 13/12/2011 12:18

imatsu - 90 day debtor book - that's about right for accoutants particularly advisory work.

[imastu pidgitaswell] 13/12/2011 12:00

Some of it (the debtors build up) is just due to increasing volumes of business - that they have bought. In terms of debtor days (total debtors divided by daily sales) they are stuck around 3 months' worth (from memory, I haven't bothered to look it up again).

Which I find quite high, but maybe it's par for the business. I don't think it's bad debt, as they are audited and a plc, so there will be plenty of external scrutiny.

It's more a case that they cannot, for whatever reason, seem to reduce the debts due - which would be higely beneficial to the level of debt they owe, their interest cost and the overall investment proposition. That's why I became interested, the potential opportunity, but they just don't seem to be able to make it happen.

[bonio10000] 13/12/2011 12:00

Crawford just takes the biscuit.

[still waiting] 13/12/2011 11:56

632, bang on

[whyme] 13/12/2011 10:55

This looks like 2003 again and moving up to 2005 if they can hold tight the M&A side of the company looks like a good trade.

[envirovision] 13/12/2011 10:34

Indeed, they are masters at manipulation, all well and good. Thing is though when the cash runs out they are bust, no amount of manipulation can avert that fact.

Question is what fate awaits sharholders, a cash call and a cull of staff and offices or administration and a private sale for peanuts ?

I suspect it would be a difficult business to save in the current guise since its all people centric and getting rid of many of these people would be expensive, probably prohibitively so.

[canteatvalue] 13/12/2011 10:24

imastu - thing is from the cashflow statement it appears to be partly the acquisition-related exceptionals (-£11m) but also a huge build up in receivables and an decrease in payables (£-11m and -£9m respectively). This isn't a one-off build up either, it happened the previous year too (-£16m and +£5m) so the real question is why are receivables piling up? Are they booking revenue that's simply never being paid and this is pure accounting manipulation?

[imastu pidgitaswell] 13/12/2011 10:11

628 - It's acquisition accounting - profits and cash generation are never the same thing, but are even more divergent when a business is continually making acquisitions.

It's more of an eighties/nineties thing (Polly Peck?) but still goes on - in people businesses especially, a lot of pre-acquisition provisions can mean that a business can report increasing profits while cash continues to drain.

Now that the acquisition binge has subsided here, it seems that reality is biting.

[envirovision] 13/12/2011 10:10

A lot of businesses who are not growing and are either standing still or indeed shrinking will find the time to do more of the work themselves.

Lets face it, most businesses are going to be facing shrinking sales, possibly for the next several years. It would be stupid not to at least undertake some of the accountancy work yourself.

[oligeo] 13/12/2011 10:02

It's probably because their clients are going to smaller accountants (as i did!) who charge a lot less and provide a better and more personal service.

[canteatvalue] 13/12/2011 09:57

I'm still somewhat confused as to how the company finds it so incredibly difficult to generate any positive cash flow for the past three years - is it just a huge overstatement of earnings or what?

[imastu pidgitaswell] 13/12/2011 09:49

"It is very tough out there"

I'm sure it is. Imho, accountants provide very little value to clients (I speak (badly) as an ACA for over 20 years...) that clients would willingly pay for were it not for the legal obligation of the audit.

£400 per hour for a partner, £100 for a part-qualified (i.e. know nothing) to tell you what you already know about your business?

In times like this you keep spend on the 'extras' to an absolute minimum. Anything that can be reduced (outsourced internal audit, 'reviews', 'seminars' - all the non-compulsory stuff) is being reduced - and rightly so. The professions in this country believe they have an entitlement to the good life and to charge exorbitant fees, solely on the 'closed-shop' principle - only lawyers can do legal work, only chartered/certified accountants can do audit work etc. It's a racket dressed up as 'self-regulation'...

[narindg] 13/12/2011 09:30

well bought 27000 average 9.4p .. we will see where we go