Science In Sport Share Discussion Threads

[davidlloyd] 17/10/2018 08:37

Why no rns flag on monitor?
DL

[lafin] 17/10/2018 07:28

RNS today
Launch into Chinese Market on Alibaba's TMall Global Store.

[yump] 27/9/2018 11:27

Well they say core is now profitable at EBITDA level (that's what they all say rather than statutory profits) including a 600K loss as a result of new vertical market.

But how long has that taken ?

Looks like the Sales guys are in charge to me. Revenue, revenue and yet more revenue.
Maybe one day the business will make a clean profit.

[pj 1] 29/7/2018 19:42

Key area imo. I cant help but think they have missed the boat somehow and getting lost in the now 'vast' number of Sports nutritional products with a seemingly bottomless supply of new products on the horizon.

[buywell3] 27/7/2018 10:43

Chart support of 69p looks like being tested

[lafin] 05/7/2018 09:01

Does anyone know why SIS no longer sell the gels with Fruitflow in them?

[kinbasket] 08/6/2018 15:09

Late answer but..

Powerbar is owned by Post holdings. It's Active Nutrition segment reported profit margin of 8% and 14% on $574m and $713m respectively for 2016 and 2017. A large part of that is Powerbar.

So a company with revenue 40x that of SIS still only churns a small margin. The economies of scale matter in this sector.

In 2014 Post holdings paid $150m to buy Powerbar and Musashi from Nestle. At the time they had revenue of about $220m. So less than 1X revenue.

The other big player is Cliff bar. They have revenue about 20X SIS and are profitable. That's all we know about them. Currently the business has an estimated valuation of about $350m on estimated revenues of between $500m and a $1bn. So a similar valuation to Powerbar, albeit a massive guess.

SIS looks expensive based on that. Freakin expensive..

[yump] 15/3/2018 09:38

If you don't go for global domination and spend all your earnings, the margins must be good. Its basically confectionery with a better margin, as its in the nutritional/sports category and confectionery does OK in boom and recession anyway.

Be interesting to know if some of the (not expanding revenue) other brands are making good profits.

[kinbasket] 10/3/2018 12:00

SIS products are back on the Sportpursuit mailing this weekend (and a few weeks ago)

Promoting at over 60% discount.

As I've said further up, SIS are buying market share and I don't see how that translates to profitability with almost zero brand loyalty amongst users. Even brand loyal users wait and buy on promotion.

I've been using these types of products since the original powerbar in the early 90s. I don't think I've paid full price for a product in the last 10 years. It's a massively crowded market. CLiff, High5, Powerbar, Torq, Gu, Nakd, and a hundred other small companies all knocking out energy food of one kind or another.

[gunsofmarscapone] 05/3/2018 11:50

Ha ha, yes sometimes misquotes are more revealing and humorous; on the SiS front its a challenginng one to invest in. Requires good knowledge of both the company and the market concurrent to a high degree of emotionless decision making to avoid the placing traps. Actually I thought the last open offer was completely derisory at 1:32 for shareholders.

On watch list only, its an artform (which I don’t possess) to predict the final major placing and open offer infection point.

[oiht] 05/3/2018 10:13

Guns,

Isn't football the game that's played by gentlemen but watched by hooligans, and rugby played by hooligans but watched by gentlemen? I only say because I used to play football and......oh...hang on, you're right!

[gunsofmarscapone] 04/3/2018 20:27

Its hard to be interested in this ticker given the market cap in comparison to the fundamentals of the business; it is an actual inversion of the characteristics of companies which I usually invest in.

However even though my subtotal knowledge of football is that it is a game for gentleman played by hooligans what is observable in this mass participation behaviour is....emotion, lots of it!

A negative EPS, circa 47m mcap, investment planned year on year. Looks fair value but with the unknown football factor to come. I would say, very well done to investors here if they have executed a disciplined buying strategy.

One possible negative though, is the association with cycling...

[oiht] 02/3/2018 22:48

Strange - minimal volume yet the price moves 4p?

[pj 1] 18/1/2018 09:17

One thing I struggle with in relation to these products is that they never really have a 'complete' product Resulting in ongoing research costs etc. If a competitor introduces something new then the fellow competition has to follow to maintain market share. Also, as probably a poor example, OPTI have developed additives to reduce cholesterol and blood pressure, and improve gut bacteria to aid weight loss. How long before Joe Public wants those adding to the more traditional supplements?

Isn't it a risk it is a never ending circle?

[yump] 18/1/2018 09:12

Well the seriously cynical side of me is thinking that this is a big ego trip based on revenue, as that is the thing they have always talked about the most from the start.

Perhaps the whole business is about just becoming as large as possible and getting taken over. Or (the cynical side again), getting as large as they can and then cutting back on marketing spend, dropping out a sudden profit, causing the share price to rise rapidly, enabling them to sell the business or dump shares.

Its easy enough to slash marketing spend for temporary profits, as long as you're not holding the baby in a couple of years, when the marketing spend cut leads to plummeting sales.

Or perhaps there really are big economies of scale to come from manufacturing, because of the big increases in sales.

[briangeeee] 18/1/2018 09:06

What a useless RNS, with no worthwhile information.

Much more helpful if they actually listed their marketing agreements, said what they were paying for them, and what returns they were getting on their investment.

I assume that by spending money on MU, they're expecting a positive return, but they don't say so. How much do MU charge? Are they good value? All unknown, and the full regulatory RNS which is intended to contain financially significant information) does nothing to clarify.

[yump] 18/1/2018 08:46

I've still got this on a watchlist, waiting to see if the business model is actually profitable.

The issue I think is that they floated in 2013 and losses have more than doubled with double the turnover.

So they say that the core business will be profitable at EBIDTA level in the second half (that's UK and EU). So that has taken more than 4 years and it still won't have a clean profit before tax - in fact even more if you take into account that they existed before they floated.

So in my book its yet another company that has gone international before its actually profitable in its original market.

If its taken this long to get the home market anywhere near profit, the overseas market will take longer.

I think if economies of scale were going to kick in, they would have by now.

Oh and by the way, the US is absolutely rife with all sorts of nutritional sports products and as everyone knows, there is no legislation on most of them and little technically valid backup on their effectiveness, or any proprietory ingredient mix that is unique, although they all say they are.

So it all boils down to marketing and how much you have to consistently spend to keep sales up. The evidence so far judging by the time its taken to get UK/EU to anywhere near profit, is that it takes a huge continual spend.

Perhaps they will announce a cut back in spend in UK/EU, but I think that would be risky.

[davidlloyd] 18/1/2018 08:08

And now working with MU. Surprised not more noises here!
DL

[battlebus2] 16/1/2018 08:05

Yes 28% increase in sales is pretty good, lots to come from brand awareness in the USA.