Shoe Zone Share Discussion Threads

[tez123] 17/11/2020 11:04

Https://www.retailtimes.co.uk/lockdowns-fuel-285-increase-in-slipper-sales-for-shoe-zone/

[tez123] 17/11/2020 10:58

Took a small holding as well, looks ripe for a recovery.

[sphere25] 17/11/2020 10:18

So the notable buying continues.

Decided to take a speculative position here. It would now appear the world could normalise to a greater extent in 2022, maybe a tad sooner with continued vaccine success news.

I guess at a market cap of now only £20 million, it's worth a punt on a recovery.

[thecroots] 11/11/2020 17:14

Melton John, just to confirm councils only get to keep 50% of business rates. The rest is sent to the governments to issue as grants

[thecroots] 11/11/2020 17:02

Crazy buying this week. Today alone the volume is 500 times the NMS. Half a million shares bought today and only risen 1p on the bid. Can you imagine how much this would of fallen if it was reversed. With that in mind, clearing there is a large sell being worked and we will no doubt see it in the next day or two. If the seller clears and the buys continue, this will race on as over the past few months all the market makers have run flat books and all of them reduced down the NMS from 5000 to 1000. With them running flat books, none of them will have had enough stock to sell so thats why i think a large sale is being worked.

I've topped up on these over the large 2 weeks and happy to hold. in my opinion, a Very well run company that runs an extremely tight ship. Constantly re-negotiating leases. I hope that the government extend the business rates holiday.

[sphere25] 11/11/2020 11:22

Watching this one too. Possible recovery play in the making?

Much more interest here with a stream of buys coming in - notable for this company.

[zangdook] 09/11/2020 15:35

not much on offer

[ptgint] 01/11/2020 10:28

Exactly Edmund . Anything could happen in the near future if the Government want to save the High street. However, taking the company private at this low price whilst things are depressing everywhere and offering little hope of dividends until 2024/25 would enable the BOD to pay off more debt then re-launch the company to the public in ,say, 2023 and make themselves a very substantial Capital Profit.

[edmundshaw] 30/10/2020 12:26

My thoughts too, @PTGInt.

In some ways it is as SHOE has turned into an early stage business, looking for growth and cash flow and putting dividends firmly in the future. But it is not, has a vast estate and no reason that it might not recover very well in one or two years' time. If rates are also rebased, why could dividends not restart in 2022/23, for example?

[ptgint] 30/10/2020 11:48

I agree that announcing no dividends likely until 2014/25 seems strange and probably and unnecessary downbeat play. It made me wonder if the Board weren't contemplating taking SHOE private whilst the price is so low and predicting a depressing future for us shareholders

[edmundshaw] 29/10/2020 11:46

My experience of councils is that they are short-sighted about many financial matters.

Destroying the High Street is killing the goose that lays the golden egg, but in the short term they can extract more cash from the businesses there, so they focus on that...

[zangdook] 29/10/2020 04:00

Presumably it's central government if it's affecting the entire estate. When the owners get 40% and the government gets 60% (even before the owners are taxed) it's not really private ownership any more - it's almost as if property has been nationalised.

[melton john] 28/10/2020 22:26

Why would the councils want to reduce their income, they are almost broke. It seems they can make their own rules. I rented between selling and buying a house. I had to pay rates on two houses while having work done before we could move in.

[fenners66] 28/10/2020 17:00

Because they only do a rateable value review once every 5 years and it has been postponed....

[darryn1] 28/10/2020 16:40

Do you know why rateable values have not fallen prorata?

[energeticbacker] 28/10/2020 16:34

Despite the dramatic falls in rents, Investor's Champion would agree with management’s observation that it is ridiculous that rateable values have not also fallen in line.

The Group’s rates as a proportion of rent have increased from 26.4% in 2009 to 54.3% in 2019 and are forecast to be close to 60% in 2021.

[mister md] 28/10/2020 09:54

not been a holder for a while, but keeping an eye on it.
They even downplayed a 100% rise in web sales ? I recall at full yr results approx 7% of sales was digital

[edmundshaw] 28/10/2020 09:42

No dividend till 2024/5 is a pretty bizarre piece of prediction. I agree this is a very strange update.

[farrugia] 28/10/2020 09:25

as someone on stockopedia stated:

'Interesting update from £SHOE. Surprised by the very overly sombre tone, and the dedication of a large part of it attacking rates instead of going into more detail on the business performance.

Retail trading at -20% YoY in the last few months doesn't sound too bad compared to other retail chains. Net cash actually increased. They probably did breakeven one or two months, given the direction of net cash, would have been good to know.

Ability to close up to 20% unprofitable stores in the next year as well as very likely rent renogiations on a big part of their estate (their avg lease length is low, less than 2 years avg I believe) should mean they at least get back to positive profitability next FY.

I get the feeling this TU has been put up with extreme pessimism, almost to force the share price downwards... But to what end? Management picking up shares more cheaply? Buyout coming? '

[masurenguy] 28/10/2020 09:23

Sad to see but owenski has provided a good summary of the situation here. I previously held this stock for 4 years as a good yield investment but sold out at an average of circa 210p some 18 months ago. It might be worth keeping an eye on as a potential recovery play in a couple of years time although it appears that high street competition for cheap shoes has intensified over the past couple of years.

[owenski] 28/10/2020 08:33

This was only worth holding as an income stock, they sell ghastly cheap plastic shoes and their shops smell of chemicals from their plastic shoes, but they ran the business well enough and made money which supported the divi.

also, there are other budget shoe chains out there offering better product, current circumstances are just a perfect storm of Covid and rates and now pension liabilities.

As said, it's now a bargepole stock.

[edmundshaw] 28/10/2020 07:57

Really laying into the government re: rates. Sadly not a lot of cheer for shareholders for the next couple of years...

[owenski] 28/10/2020 07:16

Oh dear, no divs expected for possibly 4 years.

Bargepole, avoid

[dmdmdmdm1] 16/9/2020 14:44

Ugh.... really shouldn't have topped up a couple weeks ago