Simigon Share Discussion Threads

[rivaldo] 02/5/2017 12:30

Interesting buy just reported of 93,240 shares at 21.45p.

[dgwinterbottom] 22/4/2017 18:38

Daz - .....and hopefully completion of the South American Military Contract that seems to have been a millstone over the last couple of years!!!!

[daz] 22/4/2017 12:14

Good to see some interest. The contract with the Israeli air force will hopefully be signed in the next month or two, so maybe some positioning ahead of that.

[rivaldo] 21/4/2017 15:21

Unusually busy today by SIM's standards with 320,000 shares traded.

[rivaldo] 21/4/2017 10:48

A 79k buy at 22p has caused today's 9% rise....

[rivaldo] 18/4/2017 09:19

FYI from Finncap's note last week - they say Buy with a 45p target.

They go for 3.1c EPS this year, rising to 3.3c EPS next year, with a 0.7c dividend each year:

"Clearer skies ahead

The FY 2016 results are in linewith expectations which were downgraded in
February. Affected by delays to a large Israeli Air Force contract which could
not be recognised in the period, revenue was down 13% YoY to $6.0m. With the high gearing in the business model, this meant earnings fell 80% YoY to $0.4m.

More positively, cash owed at the end of 2015 was received in the year
to deliver $1.0m of FCF, and after the $0.3m dividend distribution, this lifted
net cash from $7.4m to $8.1m at the year end. This year’s declared dividend
is lower ($0.1m or 19% of earnings); however, there will be a $0.2m share
buyback to make up the distribution to shareholders to previous levels.

Away from the revenue recognition issue, underlying business remains profitable
and performing well, in terms of new business wins and pipeline, as well as
building a base of recurring revenue.

Organic growth strategy is focused on winning new strategic customers, and
growing engagement within the existing base. SimiGon is delivering on all
major contracts and increasing its market visibility while seeking new
opportunities as both a prime contractor and strategic partner.

New markets: Progress is being made in both civil-aviation and industry, and
although mass-market adoption is at an early stage, the company is ideally
positioned to gain traction in it, given its blue-chip client base, strong IP and
wealth of experience with the technology.

The large $6.7m prime contract won in 2013 continued during 2016 although
on a slowed by supplementary client requests outside of the original contract.
The company has been meeting these demands with a view to follow-on work
and the contract is finally due for completion in H1 2017 and we anticipate
news on any subsequent opportunities thereafter."

[dgwinterbottom] 17/4/2017 13:40

Daz - Thanks again for that, even more puzzling that such a presentation was not open to the general public, a good opportunity that would have been lost but for you giving us the benefit of your visit. If one accepts the CEO & CFO are non uk based, is not the Chairman? In that case as a former Director of both LTG plc and Jarvis he would now how important Shareholder relations are and at least he could bang the drum somewhat!!

[daz] 17/4/2017 11:31

DGW - Yes, a presentation in London but not open to the general public, I only got invited because I knew someone. It's not good enough, I did say to them they need to promote themselves better to private investors. Although they are not often in London, with a bit of organisation, they ought to be able to manage 1 or 2 a year, if they give it priority and I think SIM is one of those companies whose rating could benefit.

Yump. Re the order book not being mentioned in the finals, I agree totally, I can't think why they didn't say anything as it's very relevant to valuing the company.
They have the far East contract announced on May 3 2016, which runs for 5.5 years, so say 4.5 years left and a 5 year contract with the US Air Force announced on May 5 2015, so 3 years left to run. These are the longest I could find, so to be conservative, if the average contract is 4 years, then the annual run rate comes to around $6m and that would be consistent with Saas revenues approaching 80% of current revenues, a figure mentioned in the presentation.

BB - fair point. It would be nice to think that the Jun 2013 contract is the only problematic one, the contract with the US Air Force is a continuation and so I think less risk but there isn't enough information to evaluate the others.
The flip side of the Jun 2013 contract, is now that they are near the end, they are in a good position to win work in the subsequent phases, as they have said a few times and hopefully they will have a clearer idea of what they're taking on, so the mess isn't repeated.

[battlebus2] 17/4/2017 09:57

It's not just so simple as to state the size of the order book give what's happened with the previous contracts and the unknown costs associated. My last post also, hope it works out for all holders...

[yump] 17/4/2017 08:58

Well this is my last comment and its nothing to do with SIM being small, or on AIM or foreign.

"The order book stands at $23m, spread over a number of years and this provides substantial visibility of revenues both for this year and guarantees they will be profitable this year."

So my question is this:

Why has it taken someone to report from a presentation, to find out the order book size ? Either I am not reading carefully enough, but there is no mention of order book at all in the finals.

Aren't the RNS's supposed to give key information to investors ? Please nobody say that you should go to AGM's and presentations to do 'proper' research.

I guess you could probably have a go at adding it all up from the contract announcements.

Also, really the order book size doensn't say much without the other bit of information, which is how many years is that for ? Without that, what can be concluded ?

Its just a question of being specific and in my book there have been several red (or perhaps pink) flags in that area.

Good luck anyway. That is my last contribution. Honestly.

[dgwinterbottom] 17/4/2017 08:27

Indeed Daz, my thanks also for taking the time and trouble to give us the benefit of what was said especially as under normal circumstances it is so difficult to get any details of progress from within the Company, was this a presentation in the UK?

[rivaldo] 17/4/2017 08:24

Daz, many thanks for your excellent post 473 re the company presentation and for the subsequent additional posts.

I hadn't appreciated the extent of the powerful transition to the SaaS model which has already taken place, and which I'm glad to see.

[dgwinterbottom] 16/4/2017 16:49

Looking at my Sharescope data page in terms of past and future, one sees:

2015 2016 2017(e)

Turnover £m 4.539 4.458 6.175
Pre Tax Pft £M 1.07 0.22 1.28
Norm eps (p) 2.62 0.74 2.41

Certainly a marked improvement in Turnover which if achieved will be the highest on record with similar marked improvements on Pre tax profit and eps. Its almost as if the "significant contract" for the S.American country being supplied since 2015 has proved to be somewhat of a millstone. No wonder they will be glad to see it completed.

[brummy_git] 15/4/2017 14:13

Daz - I'm with you wrt investment case. Sure there are risks, as with all micro-stocks, but at 20p these are more than reflected in the ultra-low valuation.

[multibagger] 15/4/2017 07:21

I agree with your observations Yump - I bailed out a few months ago as the lack of transparency/clarity around their business model and "jam tomorrow" statements which I found unsettling. I had invested earlier on the basis of the financials and the prospects. There is a definite markdown on companies based abroad and for good reason it may appear.

Very pleased with my decision as my SIM money went into IDEA and LTG and both have more than made up for the loss I took in SIM.

Good luck to all holders.

[yump] 14/4/2017 23:43

I've sold out a while ago, but the points I'm talking about are:

The big lump of cash doing nothing
The vague statements - not just one.
(But particularly the one about that big contract that was modified, apparently with increased deliverables, presumably free of charge - in which case why and if not why wasn't the increase told to investors ?)
The (usual) positively spun stuff about moving to SAAS, improving revenue visibility, but with short term hit, as if the lumpy contracts were actually producing increasing revenue already, which they weren't.

You can find them all if you look and if you think its important.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt for quite a long time and then thought enough is enough so sold all, on the basis that I can find homes for the investment where I'm pretty sure the BOD are telling me most of what I want to know.

fwiw, xenophobic or not, that now excludes all Israeli, US, Australian, Indonesian, Chinese and a few others who float on AIM instead of their own markets for some reason and its a reason that's pretty easy to guess.

AIM is risky enough with UK companies where I can use extensive resources to find out what might really be going on and there's enough of them with enough potential reward, not to risk investing in those where I have zero chance of digging out useful information.

I think I would have more confidence here if they had a continuously and significant increasing revenue in their original core business, rather than now branching into other virtual training areas.

Hope you do well anyway. They certainly could be transformed by decent sized contracts.

[cockerhoop] 14/4/2017 22:36

BB2,

My view is they announced the buyback program to soften the blow of profit warning, which was successful as the share price rose on the day of the warning (from memory).

They then reduced the dividend to compensate for the money used in the buyback.

[cockerhoop] 14/4/2017 22:26

Over the last few years aircraft manufacturers have become increasingly savvy about the value of data and are charging enormous sums to the manufacturers of full flight simulators - sometimes even taking a cut of of the hourly training rate. This has also lead to exclusivity deals which excludes minnow operators like SIM from being involved in the civil side of aviation. This I imagine is why they're considering going down the lower tech route of maintenance training and cranes etc, etc where there are no of minimal data costs.

Another question i'd ask was regarding the UKMOD program which they provide some support via Lockheed but Lockheed recently placed an order with PEN for CBT type services which I imagine SIM could have bid for. Did they bid? If so why did they fail as already incumbent with Lockheed?

Regards the dividend, if you're temporarily suffering a profitability blip and future prospects are good and you've $8m in the bank I think you'd maintain the dividend as a sign of confidence. They could finance 24 years of dividend payments with the cash pile! My personal view is UK shareholders will never see this cash in any meaningful way so should exclude it from any valuation calculation.

[battlebus2] 14/4/2017 22:19

Why not keep the dividend and not buy back shares? Doesn't make sense to me.

[gnnmartin] 14/4/2017 20:35

Prompted by Brummy I looked at my SIPP records, and it looks as if the 25% Israel tax has been withheld. My SIPP is with Charles Stanley, and I rather expect them to get things right. If they send me anything telling me what tax was withheld in Israel, it didn't catch my attention.

Does anyone get the gross amount? Or the gross amount less 15%?

[cockerhoop] 14/4/2017 19:05

Did anyone ask why they'd reduced their dividend by 75% when they had $8m of cash on the balance sheet?

[cockerhoop] 14/4/2017 19:02

Daz,

Do you have an understanding of their product? Simibox appears to be a tool that allows customers to create their own training courses? I'm aware of their tie in with Lockheed Martin who presumably allow SIM to use their data to model courseware but i've not seen any other aircraft type specific CBT that they've produced.