Smartfocus Share Discussion Threads

[cocker] 18/6/2009 13:06

A small write up in todays mail. Arbuthnot raise from Buy to Strong Buy

[kirs] 18/6/2009 09:08

Mas - bought some at around 3.5, and some at around 5. I did mention it in one of my post a while ago.

Interesting timing of the director buy - hopefully just clumsy...

[pre] 17/6/2009 19:34

judging by the chart we should be hitting 11-12p from here.....i'm well pleased with the upbeat statement today which bodes well...

[greek islander] 17/6/2009 19:04

Thanks Mas
I had been watching the price movement for a while but frankly had forgotten why I had an interest other that I'd noted your recommendation in the Memo.

I am off on a weeks holiday by which time I hope the market will have recovered from the last few days. Maybe encourage me to buy some stock.
Good luck.

[masurenguy] 17/6/2009 18:26

GI - I'd wait awhile until maybe the interims to see what the actual results look like. They transformed an operating profit of £1.7m into an operating loss of £1.2m last year and have undertaken some restructuring, changed the fundamental business model to SaaS and also digested Astech over the past 12 months. The indicators are certainly encouraging but it is difficult to factor in the potential impact of SaaS on both sales and cashflow as Kirs mentions above.

Kirs - didn't know you were back in - when did that happen ?

[kirs] 17/6/2009 13:18

Not wanting to dampen this (I don't mind a 20% increase....) but I assume that the expectations of which they speak were set at circa £240k profit for the year as updated by their broker. Any increase will be material at that level, but will be more interesting when/if the new brokers guidance comes out. If they are applying 1/12th revenue per month on rental contracts, it means at best 7/12ths of any new contract will be earned in 2009. So I don't expect much more out of 2009 really, apart from them not running out of cash (which now sounds less likely). 2010 they are still showing £570k PBT and a 0.61p EPS. I will be interested what the 2010 EPS figure becomes if / when updated, because if it does not move much - it is already looking well priced for a company that doesn't have a history of paying dividends.

Share price also probably too low to be attractive for doing share for share acquisitions....

Holding hoping..

[greek islander] 17/6/2009 12:35

Mas

Congratulations.
You pointed me at this one a while ago and I almost bought some. Have kept them on my watch list since then.
Looks a promising stock may well re-consider.

[masurenguy] 17/6/2009 09:44

Some good solid buying following todays positive update, prompting a 20% uplift in the share price !

[pre] 17/6/2009 08:15

ahead of market expectations....wow...good performance and strong start bodes well.....no doubt a re-rating is due here imo...

[masurenguy] 17/6/2009 07:13

RNS Number : 0221U
smartFOCUS Group PLC
17 June 2009

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING & TRADING UPDATE: 2009

smartFOCUS Group plc ("the Company", AIM: STF), a leading international
marketing software group, will today hold its Annual General Meeting ('AGM') at 10.00am (BST).

John Charles, Chairman, will make the following statement on current trading and the outlook for the remainder of 2009: "I am pleased to announce that trading to date in Q2 has continued to be positive, building on the Company's strong performance in Q1 which we indicated in our preliminary results statement
on 20 April 2009. "We are continuing to experience a strong demand for smartFOCUS' solutions, especially delivered in the SaaS model with new contract wins and continued investment from existing partners and clients. Consequently, the Company expects that its results for the first half of the year will be ahead
of the Board's expectations and importantly this positive performance provides us with increased confidence and visibility for the remainder of this year.

[masurenguy] 12/6/2009 14:08

Only looked at June 4 since that was the reported date of the Foresight transaction.

[kirs] 12/6/2009 13:58

I thought it was higher over the two days.

[masurenguy] 10/6/2009 10:42

A 600,000 share transaction accounts for circa 0.65% of the shares in issue. There are Sells @5.1p and a Buy @5.5p shown for this quantity on June 4 so it could have been a transaction with another institution or VCT who was holding less than 3% or it could have been retail since the transaction value was only circa £30K.

[kirs] 10/6/2009 09:58

I would have thought there would need to be an announcement from a seller too if they were crossing a threshold? Can't see that they would pick up this amount from the retail market?

[masurenguy] 09/6/2009 17:23

Maybe not but I guess that even a small additional investment, after almost a two year moratorium, has a positive connotation !

[joan of arc] 09/6/2009 16:56

Thanks for the update M. I'm not sure if we should read anything much into it then.

[masurenguy] 09/6/2009 13:54

Foresight VCT were a pre-IPO investor in STF. At the time of the AIM listing Foresight had just under 20m shares. They subsequently sold circa 5.25m shares almost 2 years ago to help Forum to build their stake in STF (currently the largest shareholder with circa 19%). This left Foresight with a 14.6m shareholding in STF. Todays announcement that Foresight have acquired a further 600,000 shares is the first addition by Foresight that I have seen since their prior share disposal to Forum.

[joan of arc] 09/6/2009 13:06

Anyone have any idea how long Foresight have been building their position??

[kirs] 05/6/2009 14:40

we should find out I would think if this a major person holding or the position is being transferred between two significant holders as the positions are probably going to be reportable. Just surprised that such volumes causes the price to rise....

[masurenguy] 05/6/2009 12:50

Someone may actually be building a position having bought 500,000 earlier this morning !

[kirs] 04/6/2009 15:00

someone unwinding a large postion? circa £100k of trades..

[masurenguy] 28/5/2009 15:38

smartFOCUS: shift in business model promises rewards
by Jon Mainwaring
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

It is a tough time at the moment for all kinds of businesses as inflation figures from around the world testify to the fact that consumers are buying less and expecting lower prices for those things that they do buy. But companies have to carry on as best they can and need to find new ways of persuading existing customers to spend more while also getting new customers on board. One approach for companies is get sophisticated about how they market themselves to their customers and the best way to do this is to use a combination of communications platforms. The power of the brand is all important, of course, but to grow, and maintain, a powerful brand takes a lot of marketing and this is where software can come in handy.

smartFOCUS is a business software developer that supplies 'intelligent marketing' solutions that facilitate the delivery of relevant, personalised and timely communications to a brand's customers via different channels, such as print, e-mail, mobile phones and the Web. At the heart of the smartFOCUS solutions is the ability to consolidate the huge volumes of data companies store about customers and make it usable by marketers. Through analysis marketers are able to build insightful customer knowledge and information that helps to better identify and target different customer groups with the right communication through the right channel that improves marketing results. Client brands that use its software include Easyjet, Harrods, Hilton, Manchester United, Rabobank and Sony, but in total the company has more than 700 clients. The company's online marketing business, smartFOCUS Digital, serves firms that use digital marketing channels. Its e-mail marketing application, smartMARKETER eChannel, is used to turn every e-mail communication into a powerful business tool. Meanwhile, another application, called Digital Marketing Solution, can be used to deliver integrated e-mail, SMS, RSS and Web channel campaigns.

The world's oldest wine club, The Wine Society, adopted smartFOCUS Digital's e-mail delivery platform in order to help it better communicate with its 110,000 members. Already using direct mail, the club found it needed a fast way to keep members up to date about the latest wines that were available or the latest promotions that it was holding. By using smartFOCUS for general promotional campaigns, The Wine Society found that it saw consistent 'click-throughs' of 10%, while more targeted campaigns saw response rates of up to 45%. Most importantly, during an 18-month period the club achieved a 400% growth in online sales.

The company also has a news media-specific business, called smartFOCUS ASTECH, that configures software especially to provide marketing automation to the publishing industry. In April, the Dallas Morning News signed up with the business, which works with to over 100 news media brands

smartFOCUS's final results for 2008 came out at the end of April. These showed that revenues had slipped back from £11.5m in 2007 to £10.4m last year and that profitability had declined, with the company making a loss before tax of £1.2m (2007: £1.7m profit before tax). The company's chairman blamed a reduction in software licence revenues that had in turn been caused by the deteriorating economy, specifically in the last quarter of the financial year (traditionally the company's strongest trading period).

Meanwhile, smartFOCUS has been concentrating on a business strategy that involves migrating from its traditional perpetual software licensing model to a 'software as a service' (SaaS) model. SaaS is a form of selling software that involves the software vendor running applications on its own servers, while its clients access it remotely (usually via the Internet using a Web browser). This makes it easier for the vendor to perform tasks on the software such as upgrades and other kinds of maintenance, while clients are required to install little, or no, software from the vendor on their own computers. SaaS also gives more control to the vendor, since the vendor gets to manage and limit the use of its applications while preventing unauthorised copies and distribution of its software. Clients, on the other hand, do not have to spend a huge upfront fee, as is the case when buying a software licence. Instead they are, in effect, renting the software, which also helps the vendor predict revenues better than when using a lumpy licensing model.

At the end of 2008 the business accelerated its move to 100% through the SaaS model and reorganised around this change, which has incurred a one off cost but reduces expenses by around £1.5m annually moving forward. The change to SaaS is expected to deliver a significant increase in its recurring revenues, greatly improving revenue quality and visibility, while also shortening the sales cycle and increasing the competitiveness of the company's software offering. Additionally, the SaaS model should reduce operational costs and reduce barriers to clients adopting smartFOCUS's software. smartFOCUS's chief executive Chris Underhill said the company's clients are moving to outsource non-core operations in order to deliver reductions in cost and time to market. The SaaS model for delivering the company's multi-channel marketing software is aimed at addressing these needs and Underhill expects the marketplace to respond positively.

Meanwhile, the company continues to make sales. As recently as last Monday, SmartFOCUS won a follow-on deal with fashion and sportswear retailer M and M Direct to build a single customer view database. The retailer had already been using SmartFOCUS's software for more than three years, but by upgrading it believes it will achieve greater insight into marketing performance and each customer's behaviour. Before the M and M deal, during the first quarter smartFOCUS experienced "strong trading" with both revenue and profit ahead of plan, while the company increased its recurring revenues ending the quarter with visibility of over 78% of its planned revenues for 2009.

Forecasts suggest that revenue growth for the whole of the current year will be a little flat as a results of the change to the SaaS model, while the business should make a small profit with earnings per share coming in at 0.25 pence. Next year, smartFOCUS is expected to do better, with EPS estimated to increase to 0.6 pence. The company had net cash of £1.5m (equivalent to 1.6 pence per share) at the end of last year, so its share price (5.25 pence at the time of writing) should benefit from some support in the event of any bad news. This share is may be a risk, and perhaps not for widows and orphans so cautious investors may want to look out for news that the shift to the SaaS model is working before committing.

[masurenguy] 27/5/2009 17:03

Good spot AISHAH !