Stanley Gibbons Share Discussion Threads

[dashton42] 22/3/2013 07:11

Here we are then - results day. I've had a quick look at the headline figures, but will need to pour over the detail to make sense of where we are...

[graham1ty] 22/3/2013 07:11

Those look pretty good and well ahead of the forecast

[dashton42] 20/3/2013 18:20

Am hoping for good things, and lots of news on Bidstart progress and development plans...

[tom.muir] 20/3/2013 07:44

Results are out on Friday.

[eekorehc] 19/3/2013 17:07

Results due. Should be good by all accounts. IMO

[dashton42] 19/3/2013 16:47

Interesting tick up in the share price today - wonder what that was about. Low volume though.

[graham1ty] 05/3/2013 12:44

dash......not arrived.....

[dashton42] 05/3/2013 09:59

G1TY - have sent you a message via advfn with my email - let me know if it gets through.

ps - thanks Orange1 - didn't know about that. Can cut you in on plenty of bad info, if that's any good?!

[graham1ty] 05/3/2013 07:24

Orange, gotta be a subscriber for that, I am too cheap for that !

[orange1] 04/3/2013 19:47

You guys can communicate by private chat. Click on the arrow by the poster's name and "send message". However, in return for this tip, I would like to be cut in on any good info!

[graham1ty] 04/3/2013 17:28

No, do not ski ! Very happy to talk direct as can add a bit more. Will keep an eye out for when u online and can swap email addresses

[dashton42] 04/3/2013 15:54

Not another one on the French ski-slopes, G1TY?!

Interesting what you say about the IT; if that is going to happen, I think they'd have to highlight it in the results, as it would have all sorts of implications.

You could well be right about the fund - I get the impression it's been quietly shelved too. We'll see.

Also agree with your comments about the 250 index - it always seems to me that investment grade stamps seem to be worth what SGI says they're worth, rather than what any particular market assesses their worth as. If the index factored in stamps from other dealers (which I believe it doesn't), then it would be a truer representation. And if it also factored in achieved prices on Ebay, then its value would fall off a cliff!

Finally, as an occasional buyer on Bidstart, I've found it fairly good to use - it's done everything its supposed to do, all items won or bought so far have arrived, and I've no major gripes. The only thing I would say is that the interface is a bit "clunky" - not as intuitive or well-designed as Ebay.

I'm very interested to hear their plans - I don't know if they will go into this level of detail in the results (in fact I doubt it), but I'd like to know the planned upgrade/rollout schedule, any planned functional improvements, recruitment of additional (or any?!) customer service personnel, changes in the charging structure, promotional plans, global domain purchases, etc. etc.

As I say though, doubt they will go into any of this in detail!

[graham1ty] 04/3/2013 08:03

dash, been away a few days....

re IT, i think I have heard that all IT is moving. Hope can confirm at the results. It was not in a statement.

re the Fund, despite the hype over c 5 years, my understanding is that many, many times cornerstone investors have promised much, then stood back at the last minute. IMHO it will be quietly dropped. There were always real issues in fact how they would make money out of it: it served more as a PR tool.

re the GB250 Index, while a nice indicator of the possible value of a few mega stamps, unless it was replicated by an independent "auditor", i have always worried that it would not be taken seriously and be seen just as a part of SGI marketing.

re bidtsrt feedback/publicity. The fact that you have noticed, that I have noticed, that it is now on ADVFN is bad conrtrol of their image......

Agree re analysis. Glad to be part of serious discussion re SGI and keeping this thread clean of rampers/dumpers

[dashton42] 22/2/2013 17:55

G1TY, I did say that the Bidstart review by its users was "warts and all"!

I think if you polled Ebay users - buyers and sellers - you'd probably get a fair mixture of praise and gripes too...

Customer service is obviously really important for SGI though - their brand could easily be tarnished by negative customer feedback on the new site or by sellers leaving, so I hope someone is actively on top of this - whether it's Mr Rosenberg or not.

As for their IT strategy, I don't remember reading anything in their news releases to indicate that they would be centralising their IT in the States, but I could be wrong. I'd imagine that this would be quite a substantial step to take, and certainly SGI's Linkedin ads for the States only appeared to talk about Bidstart.

Other issues:

Rare stamp fund, promised for last October. What happened about this? Did it ever launch?

GB250 Stamp Price Index - this is listed on Bloomberg professional, apparently. Wouldn't it be good if this could be listed on other platforms? I'd love to be able to see it in ADVFN, for example!

I'm not here to "pump or dump" SGI - I don't have an agenda (other than holding the shares), I'm just interested in trying to analyse the company, and root out any information that might be useful or interesting.

[dashton42] 18/2/2013 08:42

Thanks BBD, and on the subject of American investors, I did notice when I was last in Bidstart that a well-known UK stamp dealer is now listing some very high value (i.e. up to £50,000) GB stamps here.

This dealer is a stalwart of Ebay, so it's an interesting move that possibly bodes well.

SGI has also listed some high value stamps on Bidstart - including imperforate versions of GB SG126-9 for a cool £98,000.

[bigbigdave] 17/2/2013 07:55

Little bit in the ST

INVESTORS have turned to alternative assets such as rare stamps, coins, wine and even cigars to diversify their portfolios and hedge against the threat of inflation.

Fine wine has had a stellar start to the year, with the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100, the leading industry benchmark, rising 2.8% this January and many experts are expecting a sustained bull run. The Wine Investment Fund is predicting that the index will rise 14% in 2013.

Collectibles have demonstrated attractive long-term returns, but prices can be extremely volatile. For example, the Stanley Gibbons GB30 Rarities Index, which tracks the 30 most-tradeable British stamps of investment grade quality, has shown 10% compound annual growth rate for the past 40 years and jumped 38.6% in 2008. Next month, the index is expected to report another double-digit gain for 2012 as demand has been buoyed by interest from American investors.

[dashton42] 12/2/2013 08:50

The first bit of your comment may well be true G1TY, although it strikes me that the macro environment for retailing or auctioning high net worth collectables (i.e. low interest rates, lack of trust in financial institutions, safety-first mentality etc.) probably plays to SGI's advantage, and they're probably not doing too badly.

Also, they bought Benham as recently as 2010, so still seem to want to expand the retail collectable business.

I think financial services is the other legacy area where they seem to see good opportunities for growth, and I haven't seen evidence of them easing up on this aspiration either.

I do agree with the second part of your point, although I don't know exactly how closely they want the SGI name and reputation to be linked to Bidstart. Might be best just to have a discrete SGI link on the website, as at present.

Couple of other quick points:

1) I see that Bidstart features an upcoming auction of SGI subsidiary Frasers Autographs (the auction is said to be exclusive to Bidstart, and by implication targetted at the US)

2) I found this interesting article rating Bidstart - warts and all:



3) SGI finals due in March? Should make interesting reading.

[graham1ty] 12/2/2013 08:19

I think that SGI have wanted for years to migrate to a platform. Cease being stamp dealers as such, throw away the tweezers and take revenue off others efforts. Trouble is it hasn't happened. the traditional SGI stamp dealing business has proved quite difficult to scale up. There is a bit of new auction business, but not enough of a leveraging of their tradition and name to steal market share anbd really move ahead. So need a complementary income stream, and I think they think that bidstart will be exactly that. Will have to wait a couple of years before we know that.

[dashton42] 12/2/2013 07:09

It sounds like it's been a nice little earner for you then G1TY. I'm more in it for the long term, but have been dithering over whether to take some profits on the back of the recent strength.

I don't think Bidstart is an IT migration for SGI - they still have their own website (developed at whatever cost, and with whatever problems experienced along the way); rather, it's a complementary revenue source to be developed, and run side-by-side with legacy operations. At least, that's my understanding (very much looking forward for more detail on the strategy in the next set of results though).

As I said before, IMHO their website (retailing stamps, medals, investments etc.) is a different entity to Bidstart, which is a PLATFORM allowing individuals or dealers to buy/sell collectables (although, SGI can and do list their own items on Bidstart, as well as their main website).

The market seems to like the idea of this, as does Simon Thompson in Investors Chronicle. Is the optimism justified? Search me!

[graham1ty] 12/2/2013 06:48

Think market has reacted as if it is the be all and end all......if the movement is on IT migration of SGI.

yes, £6m, but how much has SGI spent already. Am quoting off the top of my head, but did they not make a big IT push c4 years ago, find it did not work, sack the department and move it to consultants. Must be a number of millions they have already spent just to get as far as relaunching the website.

Otherwise, no idea why the price rise.

was a holder from 40p t0 280p, years ago. Been watching ever since. did nibble briefly at 209p on the announcement but sold at 240p a few weeks ago

[dashton42] 11/2/2013 17:08

G1TY - yes, I think those are exactly the sort of questions people interested in SGI need to be asking. I don't know what the answers are yet, though, and I doubt anyone else does really.

At the moment, if you're a UK-based collector or dealer, your first port of call wouldn't be to list or purchase items on Bidstart, because it's on a US domain, and most (not all) of the listers, and presumably buyers, are US or Canada-based. It has got a UK domain, but this just redirects you to the US site.

Remember that this website is not the finished article yet; SGI have up to £6m to develop it - this may initially be for the US (?), but from the RNS dated 31/10/12:

"The next phase of the Company's internet strategy is the launch of a trading platform to access the low value/high volume end of the philatelic market and the Acquisition provides Stanley Gibbons with the opportunity to leverage its brand in this market globally."

Also though, remember that Bidstart isn't the be all and end all for SGI - it's a bolt-on acquisition that, hopefully, can be developed, and can provide a supplementary revenue stream to the existing business of selling physical collectables, financial services etc.

I believe that you need to look at what Bidstart MAY become, rather than what it is now, and take the risk that goes along with this into account when making an investment decision.

Out of interest, G1TY, do you have SGI shares?

[graham1ty] 11/2/2013 15:21

I suppose one thing we should look at really closely is the economics of each. What does bidstart charge ? as buyer ? or seller ? how much is final value fees ? How much for pictures /

if they are close and EBay can deliver 1000s of viewers to bidstarts 100s, then any difference of fee may be irrelevant. there must be some big dealers who have listed items on both and can by now analyse where things sell ( at least on buy it now)...and have tried to analyse prices realised ? can they assess unique users ? Why would anyone bid solely on bidstart and not be a member of EBay ?