Stm Share Discussion Threads

[lundun42] 14/5/2020 15:20

Report and Accounts and AGM notice now on their website. Always worth reading the detail in the notes to the Accounts for little nuggets as they don't publish the full notes with the results announcement.

[brucie5] 14/5/2020 14:29

Robust little share, apparently unimpressed with today's shenanigans on the markets.

[brucie5] 13/5/2020 10:35

Took a nibble for an income folio. Just looks overlooked. There are still some stocks out there quietly paying out dividends...
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Dividend
In light of the exceptional and continuing global impact of COVID-19, the Board considers it appropriate to take a prudent approach to cash management. Accordingly, and in order to provide the Board with maximum flexibility, instead of proposing a Final Dividend at the forthcoming AGM the Directors have declared a second interim cash dividend to shareholders of 0.75p per share. This together with the first interim dividend of 0.75p (2018: 0.70p) brings the total dividend proposed in respect of the year to 1.50p per share (2018: 2.00p).
The Board has decided that it would be prudent to maintain higher cash balances at this time, whilst recognising that the high proportion of recurring revenues gives the Board confidence in the resilience of the business
The second interim dividend will be paid on 26 June 2020 to shareholders on the register at the close of business on 5 June 2020. The ordinary shares will be marked ex-dividend on 4 June 2020.

[sphere25] 07/5/2020 17:16

Looks like it might be too boring for Covid-19 stock chasers. Edging higher and a nice 107k buy just before the close at 28p.

[kemche] 07/5/2020 12:46

Bought my first nibble - looks interesting.

[sphere25] 06/5/2020 09:47

Buying here this morning - hard to buy though. There has been significant interest here since the results so a possible sign that a re-rating could be on its way shortly.

[lundun42] 05/5/2020 10:22

The was a lot of volume/trades on the day they annnounced last week, then little since. It could be that connected persons (staff etc not requiring notification) were trading on their first opportunity after a results close period. It could be the company (trustee) itself with the executive share scheme as although they say this expired in April 2019 the results show the company still holding nearly 1.1 million "treasury" shares at the year end for the share scheme. Perhaps they were sold at the first opportunity as from what can be seen from past AGMs etc it doesn't look like the Co has any live scheme with the approval to buy shares for executives so maybe they've sold all these shares now as no reason to hold them anymore?

[lord gnome] 05/5/2020 07:41

All it takes is one (forced, perhaps) seller in a nervous market.

[elsa7878] 04/5/2020 13:23

Can buy at 25.3 - below the mid so clearly a big seller around.

I have a lot and not bothered but interested that after results it seems to fall out of favour very quickly.

[cheshire man] 02/5/2020 13:09

Article in full for those not subscribed

Investorschampon



STM: shares soar on reassuring results


STM Group (LON: STM), the financial services group which is endeavouring to diversify away from its offshore roots, announced encouraging results for the 12 months ended 31 December 2019.

A November 2019 trading update saw the share price tumble and the latest announcement reassured that all was not as bad as the market seemed to imply.

While revenue rose 9% to £23.2m, pre-tax of £3.9m was marginally below the prior year’s £4.0m. The net cash inflow from operating activities of £3.1m lifted year end net cash £17.2m, although a significant proportion of this balance forms part of the regulatory and solvency requirements.

The growth in revenue was due to the acquisition of Carey, which completed in February 2019 and brought new SIPP and workplace pension business. The UK SIPP market is well supported by some excellent businesses and STM may struggle to grow the Carey business in the face of stiff competition, rising professional indemnity costs and legacy issues with the Carey business which included a loss-making auto-enrolment business.

STM has attractive defensive attributes with annual recurring revenue of 77% underpinning forecasts. The current rating and valuation (££16.5m) looks very modest for a business which is highly cash generative and was previously forecast to deliver 6.5p of earnings per share in 2021, equating to a forecast multiple of only 4.3x at the current share price of 28p. While earnings are clearly subject to revision that looks very reasonable. The UK businesses acquired, while far less profitable, should also help dispel the air of distrust which appears to hang over its offshore operations.

[elsa7878] 30/4/2020 14:50

Can buy large chunks at under the mid price....

[cheshire man] 28/4/2020 12:27

This is money


STM Group PLC STM finnCap Corporate 27.50 22.50 53.00 - Reiterates

[lundun42] 28/4/2020 11:31

Volume is up significantly on recent levels. A couple of large trades this morning, 100k and 240k shares.

[smithie6] 28/4/2020 08:43

phew, with the share price just draining itself lower over recent days I was starting to worry that there was some info or factor that I wasn't seeing

so, it's a relief to see the share price jump this morning with results

[value hound] 28/4/2020 08:19

Yes, I appreciate it's probably worth more, but selling too soon is always the value player's lot! 😁

[cheshire man] 28/4/2020 07:47

Pleased with results and back to 40p any time soon will do me value hound :-)

[gary1966] 28/4/2020 07:46

28.5pps of cash at year end and nearly 6p of earnings. Revenue largely unaffected by current situation with only £400K at risk. You really think fair value is 40p with integration costs incurred in 2019 and cost benefits to come through in 2020? 70-80p maybe but not 40p.

[value hound] 28/4/2020 07:26

Agreed - worth close to 40pps according to the back of my envelope.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 28/4/2020 07:03

Well results as expected and it doesn't sound like they expect to be too badly affected by Coronavirus. I may buy back in here, the business is in the price for virtually nothing.

[lundun42] 27/4/2020 12:51

My hope for the shares is that they’re a takeover target from a much bigger player. I don’t hold out much hope the share price improving significantly otherwise. Their previous annual reports have always been pretty optimistic about their growth prospects but so far they don’t seem to be delivering much. DYOR but my view comes from info gleaned from their group and company websites etc. for the three main parts, Corporate Trustee, Pensions and Insurance.

The Trustee business is described by STM as legacy and clearly isn’t growing given increased worldwide scrutiny by tax authorities since the panama papers affair which must have killed demand for offshore trusts etc.

Their pensions business is europe with QROPS and now UK Sipps and auto enrolment since recent acquisitions. The QROPS operation is shown as the largest part of their total revenue but growth of this must have been badly hit since HMRC introduced the overseas transfer charge a few years ago and for now all movement of Brits heading to sunnier climes with their pensions in tow will have ended for some time to come. I don’t imagine Brexit will help either on that front. In the UK their SIPP business is probably well below critical mass to compete with the big firms and new SIPPS and transfers from final salary schemes must have dried up since the various scandals that caused the FCA to get involved. Smithie6 - You mention about pension savers continuing to save which is true but it looks like they charge fixed fees for pensions so savers adding more money to pensions has no effect on their revenue. They need new customers to grow their fee income and the current and future effects of virus crisis will surely have an impact on the number of new pensions being entered into, either through increased unemployment and fewer new firms needing auto-enrolment pensions.

STM has two insurance businesses and fyi their solvency reports are on their websites. It looks like the London Colonial part hasn’t written any new business for many years and the STM one has reported declining premium income since 2016. If you discount the one-off changes to the reserves held by the insurance companies the group reports don’t show any real growth in these businesses. They also stated in 2018 that they were moving the STM insurance business to Malta to deal with brexit which was good news but 2 years on it looks like that hasn’t happened yet as the regulator websites still show it in Gibraltar.

If STMs revenue isn’t going to grow they need to reduce their costs if profitability is to at least get back to previous levels. The £500k increased professional insurance cost mentioned in last years profits warning will be baked into the cost base now as well as additional governance costs previously reported so it will be interesting to see if they can do anything about their cost base. In the meantime maintaining the dividend will at least provide some relief to investors.Fingers crossed!

[smithie6] 24/4/2020 17:47

Im hoping the divi still gets paid
..depends how much free cash they have/need I guess

[smithie6] 24/4/2020 17:21

why do you think the outlook will be bad ?

most ppl saving up a pension pot are still ...well, going !

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& doing on-boarding electronically via IT has been a favourite of this MD for years, its not a new trick that they suddenly have to try to learn due to this virus crisis, they already did it...

[lundun42] 23/4/2020 12:34

I don't see why they postponed the original announcement. I think the FCA (as the listing authority)notice of the day before was just a convenient excuse. They will have already had auditor sign-off at the time they were originally due to announce. They've probably been re-writing the Chairman/CEO/FD sections of the Annual report to be more "current' given the virus crisis. I hope they're not revisiting the planned dividend. AFAIK there has been no regulatory "encouragement" (ex-UK) for this type of business to defer dividends. Let's see what next week brings but I doubt their outlook will be pretty.

[smithie6] 15/4/2020 08:04

results delay is actually a very small delay
&

reporting audited results on
28 April 2020

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"STM Group Plc, the multi-jurisdictional financial services group, will announce its audited results for the 12 months ended 31 December 2019 on Tuesday 28 April 2020.

In line with existing guidance provided in the trading update on 27 November 2019 and on 28 February 2020, STM expects to report 2019 Revenues of approximately GBP23.0m, reported PBT of approximately GBP3.8m, with Underlying PBT* of approximately GBP2.5m.

*Underlying PBT is profit before tax net of non-recurring costs and other exceptional items including bargain purchase gains and technical reserve releases that do not form part of the normal course of business.

For further information, please contact:


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