Stm Share Discussion Threads

[paulboz] 25/1/2022 11:24

Executive summary :Peter Gyllenhammar has increased his voting rights to over 9%, which I view as a significant vote of confidence in the company.

[smithie6] 07/1/2022 19:08

that is +ve I guess

but

others have sold the same amount of shares, a negative

while PG has bought ~2% recently the price has been falling. :-(
it would be better for the rest of us if his buying was driving the price up !

[brucie5] 05/1/2022 15:36

Peter Gyllenhammar @ 8.73%.

[russman] 25/12/2021 10:28

percentages work both ways; up & down

[smithie6] 23/12/2021 17:21

but being small does have some advantages

if make smallish changes then it can impact the bottom line, whereas at say BT it is difficult to make big % changes to the financial numbers

[russman] 22/12/2021 17:24

lacks focus; spread too thinly; too small.

[smithie6] 17/12/2021 14:12

Personally I like the multi country operations of STM. I see that as an advantage. Companies that only offer products in the UK do not have those options. & in theory having multiple country operations should make the central function staff more skilled since it is more complicated, imo.

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we would all like to see more good news & the PBT increase, but in their business it takes time. The last few years have disappointed, as shown by the share price, but there are also some items of good news such as the implementation of in-house software saving the annual costs for using external software.

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at least the shares are cheap for anyone buying now & we get a decent divi yield while we wait...but yes it feels like it is dragging on ...

[smithie6] 17/12/2021 14:05

"....business development strategy role. Appointing pension MD Christine Hackett seems like an "out-to-grass" pre-retirement role and a penny pinching cost saving move."

I disagree.
The company has seen its margin & adjusted PBT fall over recent years, so shareholders want to see efforts to increase it. So, any penny pinching gets my applause/vote. Especially when in previous years there have been numerous cases of throwing money around, such as for adding directors/managers & using consultants.

STM has years of experience & various subsidiaries operating in various countries & offerring various products, if they don't have the sector knowledge in-house then something is wrong. But yes there is competition, as there is for virtually all listed companies.

[smithie6] 17/12/2021 13:58

you make some good/informed points

including

"What happened to the regulatory capital re-org/review/reduction from the much publicised merger of their insurance companies? They spent a lot of money on external consultants & since all has gone quiet. "

[lundun42] 17/12/2021 01:18

Catching up on my STM reading/research - It's disappointing that they didn't bring in new blood for the business development strategy role. Appointing pension MD Christine Hackett seems like an "out-to-grass" pre-retirement role and a penny pinching cost saving move.

What happened to the regulatory capital re-org/review/reduction from the much publicised merger of the their insurance companies? They spent a lot of money on external consultants & since all has gone quiet. Speaking of their life insurance companies it seems from companies house that the actuary director resigned from the boards a couple of months ago and also he has been reprimanded and fined by the institute of actuaries for some of his work (elsewhere??). Coincidence maybe but not a good look from a reputational perspective.

Strategically are they trying to be all UK or not? UK is uber competitive since consolidation and domination by the big boys in the sipp/pensions space and at present doesn't the majority of STM earnings still come from their Malta operation? I suspect if a bigger UK player was to be really interested they need to get rid of their Malta pensions "complication" and become a "clean" UK only regulatory aligned operator. IMO that's a brake on any takeover interest unless someone else is happy to do that themselves or perhaps the CEO decides he wants to retire, sell out/seed a takeover?

[russman] 13/12/2021 17:56

The BoD should set out their stall quickly.
M&A facility; New development team.
Just more overhead.

[clocktower] 07/12/2021 12:30

The sale was for personal reasons, so I do not think it is wise to suggest it was anything other than that but the CEO could not have sold them before, in view of the profit warning. However more importantly PG has increased a stake-holding. maybe still adding.

[arthur_lame_stocks] 07/12/2021 10:44

At least he had the good grace to wait until after the profit warning.

[profdoc] 07/12/2021 10:06

CEO sells £100,000 shares in STM following last month's profit warning - interesting

[russman] 06/12/2021 17:56

Merger with Tavistock would at least be bigger.
Strip out overheads. Works on paper.

[lundun42] 06/12/2021 16:59

Just seen the RNS announcement that the CEO has sold 300,000 shares to fulfill personal commitments. Nothing unusual in that of course, except that the Company PR announcement says he sold shares but their attached RNS notification says under "Nature of the transaction" it was a "Purchase of Ordinary Shares" :)ha!
So which was it?

[smithie6] 26/11/2021 15:26

...if we get a period of stock mkt weakness

then I guess that the purchase price for any acquisition will reduce, beneficial for STM.

[smithie6] 23/11/2021 14:22

"The credit facility is for £5.5m (the "Facility"), is to be used purely for acquisitions, and is expected to be drawn down in line with acquisition milestones by 22 April 2022 at the latest."

so, I assume that the facility will not be shown in liabilities while it is not drawn down

although the interest cost, on undrawn loan, over 5 years will be shown as a liability I am sure.
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personally I think the cost being paid for a loan that hasn't been drawn down is too high & imo STM made a mistake to agree to it. £96k/year. I guess the co. was sure at that moment that it would quickly draw down the loan, so the % rate for undrawn did not matter.

[russman] 22/11/2021 18:34

Too small; sell up to a bigger player who can consolidate & strip their overheads out.

[pdosullivan] 21/11/2021 19:04

Presumably north of the £5.5m acquisition facility from NWG - https://www.stmgroupplc.com/media/archive/2020/061120

[smithie6] 21/11/2021 14:05

How much free cash do we think the co. has available for acquisitions ??

[pdosullivan] 20/11/2021 08:32

By step change I mean that is what one could see happening when the acquisitions arrive and add scale to the platform.

[russman] 20/11/2021 08:23

the business continues to look for acquisition opportunities that would give more scale to its UK businesses.
A fitting epitaph - London & Colonial is too small.