Strix Share Discussion Threads

[masurenguy] 09/6/2018 13:07

An interesting institutional base, which accounts for 60% of company shareholdings !

Woodford Investment Management: 17.50m. 9.21%
Premier Fund Managers: 15.85m. 8.34%
Schroder Investment Management: 12.50m. 6.58%
Polar Capital: 11.90m. 6.26%
Kames Capital: 10.35m. 5.45%
Artemis Investment Management: 10.08m. 5.30%
River & Mercantile Asset Management: 10.00m. 5.26%
Miton Asset Management: 9.86m. 5.19%
Old Mutual Global Investors (UK): 9.43m. 4.96%
BlackRock Investment Management (UK): 7.50m 3.95%

[douglas fir] 29/5/2018 07:59

John Taylor on being an inventor
The Life Scientific

John Crawshaw Taylor is a prolific inventor who specialises in designing and manufacturing thermostatic controls. His ingenious integrated control system is found in in one billion electric kettles worldwide, enabling kettles to switch off automatically when the water boils, stopping the element from boiling dry and preventing plastic kettles from catching fire under a worst case scenario. 600 million of his safety controls for the small electric motors have been sold to date, and are used mainly to prevent the motor in windscreens wipers from overheating. He talks to Jim Al-Khalili about his struggle with severe dyslexia at school, the art of inventing and why he doesn't believe in selling an idea.
Producer: Anna Buckley.

[johnthespacer] 23/5/2018 10:14

Good to see that their Patents are strong enough to result in successful claims against those infringing them...

[discodave4] 02/5/2018 19:49

Thanks alter ego.DD

[trident5] 02/5/2018 12:46

A sudden small surge !

[alter ego] 23/4/2018 22:45

DD follow this link, scroll down on r h side of page under “company news”

[discodave4] 23/4/2018 19:25

You couldn't post up some detail could you?, much appreciated.As usual, start looking for a nice little dip here and wallop!.DD

[alter ego] 23/4/2018 16:02

Cannacord have initiated coverage with a target price of 210p. That would be nice!

[a0148009] 27/3/2018 12:25

Sorry, you are quite right that was what I intended to say.
Looks like the stags are still cashing in.

[igbertsponk] 27/3/2018 11:33

Issue price was 100p. Think the 127.5p you refer to is the price it opened at on listing.

[a0148009] 27/3/2018 11:29

They do look interesting and I put a toe in the water below the issue price @ 127.5p.
Often found family businesses are better managers, they are well established globally and are introducing new products so it is not a one trick pony.
Forecast annual dividend next year of 7p gives a yield of 5.4%.
So long as they maintain their market share and keep ahead of the game both in products, market share and geographic spread they look very promising.

[martinthebrave] 22/3/2018 17:32

Graham Neary analysis today on Stockopedia. Pretty positive.

Strix (LON:KETL)
•Share price: 128p (-1%)
•No. of shares: 190 million
•Market cap: £243 million

Preliminary Results

This is still a fairly recent float (August 2017). It develops and produces commonly used safety controls in kettles, for which it owns the patents. HQ is on the Isle of Man, and manufacturing takes place in China.

It's numbers are in the billions. Today it reports that it sold its two billionth product late last year. Previously, it reported that its products were being used around the world over a billion times each day.

Its valuation has seemed pretty reasonable and I've been kept back from buying the shares only because 1) it has a modest debt load (probably no big deal); 2) the expectation that something will "go wrong" as it sometimes does for recent flotations; and 3) not yet having an annual report for it, as a publicly listed company.

The third of these worries will soon be out of the way, as we now have preliminary results.

And apart from those concerns, the business model is hard to fault. The main ongoing risk is that copycats, particularly from China, take a bite out of its 38% market share.

Today's numbers are in line with expectations. Revenue increased by nearly 3% and gross margin was up 120 bps to 40.7%.

Market share in "regulated" markets, i.e. those markets which protect intellectual property in the way that a western country might do, is flat at 61%.

In the "less regulated" markets, market share grew to 19%.

In both segments, the overall size of each market is growing and this growth is particularly strong in the less regulated markets, which increased by c. 12% (Strix grew by 16%).

The company does not appear to be resting on its laurels, either. A new range of controls was launched last year, which will therefore be included within a wide spread of new appliances this year.

A table illustrating Strix's controls can be seen here (external link).

Dividend - final divi declared. 2.9p is being paid for the first five months since flotation, and brokers have apparently penciled in 7p for next year.

Balance sheet - net debt is now at £46 million. The financial review says this is set to decline during 2018.

My opinion

As you might have guessed, I'm increasingly warm towards this share. Stockopedia also reckons its above-average, giving it a StockRank of 73.

Having said that, I'm not sure I agree with the price to book value calculations above. The company has been reorganised, so the stats might need be updated with these latest figures. One of the advantages of looking at newly-listed companies is that there can be a delay before the computers figure out exactly what is going on!

I'm tempted to buy a small, starter position in this to get my feet wet, as I build my familiarity with its operations.

[minerve] 22/3/2018 11:49

I have a small holding here and must admit haven't done full due diligence. Naughty boy!

My question is having that they have been involved in the kettle OEM business for so long why the sudden need to sell product(s) to retail? Why not stay strong in the OEM space? This might be an indication of the long-term view of protecting its OEM space to competitors and its patent protections.

[eezymunny] 22/3/2018 11:35

Nothing in there about longevity of patents AFAICS , which IMO is absolutely critical. That's the huge downside risk. IF I owned this I'd phone the company and ask...I find Admission Doc etc pretty elusive on this matter!

[martinthebrave] 22/3/2018 10:28

Directors Talk.

Mark Bartlett interview today covering results. New products sound promising

[martinthebrave] 22/3/2018 10:13

phowdo Agree with you about IPO's coming with health warnings but I am comfortable with Strix. Yes it was loaded up with Debt when launched but it has tremendous FCF which will clear the Debt quite quickly. Dominant Market Share, Low PE, Good Divi & decent Outlook statement. What is it that you don't like?

[phowdo] 22/3/2018 09:53

Zeus floated this.

Therefore there's a good chance the wheels will come off at some point in the near future. See CVR and ACRL for recent examples of how lax their DD is.

[18bt] 22/3/2018 09:34

Nice smaller co income stock plus a little bit of growth

[jakedog2] 22/3/2018 09:29

Barbelsue
Why don't you research like other PI's have too..... that way you will get a better understanding of the business & decide if it fits your investing criteria

[martinthebrave] 22/3/2018 09:28

Happy with "In Line" results. Throwing off lots of Cash & reducing IPO Debt quite quickly to 1.7x Net Profit. PE 10.5x, Divi 5.4%, Nice Moat. Good Divi stock with a bit of growth. I Hold.

[barbelsue] 22/3/2018 09:19

Am I reading this right - this is on a p/e of less than 10 and paying dividends. Does anyone know anything about them?

[eezymunny] 09/3/2018 10:56

Anyone have much idea about the patent situation here? What are the key ones and when do they expire?

Quite a few Strix patents look long in the tooth, and often patents only last c. 20 years. Which begs the question has this been listed to give an exit to sellers just as key patents about to expire?

"10. USE OF PROCEEDS
The Placing is being undertaken to fund the repayment of outstanding principal and accrued interest in respect of certain loan note debt that related to the acquisition of Strix by an investor group led by AAC Capital in 2005. The implementation of the Pre-Admission Reorganisation and the subsequent Placing will
result in a full exit for this investor group including both equity and loan notes"