Synergia Energy Share Discussion Threads

[boadicea] 20/11/2002 23:41

Results to 30.9.02 are due on 27th Nov.
They have said (see Ainsoph post 56) that they should be able to meet market expectations.
That, with a little more encouraging sales news ought to lift the price imo.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see some movement in the next day or two.
I am assuming volume should feed through strongly to the bottom line.
But, as always, dyor.
Boad.

[norcomm] 10/11/2002 09:09

the trend shows up to £1 by jan

[ainsoph] 07/11/2002 14:55

600k cross at the new mid price looks promising .....

[ainsoph] 07/11/2002 11:54

Not a lot of interest in this one but still ticking up as we head for results - 54/58p up another 5% on fair volume

Target - the legendary £1 but after xmas :-))




ains

[ainsoph] 06/11/2002 00:52

Ticking up a little more with heavy trading - 50/54p



ains

[ainsoph] 05/11/2002 10:54

Ticking up today @ 49/52p on good volume - H2 later this month


ains

[ainsoph] 26/9/2002 08:17

Looks good in this market


Trading Update

The Board of Synstar Plc is pleased to announce that, despite tough trading
conditions, it expects operating profit, profit before tax and cash generation
for the year ended 30th September 2002 to be in line with market expectations.

We continue to make progress implementing Phase 3 of our recovery programme,
"Expand and Rollout". This progress is reflected in recent new business,
including the largest ever single new business win for the group, a #120m
five-year contract. In addition, in June we were awarded a #21m contract that
significantly expanded our service offering to Westland Helicopters, while in
July we extended our contract with Renault in Spain. We have also just
announced a new #4m contract with Avecia, a leading global speciality chemicals
company. This is the latest Synstar customer to purchase most of our services,
and we are looking to extend the contract to include Avecia's other key European
sites. Details of these contracts can be found on our investor relation's
website at www.synstar.com.

Wins of this type, coupled with continued excellent customer satisfaction
results reaffirm our confidence we can deliver enhanced profitability and
margins going forward.

[day_dreamer] 12/9/2002 22:20

Nothing then.

RSI showing well oversold, so with this good news a
small bounce maybe on the cards, dont know if the
nasdaq will affect this one ?

Gravy

[day_dreamer] 12/9/2002 13:20

What going on with this one ?
Biggest contract ever and 1.5x the mar-cap and
the volume is only 40 odd k even with 3 on bid v 1 offer.
I know it's spread over 5 years the deal but the price/volume
dosent add up.
Maybe it's the ainsoph factor that keeping the price down.
Well I made good money buying Arena leisure even though
you know who had them and I've took a small punt on these.

Gravy

[ainsoph] 12/9/2002 08:27

Currently up 8.51% in a falling market - 8th in the leader table intraday

ainsoph


Synstar wins 120 mln stg, 5-year contract from Computer Sciences Corp
12/09/2002 07:52:45
LONDON (AFX) - Synstar PLC, the business availability services provider, said it won a new five-year contract from Computer Sciences Corp worth 120 mln stg.

The contract is Synstar's largest ever.

Synstar said it has been CSC's preferred supplier of computer maintenance services across Europe since 1994. From September 2002, this offering will increase to include support to CSC's Field Services organisation.

Synstar said the new agreement will result in further committed revenues of around 7 mln stg in a full year and around 4.3 mln in the year to September 2003. This is in addition to the 20 mln stg annual revenue that the group currently receives from CSC.

The increased revenues will absorb start-up costs and a new pricing regime in the first year, and in subsequent years will produce enhanced profits, the company said.

[e-mail]

[ainsoph] 12/9/2002 07:55

Contract looks good - still holding mine and expect them to outperform as market recovers - new management are doing what they said they would in terms of expanding business with existing clients whilst gently expanding into new sales territories



ainsoph

[hyper al] 12/9/2002 07:42

Contract extended for another 5 years, see news.

Looks good.

Any comments?

[vmax] 05/7/2002 22:20

Seems this has reached a point where it is worth a punt?........any views most welcome

[ainsoph] 01/7/2002 13:40

Big cross at the mid price of 51p - 749K



ainsoph

[ainsoph] 26/6/2002 14:23

17:58, Tue 25 June 2002

Synstar shrewdies take off with Westland

Synstar's new six-year £21 million contract with Westland Helicopters is good news for a number of reasons and should please the shrewd investors in the company, one of which has just topped up its holding, writes Joanne Wallen.

Aberforth Smaller Companies investment trust (ASL), run by a team led by Richard Newbery, has increased its 2.8 million share stake to 5.3 million shares, and now holds 3.27% of the company.

Other investors include Giles Hargreave's (Marlborough Special Situations) unit trust with 475,000 shares and Brian Watson, who holds 2.8 million shares in his Framlington Innovative Growth investment trust (FIT).

Citywire featured Synstar in March, when we looked at the progress chief executive Steve Vaughan had made with the company since joining in January last year from US IT services giant EDS.

One of Vaughan's main missions was to mine Synstar's blue-chip customer base and to cross-sell all of Synstar's services into existing customers.

Today's contract win is the first major manifestation of the success of that strategy, and is all the sweeter for Vaughan since he won it against his former employer EDS, as well as computer giant IBM.

Westland was an existing Synstar customer, using the company for its traditional hardware maintenance services. Westland recently put the running of its IT infrastructure out to tender, including supplying services that support complete business systems to more than 3,000 desktop computer users, and Synstar emerged the winner.

Vaughan told Citywire: 'This is just the sort of thing I was hoping for. Westland will use all of our services.'

Rather than heavily discount these services, which include maintenance, networking services and business continuity, Synstar has come up with a novel way of using its cash to increase its return from its customers.

Vaughan said as part of the Westland deal, Synstar will invest about £500,000 of its own money to renew some of Westland's ageing IT infrastructure. This in turn will reduce Synstar's support costs over the lifetime of the contract, enabling it to increase the profitability of the contract.


Synstar has no debt, is cash generative and at the end of March had £9 million of net cash. Vaughan said he believed that this cash would be better spent in further investments similar to those in Westland, rather than in buying potentially 'broken companies.'

Vaughan said Synstar was talking to a number of its long-standing customers, where it had good relationships and understands the company well, with a view to pitching for similar deals.

Elsewhere, Vaughan said that while the climate is 'not brilliant', things are going 'OK'.

In France, where the company was losing about £1 million a year, Vaughan said projects that had been on hold pending the French elections are starting to come through.

Like any other business, Synstar would be happier if the market suddenly got much better, but Vaughan is reasonably comfortable with trading for now.

Shares rose 2p to just 48p, valuing the business at £78 million.

Citywire Verdict:

The Westland deal shows Vaughan was on the right track in trying to bring together the various strands of the business and selling them all into existing customers.

The company's financial stability should give comfort to customers thinking of signing longer-term outsourcing deals with Synstar, and overall the story is looking good.

At the current price, the company is valued at about 12.4 times next year's projected earnings. This seems pretty reasonable given the health of the company and its prospects, and investors might want to follow Aberforth's lead and pick up some shares.



©2002 citywire.co.uk

[ainsoph] 25/6/2002 07:46

Synstar has signed a six-year deal worth £3.5m per annum with Westland
Helicopters, an Agusta Westland Company, manufacturers of helicopters based in
Yeovil Somerset.

Westland Helicopters has appointed Synstar to manage its entire IT
infrastructure and provide a complete business availability service to more than
3,000 desktop users, which will now encompass all four of Synstar's key service
lines: data management, business continuity, networking and computer services.
The agreement includes the transfer of 18 staff from Westland to Synstar.

The new contract, which commences on 1 July 2002, more than doubles the size of
the existing relationship. It sees Westland appoint Synstar to handle three new
support areas in addition to computer services, which it has provided since
1998. The business was won in a competitive tender against EDS and IBM.

Alan Ladd, Manufacturing Director at Westland Helicopters comments:

"We have decided to outsource the support of our IT infrastructure to Synstar
because of their proven track record, their innovative and flexible approach to
resolving our business issues and their expertise for delivering high value
business availability services."

[ainsoph] 24/6/2002 11:14

ASCT bought them and now hold 5.308 million shares


ainsoph

[ainsoph] 21/6/2002 18:16

distressed sale of 5.18 million shares yesterday via Morgan Stanley @ 42p


ainsoph

[ainsoph] 19/6/2002 10:00

No idea on today's fall but guess the US news and futures are having a short term effect. A fair amount of trading today



ainsoph

[norcomm] 19/6/2002 09:58

Why are these dropping like a small sherry ????

[ainsoph] 13/6/2002 11:30

Fidelity have just increased their holding from 3.58% to 4.3% and now have almost 7 million shares


ainsoph

[ainsoph] 10/6/2002 16:58

Big cross of 2.25 million shares ast the mid of 54p


ainsoph

[ainsoph] 30/5/2002 09:31

Not a lot of interest in this one .......


15:40, Wed 29 May 2002
Turnaround at Synstar
Synstar's recovery continues apace and the IT services company has now built back a profitable and cash generative foundation on which it has big plans to build, writes Joanne Wallen.

This time last year, Synstar (SYN), which provides computer maintenance, networking, desktop support and disaster recovery, saw operating profits dramatically reduced and pre-tax losses rising.

Today, the company reported operating profits for the six months to March up 187% to £3.2 million, on turnover from continuing operations up 4.5% to £109.9 million. Total turnover including discontinued operations fell to £111.6 million from £120 million. Pre-tax profits were £1.6 million, against losses last time of £18.8 million after exceptional items of £18.4 million.

As Citywire reported last year, chief executive Steve Vaughan, who joined the company in January last year, gave himself an 18-month target to turn the business around.

Today he told Citywire: 'We are pretty much on target with the recovery plan. We are profitable and cash generative and have been successful in getting our new structure to work.'

Last year, the company disposed of its terminally loss-making Italian business. During the first half it decided to get rid of its Swiss business. The loss-making French business is recovering, if slower than expected, and should exit the year in profit. Germany, Holland and Belgium are seeing some delays in contract signings, and pressures on margins

The new structure is all based around the company mining its blue-chip customer base to sell existing customers additional services, and cross sell between the various service offerings.

Vaughan said this has started to pay off, and results have been particularly evident in the business continuity, or disaster recovery business, where 50% of sales now come from cross selling, as against 10% last year.

Vaughan reckons Synstar has penetrated only 2% of the IT spend of its customers, 'so there must be an opportunity there,' he said.

The 'bedrock' of the business is still maintenance, which represents more than 40% of revenues, but Vaughan said this was 'very successful and a good door opener.' The idea is that most companies need hardware maintenance, and once in the door, Synstar can then sell its other services.
Networking is an area that Vaughan highlights for growth. Currently only 10% of the business, the networking division won an important contract with Bupa during the year, in which it was the first company to install a new type of Cisco network.

Apart from blue chip corporate customers, another important type of Synstar customer are other IT services companies, particularly those that focus on managing applications and outsourcing. Synstar's biggest customer is CSC, and it has recently re-signed a new five-year contract with ITNet, as well as a new deal with its former rival ICL, now Fujitsu. Under these deals, Synstar provides the physical maintenance of IT systems for its partner's customers. It also provides desktop repair and maintenance services for Compaq.

The company now has no debt, and had £9 million cash at March. It has been cash flow positive throughout the six months.

Shares fell 1p to 58p, valuing the business at £94.2 million.

Citywire Verdict:

Vaughan does seem to have got the house in order. The company now has a very strong base from which to grow, and it has plenty of opportunity for growth within existing customers alone, which should keep cost of sales down and margins up.

At today's price, the company is valued at a reasonable looking 16 times projected earnings. There are some risks in the European business at present, but overall prospects look healthy. Buy for the medium term.

[ainsoph] 29/5/2002 08:08

TWo mm sells have pushed them into negative territory - I thought the results were in line with expectations and promise lots for the near future. Phase one and two of the three phase plan have been implemented and all is on course for phase three. If they dip I will take advantage and buy a few more - longer term recovery play for me.


ainsoph

[ainsoph] 07/5/2002 23:02

H1 due on the 29th May