Synergia Energy Share Discussion Threads

[latifs100] 05/4/2002 14:00

can anyone shed light on this today , blocks of 2m trades are going through.

[ainsoph] 05/4/2002 10:59

April 2002

HOLDING IN COMPANY

The Company today received notification from J O Hambro Capital Management
Limited that, as the result of a purchase of 1,000,000 ordinary shares of 1p
each in the Company ("Shares") on 3 April 2002, The Trident European Fund is now
interested in 8,800,000 Shares, representing approximately 5.42% of the
Company's issued share capital.

[weidnerworld] 21/3/2002 08:33

ainsoph

I also read the RNS and didn't see anything too negative in it.
Am I being naive or missing the point as I don't understand the correlation between the price drop and the the RNS?

[ainsoph] 21/3/2002 07:57

Current Trading


Institutional Visit to Newbury

Synstar Plc is today hosting a meeting of institutional investors and analysts
at its Newbury business recovery centre.

The purpose of the meeting is to give investors and analysts further insight
into the operational capabilities of Synstar. Attendees will hear from and meet
senior management from throughout the Group. In addition there will be an
opportunity to see at first hand the services that Synstar provides to its
business continuity clients and a demonstration of the capabilities of the new
Network Operating Centre also based at the Newbury site.

The following update on trading will also be presented by Steve Vaughan,
Synstar's Chief Executive.

More information on this event and copies of the presentations can be found at
www.synstar.com/investor.

Current Trading

Some good progress has been made in the first half. We have renewed and expanded
some of our largest customer relationships (eg KBC, ITNET, BA, Comax, Daimler
Chrysler) and developed some more (eg ICL, NCR). We have also seen further
progress in cross selling as the new Relationship Manager based strategy
develops (eg Land Rover, Bupa, Fortis AG). Our loss making Swiss business has
been sold and our French and Networking businesses are making progress towards
achieving a break-even run-rate.

However market conditions have been tough with considerable price pressure from
both existing and new customers. Consequently whilst profit is improving, it is
at a slower rate than we would like. We are assuming that market conditions will
remain substantially unchanged for the rest of the year. Therefore we have set
ourselves some challenging, but we believe achievable, business objectives for
the second half. The outcome of these objectives will be to achieve a result in
line with current analyst expectations for PBT and exceptional items for the
year ended 30th September 2002.

Ends

[ainsoph] 12/3/2002 00:25

Synstar announces that, pursuant to the announcement dated 29 November 2001, Mr
Alan Coles retired as Group Human Resources Director of Synstar at the AGM held
on 7 March 2002, with immediate effect.

[norcomm] 08/3/2002 20:01

CTB

Stick with this one, April is good ( I can feel it in my water ) or it could be Cystitis.

[sham3001] 08/3/2002 03:15

SYN needs to get back over 70p to confirm upleg. This will turn the ma's back up. It looks good because it pulled back perfectly to the 150 day ma.

[backwardation] 07/3/2002 22:59

Over to Sham3001 and CTB....

[backwardation] 07/3/2002 19:39

Professional investors like SYN, but will those falling 20 and 50 day moving averages kill off any northwards move ?

Any thoughts, Sham3001 ?

[ainsoph] 07/3/2002 09:58

09:28, Thur 7 March 2002
Company Focus: Synstar could shine
(Citywire research report) Synstar is to drop its long-running dispute with ICL and work with the company instead; Joanne Wallen believes this typifies the chief's determination to push the group forward.

Synstar, which provides computer maintenance, support and business continuity, this week announced a five-year deal with UK computer firm ICL under which Synstar will provide selective sub-contract services to ICL's UK customers.

The deal is a 'framework' deal with no exact value attached. Suffice it to say chief executive Steve Vaughan thinks ICL will become one of Synstar's top ten customers within a year, and to qualify for that customers have to be spending between £3 million and £4 million a year with the company.

Not only is this an important deal for Synstar, but it also marks the end of a costly court case the company has been bringing against ICL since 1997, regarding some alleged restrictive practices over maintenance of ICL mainframe computers.

Vaughan inherited the court case when he joined Synstar last January from US IT services giant EDS. He told Citywire: 'No one particularly cares about maintaining ICL mainframes any more, and the company was losing out on a potentially huge customer.'

This is not the first thing Vaughan has 'fixed' since joining Synstar. He offloaded its loss-making Italian operation last year, and last week completed the sale of the Swiss business, which was 'bad and getting worse'.

The company's French division had been losing £1 million a year, but is now recovering fast after Vaughan vowed to sort out its sales team and strategy.

Yesterday the company announced new deals in France worth a combined £2 million a year, including a £900,000 hardware maintenance contract with NCR and a network contract with Sony.

Germany and Belgium have been very successful, Vaughan said. The company also operates in the UK, Holland, Spain and Ireland, all of which have been trading satisfactorily

Vaughan also restructured the company last year, cutting costs and chopping 125 jobs, in readiness for a tough period of trading.

Vaughan's mission is to exploit Synstar's blue chip customer base more fully. Instead of selling one service to one company in one location, Synstar is now selling services to customers across geographies. For example Fortis bank, which was a customer in Belgium, is now doing business with Synstar in France and Ireland.
has also sold more than one service into a customer. BMW, for instance, now takes maintenance services in addition to Synstar's storage systems.

Hardware maintenance still represents 40% of Synstar's business, but Vaughan said it provides an excellent door-opener into a company, allowing Synstar to get in and sell other services.

Growth areas for the group include business continuity, networking services and managed services. Outsourcing contract values in Synstar's pipeline are 'considerably higher than a year ago'.

House broker Old Mutual's forecasts for this year are for £230 million turnover and pre-tax profits of £8.5 million or 3.3p per share. Next year's estimates rise to £240 million and £10.1 million or 3.9p per share.

The shares (SYN) are currently unchanged at 64p valuing the business at £104 million, and putting it on a price/earnings ratio for 2003 of a pretty reasonable 18.1.

There are several shrewd investors with stakes in Synstar. Aberforth Smaller Companies investment trust (ASL), run by a team led by Richard Newbury, holds 1.73% or 2.8 million shares, and (Aberforth UK Small Companies) unit trust holds a further 0.93%. Giles Hargreave's (Marlborough Special Situations) unit trust holds 400,000 shares.

Martin Hudson has recently sold down some of Fleming Mercantile investment trust's (FMN) holding, shedding 125,000 shares since mid-February to leave it with 4.9 million. However, Brian Watson is a recent buyer, adding 325,000 shares to his holding for Framlington Innovative Growth investment trust (FIT) in the last week, taking the holding to 2.8 million shares.
Citywire Verdict:

Services is not a bad industry to be in right now and if Vaughan can get new business from existing customers, cost of sales should fall considerably and margins strengthen.

So far he has delivered very well on his strategy. There is probably more work to do, and the economic climate won't help much at the moment.

The difficult work of executing the new strategy has just begun, but Synstar could have a bright future.
©2002 citywire.co.uk

[ainsoph] 06/3/2002 15:15

The Company today received notification from M&G Investment Management Limited
that Prudential plc and its subsidiary companies have a notifiable interest in
6,475,000 ordinary shares of 1p each in the Company, representing approximately
3.98 per cent. of the Company's issued ordinary share capital.

The shares are registered in the name of PRUCLT HSBC GIS Nominees (UK) a/c PAC

[ainsoph] 06/3/2002 08:37

Just creeeping above the triangular ma that I use and RSi on 50 and moving up - looks good for at least 80p over the next few months


ainsoph

[nirvs] 06/3/2002 08:27

looking very interesting. sitting on the 200ma. nice gap up yesterday. decent vols. a buy to new highs???

[ainsoph] 05/3/2002 07:35

Synstar announces 5-year deal with ICL and good recovery of French operation

Synstar Plc today announces that it has signed a five-year deal with ICL, one of
the leading IT solutions companies in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

ICL has appointed Synstar to provide selective sub-contract services to its UK
customer base. Revenues from this deal will increase as the contract matures,
and is set to make ICL one of Synstar's top 10 customers within a year.

Synstar has also decided to withdraw its complaint to the Office of Fair Trading
against ICL made in 1997 in respect of non-competitive practices. Both parties
have now agreed to no longer pursue this action.

Synstar also announces new contract wins in France, which include a £900,000
deal with NCR to provide hardware maintenance services, a network contract with
Sony, project work with Sanofi, an existing customer and a services and
maintenance contract with Antargaz. The combined value of these deals is
approximately £2,000,000 per annum.

Steve Vaughan, Synstar CEO commented: "We are delighted to have turned around
our relationship with ICL from one of litigation into what promises to be a
strong partnership. The new deals signed in France underpin our plan to return
this operation to profit. These deals are further examples of the good progress
we are continuing to make with our recovery strategy."

[sham3001] 04/3/2002 22:40

Some interesting big trades today. Is the pullback over?

[sharewatcher] 28/2/2002 08:06

Synstar was on Bloomberg's " bucking the trend" yesterday with interviews with their brokers who recommend buying up to £1.15p, someone from their Business Continuity side of the business and a long interview with CEO Steve Vaughan.

He was very upbeat about his time with Synstar saying the changes he introduced has set them up for the future, NO accounting skeletons and although a difficult market were doing well.

SW

[sham3001] 27/2/2002 08:17

Looks like the pullback is flattening, CTB?

[ainsoph] 26/2/2002 08:39

AFX-Focus) 2002-02-26 08:13 GMT: Synstar sells Swiss ops to Itris Maintenance for 1.25 mln sfr


LONDON (AFX) - Synstar PLC said it sold its Swiss operations to Swiss independent IT maintenance provider Itris Maintenance AG for 1.25 mln sfr cash.
Under the deal, Itris will acquire on March 1 the contracts held by Synstar Computer Services AG (SCS), the stocks of maintenance equipment held by the company, and re-employ 41 of its staff. Remaining staff will be made redundant over the coming months, Synstar said.

Synstar said it will retain responsibility for all other assets of SCS, including the leases on its Geroldswil headquarters and other smaller premises and will wind down the Swiss business, with a view to minimising any future costs. After legal, redundancy and closure costs, Synstar estimates it will make a loss on disposal of around 1.5 mln stg. The disposal is expected to be cash neutral for the current year.

Synstar said it signed a mutual support and market development agreement with Itris, whereby it will retain Itris as a subcontractor to support its contract to deliver pan-European IT support for the Galileo distribution system for the travel industry.

[sham3001] 23/2/2002 12:02

CTB, you back in yet?

Looks like the pullback I never thought would happen has finally arrived thanx to Mr.Fleming!

I think I'll be getting in here a few pence cheaper soon.

Don't miss the second bite of the apple eh, CTB?

[norcomm] 14/2/2002 16:20

Whoooooooppppsss !!!!!

[norcomm] 08/2/2002 10:10

CTB

Now would be a good time to get back in as ( the only way is up )Yazz

April could see £1.20, what we have lost and what SYN has won

[sham3001] 05/2/2002 12:04

I'm with you CTB. Awaiting a pullback. Chart is still one of the best in the sector.

[citytraderboy] 04/2/2002 23:21

Sham3001,

You back in yet ?

With the Dow Jones off 220+........I'm still watching !

Any views ?

Cheers,

CTB.

[sham3001] 04/2/2002 23:18

good call norcomm!

any other intuitive thoughts on this one or any others???

[citytraderboy] 04/2/2002 23:15

Well done, norcomm !

I'm looking to get back in, but the Dow Jones off 220+ !

I'll keep watching....

Cheers,

CTB.