Tribal Share Discussion Threads

[illtud] 20/5/2014 07:30

I haven't looked back as you have. I might just do that.

The 2nd half weighting has been mentioned in previous years but perhaps by Hardman & Co, the analysts.

I take your point about the difference between 2013 and 2014 and thank you for your advice, however, I remain confident so I'll stick with this one.

I've tried trading before but I prefer to play a longer game now : )

[simon gordon] 17/5/2014 11:55

Illtud,

I appreciate what you are saying but TRB do mention that earnings are more 2nd half weighted than in 2013.

16/5/14:

"As a result of anticipated timing of some important contract closures and software installations, our profits in 2014 will show a greater weighting towards the second half of the year than in 2013. We remain confident of the outturn for the full year. "

-

17/5/13:

"Trading since our year end has been in line with our expectations for 2013. As anticipated at the start of the year, our profits are likely to be weighted towards the second half of the year."

-

16/5/12:

There is no mention of a 2nd half weighting...

"Tribal Group plc ("Tribal"), a leading provider of technology products and services to the education, learning and training markets in the UK and internationally, provides the following update on trading, covering the period from 1 January 2012 to 15 May 2012.

Trading since our year end has been in line with our expectations for 2012. Our order book at the end of April was GBP193 million, an increase of 9% since 31 December 2011. Our net debt levels remain in line with our expectations for the full year.

The current year is a period of further investment in Tribal, as we establish the resources to deliver our three year strategic objectives, and we are pleased with our progress on our key initiatives."

=====

2014 EPS forecast range is 12.2p to 12.9p:

12.2p - 186p = 15.2x

12.9p - 186p = 14.4x

I can't see the shares rising until they prove up 2014 which might not be be confirmed until Q4. If a contract slips and TRB hit 12p and are given a rating of 13x = 156p.

I will continue to follow the story and wish you well.

[illtud] 16/5/2014 11:12

simon gordon,

As you probably know,I have been following Tribal for some years and have a fair amount of confidence in the company.

I like their products, especially SITS VISION. They don't seem to have any real competition for it. Their recovery is entirely internal, their growth is organic, they are making consistently good, growing profits and significantly reducing their debt, year on year. I also like the cautious approach of the current BOD.

The statement about profits being weighted towards the 2nd half of the year is their routine statement that they always make at this time of the year.

In Tribal's case, it is not really a note of caution. More a statement of fact because the 2nd half of the year is when they seem to get in most of their income.

illtud

[the drewster] 16/5/2014 09:43

With suitably deep pockets, and a good dose of patience, I think there are some financially life changing opportunities beginning to emerge in the small cap sector.

[simon gordon] 16/5/2014 09:21

IIltud,

"2014 will show a greater weighting towards the second half of the year than in 2013."

I have sold most of my small cap holdings, including TRB, as I am cautious on the market.

[illtud] 16/5/2014 09:10

Good report. Nice drop. I topped up :D

They always include that statement about profits being weighting towards the 2nd half of the year. It is how the company's contracts work. It is nothing new.

illtud

[simon gordon] 16/5/2014 08:33

irchris,

It's the mention of a 2nd half weighting that has caused the de-rating:

"As a result of anticipated timing of some important contract closures and software installations, our profits in 2014 will show a greater weighting towards the second half of the year than in 2013. We remain confident of the outturn for the full year."

If they don't make the 2014 forecast then they've flagged that it was a risk.

They are dependent on landing a number of contracts, if any of these slip it is probable they will reduce forecasts.

At the same time, many Small Cap shares are getting hammered as sentiment has cooled on the asset class.

[irchris] 16/5/2014 08:26

I can see no reason for the current 9% drop on today's IMS:

The SITS:Vision product has been sold into a new geographical area opening up yet another new market to add to the existing sales in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada ... - "we have recently been appointed to supply our student management system to the University of South Africa (UNISA), which secures our market entry into South Africa. UNISA is the largest open and distance learning university in South Africa, and one of the largest distance learning institutions in the world"

Plus the confirmation of the addition to the University of Kent contract to implement the entire SITS:Vision suite - "significant extension to our contract with University of Kent, under which the university is deploying our student management system"

[simon gordon] 16/5/2014 06:15

Interim Management Statement - 16/5/14:

Tribal, a leading provider of technology-enabled solutions to international education, learning and training management markets, provides the following update on trading, covering the period from 1 January 2014 to 15 May 2014.

Overview

Our Systems business continues to make good progress, and is seeing a good level of new opportunities both in the UK and internationally. Our Solutions business is performing as anticipated, with continued encouraging international opportunities offsetting a quiet domestic market. As a result of anticipated timing of some important contract closures and software installations, our profits in 2014 will show a greater weighting towards the second half of the year than in 2013. We remain confident of the outturn for the full year.

Our order book at 30 April 2014 remains good at GBP113m (31 December 2013: GBP127m), with the movement since the start of the year primarily reflecting the maturity of our Ofsted inspection contracts.

Net debt as at 30 April 2014 was GBP13.4m (31 December 2013: GBP4.6m), after taking account of payments relating to our recent acquisition of Sky Software, and deferred consideration payments relating to i-graduate. Our operating cashflow also reflects the timing of important contract milestones. Our expectations for net debt at the year end remain unchanged.

We are continuing to invest in the sustainable development of Tribal, with particular focus on management resources, software product development and sales capabilities. As we grow our international activities, we are making a number of important appointments to our leadership team. Most recently, we have appointed Jon Baldwin as Chief Higher Education Adviser. Jon will lead our Global Higher Education strategy development. Jon joins us from Murdoch University, Perth, one of Australia's leading research universities, where he was Deputy Vice Chancellor. Jon was previously Registrar at the University of Warwick and University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).

Sector narrative

Higher Education

Our activities in Higher Education continue to show good momentum. In the UK, we have signed a significant extension to our contract with University of Kent, under which the university is deploying our student management system to support staff and students in all aspects of the student lifecycle and related administrative processes.

Also in the UK, our performance improvement work in Higher Education is evolving well. We are now increasingly involved in important projects with our existing customers such as Anglia Ruskin University and St Andrews University, where our teams are supporting change programmes through which these institutions are seeking enhanced operational efficiency through effective use of our technology.

Internationally, we have recently been appointed to supply our student management system to the University of South Africa (UNISA), which secures our market entry into South Africa. UNISA is the largest open and distance learning university in South Africa, and one of the largest distance learning institutions in the world with approximately 370,000 current students from across South Africa, Africa and other parts of the world.

Our pipeline in Higher Education remains strong, and we anticipate announcing further significant new customer wins as the year progresses.

Vocational Learning

Our activity levels in the UK vocational learning market continue to be steady. In Australia, our work supporting the New South Wales Student Administration and Learning Management (SALM) development programme remains on track, and deployment of the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) elements of our solution is scheduled for later in 2014.

Sky Software, which we acquired in March 2014, and which is based in Australia, is performing in line with our expectations. Sky's pipeline of new opportunities is developing strongly in a number of international markets, with particular focus on Australia and the wider Asia Pacific region. Most recently, Sky Software has secured a contract with Griffith University, Queensland, one of the top ten universities in Australia, to provide its Sky Campus hosted student management solution for the university's English Language Institute, operating across the university's various campus sites.

Schools / K-12

Our work in schools and children's services in the UK and internationally is in line with our expectations. In Australia, our support for the schools-focussed aspects of the SALM programme is expanding. Our system is being deployed in a staged manner across New South Wales' state schools, and we are now working with the Department of Education in New South Wales to further extend the functionality offered by our system over and above the capabilities first envisaged when the programme commenced.

Keith Evans, Chief Executive, commented "The early months of the year have seen continued encouraging progress. We remain confident of the medium and long term growth prospects for Tribal, which are underpinned by the continued growth and internationalisation of our customer base."

[irchris] 24/4/2014 16:44

A google picked up this from

"The University [of Kent] has recently replaced its Student Admissions System with the Tribal SITS product. This project builds upon the new admissions system adding a range of modules which will implement a new Student Data System."

Although they are already using just the SITS:Vision admissions system, it looks like the full SITS:Vision product suite will be implemented at the University in the very near future.

[simon gordon] 24/4/2014 16:08

Bournemouth University has chosen Tribal's SITS:Vision student information system to form an integral part of its service and quality improvement programme

Posted: 24 April 2014

Bournemouth University has chosen Tribal's SITS:Vision student information system to form an integral part of its service and quality improvement programme.

Rob Bowra, Project Manager at Bournemouth University, explains, "This is an opportunity for us to break the mould and to enable us to think differently about our processes. It's part of our wider journey to improve the quality of the student journey and experience and to modernise our services and move them forwards."

Bournemouth has around 19,000 students from part-time undergraduates to research postgraduates. It aims to underpin its academic excellence with service excellence.

The university is seeking to automate and standardise its business processes with as few variations as possible between schools and faculties.

"The move to SITS:Vision is the lynchpin in our business process automation programme," explains Rob. "This is a far reaching project which will impact every corner of the university and result in significant efficiencies and automation."

SITS:Vision will initially be implemented to allow wider integration of automation into a range of process including the likes of curriculum workflow approvals. Students will also be able to use the SITS:Vision applicants portal and Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) software as part of a move towards greater self-service and greater interactivity.

"SITS:Vision has a strong reputation for student information systems and is used by leading institutions the world over," says Rob. "We were delighted to award them the contract after an extensive procurement process."

Keith Evans, Chief Executive of Tribal, comments, "Universities are under pressure to attract students and it's critical to impress with smooth interaction, fast response times and high quality information from the moment of first enquiry. Having effective back office processes and systems to achieve this will increase the likelihood of the student choosing to invest in their education at your institute. As Bournemouth University illustrates, having effective back office processes can also create efficiencies across all the faculties."

[illtud] 16/4/2014 07:23

A good report but little new news, hence no movement in the share price

illtud

[simon gordon] 02/4/2014 17:14

TRB's presentation at AACRAO 2014 which took place this week in Denver, USA:

Tribal and the University of British Columbia

A global "Centre of Excellence"




AACRAO:

[napoleon 14th] 30/3/2014 13:46

Perfect ISA share; buy & forget...
Paid 96p for mine in sept'12.

[simon gordon] 28/3/2014 11:49

Lacey,

Cheers.

Here's the segment on TRB:

Tribal (TRB) 203.5p

Education technology specialist Tribal (TRB) looks an ideal fit for either Capita (CPI) or Serco (SRP).

The £190 million cap provides proprietary software products to support education, learning and training providers; and delivers services to help improve the way teaching is done by its clients. This plays straight into the hands of the two FTSE 100 constituents, both of which are heavily involved in the education sector.

Capita's software solutions for education are used by over 22,000 institutions including schools, colleges, universities and private training providers.

Serco has trained more than 10,000 school and academy leaders; and it is responsible for managing the inspection of schools on behalf of Government department Ofsted.

Given the defence contract scandal issue presently depressing Serco and disappointments in the care sector, we wouldn't be surprised to see the service giant shift focus to other parts of the group, particularly education.

Tribal has market credibility and a strong track record of winning clients (notably beating very big names in the technology space) and delivering high-quality project execution.

Already a key selection for us (see Plays, Shares, 22 Aug '13), the firm has a strong position in the UK so the growth driver is now overseas. It has cracked the Australian market and is now hoping to replicate this success in North America.

A contract at the University of British Columbia, one of the top 40 universities in the world, acts as an excellent reference site for conquering the US market. (DC)

[lacey4t] 28/3/2014 11:40

Picked this up on the FLYB bb...
hxxp://www.sharesmagazine.co.uk/articles/takeover-targets#.UzU_aPFYCSM

[illtud] 28/3/2014 09:30

It should come soon. It will happen. We must be patient.

Consistent growth, good prospects, cash generative and reducing debt.

[iandippie] 26/3/2014 13:28

Approaching Septembers highs. However, things have moved on since then. TRB have reported excellent results, WH Ireland upped their rec to 275 and it now looks to have good support at 200 with the spread narrowing too. I smell a breakout imo :-)

[apad] 25/3/2014 18:20

Bought a starter pack.
34 job vacancies is all I have to add to the comments on this thread.
apad

[simon gordon] 15/3/2014 10:09

WH Ireland - 14/3/14:

Having upgraded our forecasts twice in the past six to eight weeks, we are upgrading only modestly this morning on today's results, which are some 3% ahead of our upgraded expectations. However decent double digit earnings growth in today's numbers tells us that the business continues to fire up well both in the UK and in the newer markets which now make up 20%-plus of TRB's revenues. Net debt at £4.5m halved YoY in line with pre-close. There has been further progress on margins and major new clients such as Imperial College in the UK reflect the strength of the model in TRB's home market. In the early stage North American business, the contracts with the University of British Columbia (student management systems) and the University of California, Berkeley (performance analytics) are positive. Encouragingly, the company is now bidding a growing pipeline across the region. The dividend has been raised 28%. We retain our Buy recommendation with a marginally increased 275p (265p) price target.

[simon gordon] 14/3/2014 11:00

Analyst presentation has been uploaded to the TRB site:

[illtud] 14/3/2014 10:58

Yes, a great little company with a great future ahead, imho

The drop in the share price today is down to a combination of factors: holders taking profits - it often happens when a report is published and the FTSE is down after one of the worst weeks for a while, because of the Ukraine situation.
Tribal will bounce back and move on up very soon

[nickjoseph] 14/3/2014 07:30

It took nearly 20 mins to read and digest. All looks great with debt being paid off, dividend and profit rises and several new contract wins abroad to strengthen the group bodes well. Business abroad looks to be taking over a higher % of business . No bad thing to get new contracts in USA , Canada andNew Zealand etc.. Good luck and still holding after these figures .

[malcontent] 06/3/2014 09:02

this share wants to break out over 200p and appears to be waiting for the prelims to give it the necessary ooomph.
volume suggests there's a fair bit of interest here from some bigger players

[gomore] 06/3/2014 08:55

Looks good, thanks for posting, Simon