Universe Share Discussion Threads

[howdlep] 29/4/2009 11:08

Share Capital
The total number of shares in issue is 114,704,539 five pence ordinary shares.

Universe Group securities not in the public hands: 26,883,172 (23.44%)

At 24th March 2009 the following interests of shareholders in excess of 3%, according to the register of shares, was as follows:


Registered Name No. of Ordinary Shares Held
Ordinary Shares as % of issued Share Capital

Pershing Nominees 11,308,069
9.86%

State Street Nominees 10,223,287
8.91%

R.J. Mackie 8,087,663
7.05%

Goldman Sachs Securities Nominees 7,994,610
6.97%

Hargreave Hale Nominees 6,918,693
6.03%

Chase Nominees 6,606,136
5.76%

Barclayshare Nominees 6,281,010
5.48%

BNY (OCS) Nominees 6,089,000
5.34%

J.R. Scholes 5,691,960
4.96%

Rock Nominees 5,274,686
4.60%

Nortrust Nominees 5,050,000
4.40%

BNY Nominees 4,254,533
3.71%

[howdlep] 29/4/2009 11:06

A quick look through the trades in April shows there are very few at sub 3p. Those half or dozen small buys at 2.5p earlier this month will have bought ahead of the results on the potential of a turnaround.
MM's will need to raise the share price on any decent level of interest that maybe be generated from TW subscribers or general small cap coverage.
Once we get through the MA200 perhaps we can target the 4p resistance point.

[boadicea] 29/4/2009 11:03

GingerPlant - A fair assessment.
As you infer UNG could turn out to be a very profitable investment at this share price from here on, but past experience (including continual large "exceptionals") do modify one's expectations in practice.

Additionally, some parts of its operation are not notably recession-proof.

[howdlep] 29/4/2009 10:00

This has been one of TW's worst investment ideas and I am sure he has apologised for that. However, investors need to decide whether this is now a turnaround story and worth backing. Management have to deliver over time and the market is still very challenging. But with such a tiny market cap, then any type of profit is going to look very attractive on a p/e etc basis.
One to tuck away for new investors, but a difficult decision for current holders. I guess you should make that decision on the basis that it was your first investment, rather than simply averaging down.
At some point this morning TW will update his subscribers with probably a speculative buy recommendation.

[incorrigible] 29/4/2009 09:32

GingerPlant - 29 Apr'09 - 08:10 - 474 of 475

but it's surely not worth selling at this price!

___________________

deffo not worth it for me, as i have 395 shares valued at £9.66p even after today's 20% + rise, so dealing costs are more than the proceeds!!! but, i'm wondering whether to top up now...

[howdlep] 29/4/2009 09:04

But it is worth making an investment for the first time. An excellent recovery story potentially.

Edit: Hi Gingerplant, I didnt realise you were the author of post 474 when I commented. I hope this one comes good for you.

[mercedes] 14/4/2009 09:33

Anyone around??............why the 20% rise today???

[davidosh] 27/11/2008 00:11

It was all that director buying that brought me back for another look

[rabbrooks] 26/11/2008 17:14

Merc--- For what it's worth I'm in the same boat as you.Have been comforted somewhat by an insider who says to hold on.

[mercedes] 26/11/2008 14:21

Have not posted here for a very long time.........trying to forget I think?
Been in since Card Clear days,and how I wish I had sold out many years ago.stand me at .3077 per share.
Oh well at least I did well on RD.
Hope this cheers some of you up a little

Merc

[brando69] 06/11/2008 11:44

another gem from the t1ps stable... what a shower of sh--e

[colchester100] 06/11/2008 11:31

If the directors and senior employees are happy about the deal, why is MD of the Loyalty Division as stated in the previous bullitin not mentioned as one of the share purchasers?

[boadicea] 05/11/2008 17:31

Possibly the "negative reaction" was more a strategic move by a market maker to shift a chunk of stock to directors and senior employees. Presumably they are happy about the RAPP deal but obviously could not buy until it was announced.
The effect of this latest development today has been quite positive.

I don't personally have a feel for the change in the customer loyalty target strategy - i.e. whether it is well-founded or a move of desperation. However, given the number of participants in the today's holding announcement, those in the company obviously have faith in it.

They have good quality clientelle for the loyalty programmes and while the Jet-Wash venture may be affected by a recession, the effect on fuel sales is likely to be relatively minor - in fact loyalty expenditure might even benefit.

"Is it a write-off?", you ask.
Certainly, it is dependent on short term loans and its bank may therefore be in a position to pull the plug or at least force it into expensive debt factoring. One must assume that on the basis of today's announcement that is an unlikely event in spite of the fragility of its balance sheet. Perhaps its wealthy customers (BP!) are offering support. At end June it had £1.5M of short term borrowings and trade+tax creditors about £1M greater than receivables.
It ideally needs another £2 to 3M of permanent finance for comfort imho and is therefore not the type of company to commit to in the current squeeze except as a pure gamble.
(DYOR!)

[rabbrooks] 03/11/2008 20:44

Anyone out there who is concerned about lack of info or chat in UNG?Announcements today but a negative reaction unfortunately. Could this be a write off?

[loganair] 27/8/2008 08:39

21 August 2008 by Analyst: Robert Corden, has a holding in UNG.

If consensus estimates were realised, we could envisage the shares moving substantially higher over the next two years.

The management team was changed and the author considers that they will deliver
profitable growth. The Group's core business, through HTEC, is the provision of online loyalty and managed services information and processing systems for oil companies and petrol retailers which now includes on-line payment rocessing. It offers end-to-end solutions incorporating design, build, test and running of mission critical retail systems. It is the UK market leader in its sub sector and its data centre, annually, handles some £6bn of transactions on behalf of its clients. Management plans to substantially increase the international business especially in Loyalty programmes.

The Group has recently moved, partly by acquisition, into a new area under the name Jet Set which is the provision and management of car washing and air and vacuum systems for petrol retailers. It has won a number of major contracts (ASDA, BP and the CO-OP) and, over the next two years, revenues are projected to increase rapidly from £0.6m in H1 of 2008 to a projected level, based on current contracts, of over £4m in 2009.

Interim Results

At first view, despite a significant increase in revenues, the interim results were poor. They were lower than our previous projections which has led to a reduction in consensus estimates for the current year to 'clean' profits of £0.5m against earlier projections of £0.9m. However, there were explanations for this and the projections for next year to December 2009 have been maintained at profits of £1.6m and EPS of 1.0p based on a full tax charge which may not be paid.

The Group reported a pre tax loss of £0.62m in H1. There were exceptional items of £136,000 and initial losses of £183,000 from Jet Set, but that subsidiary is projected to be profitable in H2. The largest negative was the increase in costs in HTEC in order to service a major push into international markets. In that context, a joint venture will roll out a pre-paid petrol card for BP in Portugal which is scheduled to go live in September. The Group has also signed an agreement with the Rapp Collins partnership to offer international loyalty programmes with HTEC providing the backend management systems.

The Group also has a major contract where rollout has been delayed by one year.
The customer, a major international oil company, for internal reasons wants to go live on January 1. This year was missed, but it should happen next year.
Balance sheet and cash flow The balance sheet is dominated by historic goodwill so the ratios are unrealistic with stated, as at December 2007, NAV of 17p and a very low gearing ratio. However, excluding goodwill NAV would have been 2p per share. That is likely to show little change this year, but if consensus estimates were proven correct, clean NAV could exceed 3p by December 2009 and be over the current share price by December 2010. Excluding goodwill, the historic debt ratio would have been over 70%. This is likely to increase this year, as the Jet Set contract with BP will require capital expenditure of £0.5m in H2.

But once that expenditure is made, the Jet Set business should start to generate substantial cash. As a cash pre pay service, working capital will be negative which, with depreciation, should lead to operating cash flow greater than operating profit.

Conclusion

We consider that the new management team will deliver. Although, in the short term debt, is higher than we would have wished, this situation should work itself out during 2009. Unless major new Jet Set contracts were won, consensus projections are that the Group could be in a net cash position by December 2010.

Like many small companies, the market is not, at present, giving any credit for
potential profitability. In our view that will change as the Group starts to report actual results. Management indicates that recurring revenues could be 70 – 80% of total revenues in 2009. That is a high percentage and should be accorded a decent rating. Given that further progress is projected for 2010, it could be possible to project an historic PER in the range of 8 to 10, after the results for 2009 are published. On the basis that consensus estimates were proven correct, that could imply a share price of between 8p and 10p per share against the current level of only 4p.

There are risks. Universe is very small by stockmarket standards. The new
management team is not yet proven. The shares are traded on AIM and the market
for the shares is illiquid. The potential capital gains do look attractive, but care should be taken when dealing because of the illiquid market and the shares should only be considered by investors who understand the risks in the very small company sector.

[loganair] 11/8/2008 19:47

I am fed up with companies such as Universe. They promise so much but deliver very little to nothing at all. Just a year and a half ago Universe turned down a possible take-over at +16p saying that it undervalued the company.

When I brought into Universe they were profitable paying a decent dividend yield, now look at the sorry state they find themselves in.

As for TW who recommmended them a few years back when at 12p saying Universe is a strong Buy with a 1 year price target of 30p. At the time, I didn't realize he was talking about the total value of the company, stupidly I thought he was talking about price per share.

Personally I would have old TW lined up against the nearest wall and shot.

[brando69] 05/6/2008 12:02

any body still here? i continue to keep an eye on this as a former holding...

[boadicea] 21/5/2008 08:12

Excessive rounding error!
The actual figures are 842K and 656K which round to 0.8M and 0.7M respectively.
However, 842/656 = 1.283, i.e. a rise of 28.3%.

[fireplace22] 13/4/2008 11:04

8Trader results out on Tuesday so still time to buy!

Universe, (AIM: UNG.L), the retail and loyalty systems company, will announce
its Preliminary Results for the year ended 31 December 2007, on 15th April 2008

[8trader] 12/4/2008 17:35

Results on Monday.

Might surprise the market, not much been said on here.

[brando69] 24/3/2008 00:29

he might well consider that further evidence of his theorem. apparently multiple ramping/deramping personalities are often known to take polar views in order to generate a bit of heat.

i didn't say i didn't like UNG... I don't like the fact it was ramped up by winnifroth and his mob at around twice the price it is now.

i've bought and sold a couple of times, and at worst emerged at break even. i consider myself very lucky.

i would be wary of buying anything of this size right now... but that's imho.