Universe Share Discussion Threads

[loganair] 28/6/2013 11:05

drunken sailor - What I usually do is to put in a Limit Buy price for a month and managed to pick-up a good few every time the price dipped below 1.7p.

[drunken sailor] 27/6/2013 18:57

I managed to get some at 1.75p, but only £500 worth without being quoted over the offer. Very well done on accumulating your horde. Some days are better than others. I just wish I knew what could be done to improve the liquidity of the share as that is the only thing that puts me off buying a substantial wedge. I am planning to bed and SIPP some other shares when they get to the right price and I will use the tax rebate to accumulate some more of these in whatever size dollops the market will allow.

[thorne3] 27/6/2013 16:29

drunkensailor- I bought most of themin the period June 2011/2012.

[loganair] 27/6/2013 11:25

I had no problem in buying several £1,000's worth at a time when the price was below 2p.

[drunken sailor] 26/6/2013 19:07

thorne3 if you do not mind telling me I would love to know how you mangaged to accumulate so many at such a low average. Back when the price was down that low I could only buy a few £100s worth without having to pay over the offer.

I am normally a great believer that directors should look after the business and let the share price look after itself, the exception to this is when they want to issue shares to either raise money or do acquisitions then they need to get the best possible price for the shares which means having the shareprice reflect the value of the business.

I can see how over the next 2 years we should see 100% bottom line growth probably 25% this year 75% next year. That is a great story and if that was reflected in the share price it should be about 10p and still good value at that. But how does the market get that story now rather than waiting 2 years when the bottom line has doubled?

[thorne3] 26/6/2013 13:57

drunken sailor.As a holder of quite a few million of these shares acquired on average at about 2.4p I very much appreciate you comments about the AGM which I unfortunately could not attend this year.I agree with all your comments and believe that all issues will be resolved in due course.The upside in this stock is very considerable and Messrs Mcleod and Goddard who are both well incentivised are the men to realise it.They both have very sound judgement as evidenced by a comment Stephen M. once made to me-"I never talk about anything that I'm going to do until I've actually done it."As you say I wish all AIM stock MD's would keep to that policy.

[davidosh] 25/6/2013 19:50

drunken sailor.... it is free to join and very useful if you checkout all the links and info there.

[fugwit] 25/6/2013 19:35

Drunken sailor, ta for the write up, much appreciated.

[drunken sailor] 25/6/2013 18:37

I am not a member of sharesoc, but please feel free to cut and paste it there, either attribute me or change it to "By someone who attended..."

[davidosh] 25/6/2013 16:34

drunken sailor....Excellent thank you. Are you a member of ShareSoc ? they have a great Agm library of company reviews and it would be useful if you could post that info there. www.sharesoc.org

[goodapple] 25/6/2013 16:28

Drunken sailor - Thanks very much for the write up.
Looking forward to more news as & when.

[drunken sailor] 25/6/2013 16:06

I attended the AGM today. The company is in very safe hands and they are looking at sustainable and credible long term growth through organic growth and acquisition, but only where they make real sense for the business – ie not another Jet Set, which everyone agrees was a complete disaster. The Indigo acquisition is going very well and has opened up the tier 2/3 (ie the Spars and Budgens, they are not targeting Tescos et al) "grocers". There is very little duplication between the 2 businesses and they have dovetailed together just about perfectly with some HTEC functions being moved over to what was Indigo.
They also want to move into data analysis – they have a load of payment data and a load of loyalty data, but they do not really do anything with it, but a lot of value can be derived from analysing spending patterns, effectiveness of ad campaigns etc – this is something they want to do through acquisition as they do not want to have to pay to reinvent the wheel. They could then offer payment, loyalty and data analysis as a service bundle

We had a long discussion about the liquidity of the share – very few buys and sells which leads to a large spread and any decent size buy or sell getting quoted outside of even that spread. Liquidity and the shareprice in general is down to small investors like us – the institutions buy in to placings and then hold. The shares are tightly held by their main investors, which is a good sign, but does not help liquidity. They appreciate the problem and recognise that if they want to do acquisitions then they need to get the shareprice to a level that better reflects the value of the company. All present were agreed that they are currently badly undervalued. Much of this stems from the years of decline and the loss of faith by the market, at the moment revenue is fairly lumpy so there is not a great year on year / half on half comparison story to tell – it was remarked that the AGM statement of in line with the same time last year and in line with market expectations was not going to get investors' juices flowing. However confidence amongst their customers has improved markedly. Their major customers used to be concerned about the state of the balance sheet (a major company does not want to be reliant for a key aspect of their business on a small company that could go bust), but now they no longer even mention it.

They agree something needs to be dome to raise market awareness of the share and its undoubted potential. This has been hard for them in the past as the business does not create a nice steady news flow – the lack of message board chat is indicative of the lack of things to chat about. This will change as acquisitions happen – they have a number they are considering at various stages, but nothing that is just about to be concluded. Also Indigo does let a lot more smaller contracts, which will help news flow. They are wary of making promises that they subsequently fail to deliver on. Whilst I applaud this (too many AIM companies fall into this trap either deliberately or accidently), I feel they are probably being a bit too wary, they have a great story to tell and whilst they should not over play it, they should find opportunities to get it out there.

Overall I really enjoyed the meeting and chatting with Robert and Stephen afterwards over a sandwich. I will be looking to tuck a few away into my SIPP (not helping liquidity!) but I do see these as a great long term investment, they will never be an overnight 10 bagger. I did not ask about a dividend as I do not believe it would be the right way to use the cash they are generating at the moment, maybe I will press them on this next year.

[gallops] 25/6/2013 12:57

Interesting to see what updates come out of the AGM today

[ironstorm] 03/6/2013 09:39

Natural next step for the management who have done a good job so far.

Hopefully in the 2nd half we will see evidence of cross-selling.

Less than 5x earnings at this profitable and growing company.

[ironstorm] 03/6/2013 09:39

Natural next step for the management who have done a good job so far.

Hopefully in the 2nd half we will see evidence of cross-selling.

Less than 5x earnings at this profitable and growing company.

[davidosh] 03/6/2013 08:02

That looks a very sensible and complimentary acquisition which is immediately earnings enhancing. The Indigo vendors are also showing confidence in the benefits by taking the Universe shares. Now await updated broker reports and notes.

[puku] 30/5/2013 13:06

Quiet board. Happy to get in at just under 4.5 p. Previous eps was 0.71 so quite cheap in p/e terms. Need to see some of the "transformational phase" coming through.

[loganair] 04/5/2013 09:34

It's an indirect holding by Henderson, so who are they them holding for???

[davidosh] 02/5/2013 04:25

The whole of the Vianet holding was picked up by Henderson who are a very good small cap team so that is good news.

[thorne3] 18/4/2013 12:05

The company now has a good story to tell so the Vianet holding will most certainly have gone to an institution which can only be good in so far as it improves the quality of the shareholder base.A well presented Report & Accounts together with more newsflow concerning growth should cause the shares to continue their upward trajectory

[davidosh] 16/4/2013 11:51

A 13m share buy at 4.75p....I suspect the Bruline holding has been snapped up. They are now called Vianet of course. That equates to 7% of the company so I wonder who the buyer is ?

[loganair] 05/4/2013 13:51

The main highlight for me:

Net debt at 31 December 2012 almost eliminated, at GBP19,000 (2011: GBP1.76m)

[woodcutter] 04/4/2013 11:32

GHF why surprisingly;-)

we always seem to be sniffing around the same stuff

carpet going in today.......light at the end of the tunnel.

Woody

[steve243] 04/4/2013 09:56

Sound as if Universe Group are on the way back and Steve is doing a good job at turning the company around - an interesting interview