Utilitywise Share Discussion Threads

[ochs] 15/5/2018 12:16

I decided to average down last week at 28.5p, so hoping this is the bottom!

[eaaxs06] 15/5/2018 10:31

All very quiet on here for some time, has everyone given up om UTW?

Share price (and volume) looks to be heading upwards the last few days, lets hope it's not another false dawn.

Good luck, everyone.

[thetruthcomesout] 27/3/2018 20:18

I have heard more staff have been made redundant today from back office and comlliance positions

[energywatcher] 24/3/2018 08:46

Agreed on all counts

I think they are looking to cross sell water, but that isn't a great market. Typically energy spend is 6-10 times water. Telco could be another, as could chip and pin devices. If I were them I would be looking at solar PV and electric vehicles, they are the big trends at the moment.

Also agree that generating digital inbound leads is the way to go, if they can make it work. Doing this on a pay per click basis is cripplingly expensive, so would need to be in house.

The challenge there is that energy is boring, over half of SME's never bother to engage with the market. It is difficult to make a digital message heard in the B2B energy space. Especially if you are trying to shout louder that the likes of uSwitch and Money Supermarket.

[bennywin] 24/3/2018 07:40

Energywatcher.
You make some good points.
I do think the days of relentless cold calls should should be a thing of the past as it irritates potential customers. It’s also not a great thing to have to do every day, hence the very high turnover.
The success of the digital marketing is crucial imo.
Surely , with 40 k customers, UTW needs to find extra products to sell to them, although without a trained sales force, they will find that difficult.

I have mixed feelings about the future prospects and feel there are some big challenges ahead.
Results next month should be ok (as we have already been told that debt has decreased), but moving forward, I am not over optimistic.

[energywatcher] 23/3/2018 19:33

Yup, you are right, I work in the energy supply industry, and UW is big news, so I am interested. Having checked out today's announcement I happened across this chat thread and thought I would offer my 2 pennies worth.
To be honest I wish I had shorted them a year or more ago as this was obviously coming from a mile off. 18 months ago, the company I was working for had a standing board meeting agenda item, each month 'how to handle the looming UW implosion'. I am now working away from supply/brokerage but still interested.

So I offered my opinion, I've responded to a couple of counter opinions. Ignore me, test my opinion for validity or agree with me, I don't really mind.

But if you are long, on the hope/expectation of a recovery I would suggest you do your own research - for example check out the UW trust pilot reviews vs. Make it Cheaper or Love Energy Savings.....

[masurenguy] 23/3/2018 18:57

energywatcher 23 Mar '18 - 3276: I am neither long nor short, and do not intend to take a position. So my opinion is just my opinion, not me talking my book.

Hmmm.....for someone who is allegedly disinterested and "neither long or short" you're apparently interested enough to make 4 posts today. You also only registered on ADVFN today and you have not posted on any other thread. It seems clear that you have an agenda here, and your username indicates that too, otherwise you would have just made a post stating your views and moved on.

[energywatcher] 23/3/2018 17:13

True

However, apart from the first reports after IPO they never give any stats regarding customer size, or number of meters per customer. This, coupled with the point I made earlier, regarding their high value contracts being low consuming Non Half Hourly metered customers, suggests that their typical customer is a bog standard SME. If they were successfully targeting the M of SME they would be shouting about it.

[freddie ferret] 23/3/2018 16:53

Depends on the size of the customers.

[energywatcher] 23/3/2018 16:43

Hey Freddie,

I am neither long nor short, and do not intend to take a position. So my opinion is just my opinion, not me talking my book.

I disagree with your point. UW are renowned in the industry for pushing 5 year deals, with one supplier in particular. Therefore once a customer is signed up to a 5 yr deal there is little left to sell - They state in the latest report that there are only 3000 sites in their portfolio suitable for energy services/intelligent buildings. For the remaining customers the activity really is as simple as choosing a contract to sell to the customer and reading them a verbal contract

Renewing an existing contract is a relatively low burden activity, in the main they will know who the customer is, who the contact is, the supply details, the renewal date, the current contract details etc. it is simply a case of persuading the customer to re contract.

I only know this anecdotally; but apparently their marketing database is 600,000 customers, and they call the entire database every 6 weeks. It is this activity which takes up the majority of the 600 people. This is tough work, there are in excess of 100 competitors also calling these customers regularly (those that aren't sensible enough to register with the TPS), much of the effort is wasted as unless you catch a customer in the 'renewal window' they cannot switch supplier anyway.

They clearly don't think 4000 is very good, as they want to go from 40,000 to 130000 in 3 years.

The maths is simple, and it doesn't add up, without high commission levels and/or inflated consumption.

Trouble is - how?.

[freddie ferret] 23/3/2018 15:48

energywatcher.

The sales team will mainly be engaged in getting repeat business from existing customers. 4000 new ones strikes me as possibly quite good.

Sounds like there are several avatars here that want the share price lower, I wonder why?

[energywatcher] 23/3/2018 12:08

M&A would be the only way, but cant see them having the credibility to allow that.

[bennywin] 23/3/2018 11:59

fmp-tv.co.uk/company/utilitywise-investor-news-and-videos/

How BF thinks he is going to get to 130k customers by 2021 is beyond belief.

[oshy92] 23/3/2018 11:41

Good morning,
Short TV clip with Utilitywise CEO following yesterdays re-admission to AIM and results announcement:
www.fmp-tv.co.uk/company/utilitywise-investor-news-and-videos/

[masurenguy] 23/3/2018 08:58

Very quiet here this morning with just over 15,000 shares traded in the first hour and no price impact.

[freddie ferret] 22/3/2018 19:27

Re these revised accounts - slightly worse than I expected.
However still very much a going concern.

I do worry re Corbyn - if he nationalises the electricity supply industry.......

The share price I think is reasonable given the fears and falls BEFORE suspension.

If cash remains ok, then it is ok.

Happy with the conservative accounting regime.

Good to see it back on the market! :)

[karadas09] 22/3/2018 16:59

Well the accounting issues appear to be water under the bridge now. It will be interesting to see the interim results and a trading update. An RNS from the company in early Feb stated that in the first half of the year net debt had reduced by £4m due to cash flow from operating activities. This is encouraging. However expectations have been set for a 'softer' second half, which is apparently a short term blip due to the recent uncertainty. I can't say I find that encouraging.

[masurenguy] 22/3/2018 15:57

I made an initial, modest, speculative investment here today. May add further in due course subject to further developments.

[eaaxs06] 22/3/2018 15:52

A few chunky deals going through in the past half hour, probably some MM's squaring their books?

How about this..... One million shares @ 38p.

[eaaxs06] 22/3/2018 13:46

I have to say I'm very surprised at the shareprice its resumed at.

I thought we were going to be completely hammered.

[blusteradjuster] 22/3/2018 10:31

Would have been good for management to have floated some scenarios for profitability/cash flow going forward.

“If revenue does £££; and usage does %, then profits/cash flow will do +/- ££”;

[masurenguy] 22/3/2018 09:07

It will be interesting to see where the shareprice settles today after it comes out of auction.

[r ball] 22/3/2018 08:54

And the suspension will be lifted.....

[bennywin] 22/3/2018 07:51

All very confusing and not particularly inspiring.