Interesting online at present - you can buy a maximum 1,100 shares at 1948p, but sell 2,000 at the 1900p midprice.
I suspect VLE are still in the market buying back shares at 1900p, which is handy given that unusually there appear to be a few shares around. |
They must have been listening to me :o))
Good to see a substantial buyback - 5k shares costs £94,500 these days at 1890p. VLE's buybacks have always added value to date and been a signal of the board's perception of value. The value accretion of further buybacks at this point seems self-evident.
Hopefully more to come, especially before the upcoming results given that they're going to read incredibly well following the trading update. |
They have started |
Cheers PB87, much appreciated.
Has to be worth VLE buying back more shares at these levels. |
Clearly, as a standalone entity, Shire Foods would command a rating significantly higher than the three times underlying pre-tax profit multiple embedded in Volvere's conservative net asset value. As a comparison, funds managed by DBAY acquired cake maker Finsbury Foods in November 2023 on an exit multiple of 8.3 times operating profit to enterprise valuation. On the same basis, Shire Foods would be worth £48.1mn, implying a valuation of £38.5mn (1,744p) for Volvere's 80 per cent stake in the business.In other words, it's not difficult to arrive at a sum-of-the-parts valuation of £66.3mn (3,000p), or more than 50 per cent higher than Volvere's current market capitalisation. Furthermore, the hefty cash pile mitigates downside risk, and interest income continues to be accretive to NAV per share. |
It would be useful if someone could copy the rest of Simon Thompson's tip here now some time has passed, or at least an extract with the rationale behind his 3000p valuation. |
Cheers rimau1 - 3,000p is the highest valuation so far....
Here's a link and the intro (subscription-only):
"An investment company in deep value territory
Simon Thompson: The sole business increased profit by 50 per cent which isn’t included in the market cap
Published on March 24, 2025
by Simon Thompson
• 2024 pre-tax profit up 72 per cent to £6.3mn
• Closing net asset value (NAV) of £41.8mn
• NAV per share up 15.9 per cent to 1,719p
• Cash up 17 per cent to £27.8mn (1,259p)
A pre-close trading update from Aim-traded investment company Volvere (VLE:1,920p), ahead of results on 23 May, highlights why I suggested buying the shares at 1,800p in my 2025 Bargain Shares Portfolio.
In the 2024 financial year, the company increased pre-tax profit from £3.6mn to £6.3mn on 14 per cent higher revenue of £49mn. Around £1mn of the profit reflects net interest income on a burgeoning £27.8mn cash pile, which now backs up two-thirds of Volvere’s market capitalisation of £42.4mn." |
Simon Thompson has just published a buy update 3000p sum of the parts buy |
interesting
2 buy trades ....filled 1-3 seconds after sell trades ! (imo there are buy orders sitting on the MM's books just waiting for any sells to go thru.
& it also explains the low % spread
....& imo it infers schrewd (intelligent) buyers) |
...fairly illiquid...as we know
£16.5k of buy volume so far today, @ ~£19.16) incorrectly marked by the advfn system as being sells.
(a dummy sell gets the price of £18.91)
Quite a small spread at the moment imo. only 1.3% ! |
 those numbers look low imo as a valuation for Shirefoods.
If someone were to buy 80% of Shirefoods for say £30m they probably get a few million of current assets (which they could run down if they wanted some cash to reduce the cost of the acquisition) & could sell & leaseback the buildings, again to quickly get some cash back
& then perhaps have spent £18-20m nett, & get say £3.1m of PAT, minus say £550k building lease cost, say £2.6m, a p/e of 6.9.
If they borrowed £18m at 7% interest the cost would be £1.26m. Giving a nett annual profit of £1.3m-1-5 PAT (these are "very" rough initial guestimate numbers)
So, imo someone could buy the 80% stake in Shirefoods for £30m, sell the frozen finished products, sell/leaseback the buildings & then borrow the remaining ~£18m cost & make £1.3-1.5m PAT/year for a nett cost of £0 ! So, for me, £30m is too low a number.
-----
& if bought VLE to own that 80% of Shirefoods ....if did it at the current cap. value a buyer would be laughing due to the high amount of nett cash held by VLE, which a buyer would get as part of the acquisition. |
A Sharescope filter of all LSE listed shares (ex inv trusts) that have grown top-line by 5%+ for the last 10 years shows only 7 companies.
ABDP, BVXP, CVSG, DOTD, GAMA, GTLY, YOU.
Shire is very special, relative to most of the dross on the market. Nevertheless, small number of customers and constant pressure on margins means it maybe shouldn´t be super highly rated, I guess. No moat, IP etc.
You can make up your own valuation. If VLE have done 6.27m pbt. Maybe 1m interest, so Shire did 5.2m? Our 80% share of that is 4.2m. Tax that at 25% and net contribution from Shire to VLE might be 3.1m. I´d say a 10 x multiple reasonable.
So 30m for Shire and 27m for cash pile gives 57m or 2600p/share.
Looks like a case of Carry On Holding and hope it never gets overvalued :) |
wealthoracle.co.uk/detailed-result-full/VLE/1311 |
Eezymunny
...yes, stuff moving from being cheap to being popular & being over priced makes it difficult to hold many shares long term....but that is often where the big rewards are.
(...I was lucky at Intercede, managed to notice it at a cheap price & then sell when it became fully priced, now fallen back a good %; but not easy to get one's timing right.....or to hold long term & make the big gains...
....
...btw ....all my gains made in '24 & so far in '25 were all from shares that rose & then fell back, so for me, in recent times it has been best to take profits,....but, it has been a bad period for small caps, which is where I normally buy/sell, fingers crossed the small cap. sector will return to popularity one day)
...investing in individual shares, a complicated 'game'/process. |
For the record I have been invested in VLE since 2009….so certainly a very happy shareholder esp since this is currently my largest shareholding….
So I am very happy to remain patient but at the very least the huge cash pile needs resolving…..so if the plan is to continue with Shire then maybe a tender offer would be appropriate (they have previously done this) to reduce the cash pile or a much more aggressive share buyback. |
Thanks Smithie. I´m utterly useless at holding stuff for the long term generally, as they all get overvalued at some point. VLE has been woefully undervalued for almost the whole time I´ve held it. Speaks volumes for the uselessness of the average PI... |
Eezymunny
well done. |
Shire revenue starting 2016:
15.2
15.9
18.3
25
27.2
30.6
38
43
49
And looks like an OK year this year and perhaps a big year in 2026.
And selling it is "the obvious way forward"? ROFL!!!
Shire has a small market share in a huge market. It´s performing brilliantly and growing better than 95% of the market, at a guess.
Volvere is almost a 20 bagger for me, and has made me a small fortune.
The stock remains a transfer of wealth from the impatient uneducati, to the patient educati. Long may it continue. |
....agreed.
=====
...surprises me a little that despite the company having so much cash & producing so much cash that the share buy backs in recent months look very small. |
Perhaps not liquidate, but at least buy back shares pretty aggressively. |
Jaf111.....please amend the NL to JL as sadly it was Jonathan that died so young. |
JAF111
wrote
"the obvious way forward now is to sell Shire and liquidate the company…"
...imho you are completely wrong.
;-)
but each person to their own view.
(May I suggest you turn the RNS to be the right way up & read it again. ;-)
....or wait for a new article from ST, assuming he wrote the IC article)
=====
PS
in the header Rivaldo says that Shirefoods was bought in 2011, it is now 2025.
imo the company has shown it is not interested in a quick flip of its investment in Shirefoods.
...it is now firing on all cylinders & expanding strongly......clearly their products are being successful & are in demand...imo "no one" sells an asset in that situation. |
I have realised that Eezy…..although (not wishing to be critical of the mgmt) they are not infallible…230;Indulgence…;..
But as highlighted by a number of commentators, particularly following the death of JL, the obvious way forward now is to sell Shire and liquidate the company…..£25 per share being the conservative IC Bargain Shares target I think |
....good results.
congrats to holders & esp. to long term holders, especially Rivaldo who created this thread back in 2009 !!! & appears to have been holding since 200-300p/share !
& congrats to Eezymunny who apparently bt in at ~£1/share !!
(I had some at about £12-13, ....story of my life that I didn't keep them ! :-( )
=====
....the ppl that bought in the ~3 months before today, driving the price up.....during a complete news blackout for many months ..
....complete stroke of luck for them !
;-)
...or did they know today's results in advance ?
(well, I guess that some people would have known, everyone at Shire foods, any company that supplied raw materials to Shire foods, any company that supplied additional production equipment to Shire, & the staff at VLE HQ.....quite a lot of ppl). |
Although small, Indulgence was acquired 5? years ago and didn’t work out so probably best forgotten |
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