Wichford Share Discussion Threads

[thechinaman] 04/11/2010 20:33

Going back through posts I'm surprised no one has commented (apologies if I've missed it and someone has) on the humungus Buy that went through @ 16:18:20 today : 20,000,000 (yes twenty million) @ 7p......

That was not an Uncrossing trade ie an aggregate of 'balancing the books' MM trades, and clearly was not a Sell! This was a single trade, during trading hours, for a cool £1.4m.

Someone clearly knows something is going to happen soon!!

If in doubt and you have L2, check for yourself.

Enjoy the ride!!

TC

[purplebox] 04/11/2010 19:46

Big buyer here today - 10th largest volume on the LSE !

[smartypants] 04/11/2010 16:42

High volume of stock shuffled around today ??

[ted1806] 02/11/2010 12:40

Now that is a tight spread!
Whats going on here?

[ted1806] 02/11/2010 12:31

There is some steady buying on here today....

Any news about?

Anyone?

[ards] 26/10/2010 23:44

Wichford Plc Comments On FY 2010 Guidance And Dividend
Thursday, 19 Aug 2010 02:00am EDT
Wichford Plc announced that the final dividend will be recommended to Shareholders at the time of the final results in mid December 2010 for payment in March 2011. The results and dividend for fiscal 2010 are expected to be in line with management expectations.

[quazie12] 25/10/2010 16:02

Good post Cerrito and I dont really think you are being overly pessimistc. The pressure on divis is one of the drivers for the selling I think.

q

[barrygibb] 25/10/2010 13:19

Overreaction imho
Creates a buying opp
BG

[cerrito] 25/10/2010 10:13

To be honest irritated with myself that I have not concentrated on these in the last few months when I could have exited well in excess of 8p.as things are not pretty. My first purchase was at 137p, although I know that they are people who bought well higher.
There are no immediate threats although the renegotiating of VBG2 prior to its April 2011 maturity will be interesting especially as at March 10 it had the highest LTV and the lowest ICR. Thank heaven at £48m equivalent it is the second smallest facility. Given that it has £38m of assets supporting the £48m facility one can only assume there will be a need for a cash injection of at least £15m approx, which will certainly eat into the 30 3 10 unrestricted cash figure of £60m(post Zeta restructuring being effective)
One assumes that they will continue till near October 2012 when the delta and gamma facility come up. While these for now at least have comfortable ICR, the LTV is not pretty.
They have done well in locking in long term UK Government deals at good rates, on the basis that there are no break clauses. Nevertheless they still have £120m of UK active assets-ie with short lease periods and of course it is not practical to think that they can lock these away at long term leases with Government agencies.
At March 30 2010 voids were 3.8%..below many other such companies it is true but as they said in their IMS they have £0.96m(ie 2% approx of annual revenues) coming due before April 11.
Note that in the three semesters trading profit has been declining-albeit marginally;of more concern is the worsening of operating activity cash flow has in the last three semesters which has been positive £9.2m, £4.9m and a negative £2.7m(due to negative working capital movements).
One has to surmise that given deteriorating operating cash generation,inability to enter into long term Government backed leases and need to build up a war chest to repay the banks, a reduction in dividends is inevitable.
Hope someone can point out where I have been too gloomy

[quazie12] 25/10/2010 08:56

Numpty. Everyone else had left the building. How can he stay on ?



From Interim management statement Feb 08.

Outlook



The Board believes that the UK, the increase in initial yields and reduction in
medium term interest rates now offers new interesting opportunities particularly
the Active (short lease) portfolio. It will also continue look for suitable
properties in France and the Netherlands. The Group is negotiating an
additional debt facility which will give it capacity to grow its investment
portfolio.



As previously announced the drive to increase the indexation of the rents will
continue. This in turn will give more visibility to the future growth of
dividends."



Philippe de Nicolay.

Non-executive Chairman

Isle of Man

[quazie12] 25/10/2010 08:53

I really cannot believe that old Nicolay is still there.

Those guys were far too highly geared and had no plan B.

They screwed up and it needs a big change at BOD level. That guy actually thought that the recession was a real opportunity for Wichford. Numpty.

q

[kimboy2] 25/10/2010 08:37

There was a report I saw in one of the papers, I think the Sunday Times, that the government have set up a committee to rationalise it's property holdings and leases.

[ards] 25/10/2010 08:36

think just market fear as wich dependant on gov leases. logic is that if gov headcount goes down need for office space goes down. question is how much already in price. could be shorters also taking out hedges on rest of portfolio. who knows. retail last to know.

[masurenguy] 25/10/2010 08:16

Steady selling from the open - is there some negative news that is being leaked !

[patviera] 22/10/2010 17:11

Cerrito...But surely with the low rents,others will want to occupy?With the high level of debt do you see Wich getting into trouble?

[masurenguy] 22/10/2010 15:08

No they can't but there might be break clauses in various leases that may enable them to either obtain an early exit or to reduce the amount of space that they occuppy.

[droid] 22/10/2010 14:52

Surely the govt cant renege on leases even if they wanted to.

[cerrito] 22/10/2010 12:54

patviera:I guess there must be some general market concerns about the plans of the government to manage their real estate portfolio in a more professional and coordinated manner.
Need to do work to see how specifically this impacts on WICH

[patviera] 21/10/2010 21:04

why did Wich shares fall 10 pct today? they yield 10 pct now

[ted1806] 20/10/2010 19:51

Anyone seen these big trades after the bell?
The biggest I have seen for a year....

1 million @ 7.70
1.6 million @ 7.75

On both occasions the price is smack bang in the middle
of the spread.....buy or sells.....

[purplebox] 11/10/2010 19:33

Bought 25,000 @ 7.56p on Plus Markets.

Long term hold - lets see what happens...

[shammytime] 23/9/2010 15:12

Looking at the chart, there seems strong support at 8p...could be a nice recovery from here...

[r_bedding] 23/9/2010 12:02

What's going on with the price here? Anyone shed any light?

[harmonics] 19/9/2010 09:34

First of all I have to declare that I don't hold anymore.
I bailed out at 8.4p with a 20% loss.
I have recently been working with the Home Office, I know they are closing many of the forensic science buildings around the country and sub contracting to commercial companies to save money.
I know they are doing this with other departments including some police work.
We will see sweeping changes in the next years because HMG is forced to think in a new and radical way to cut costs.
I could be wrong, time will tell but the wind of change may not benefit this stock unless the management diversify away from HMG dependence.

[lord gnome] 17/9/2010 07:27

Yes, dnfa1975 - but the government is still a better risk than most. All we need is a modest recovery in property prices and the NAV will increase dramatically. I see no sign of a double-dip recession and a strong government will soon have the public finances back on track. Happy to hold.