Kier Group Forum

If you're genuinely interested in hearing them 'come clean' you can listen to the analyst presentation. It will take an hour of your valuable time though; so it might just be easier to fling a few dumb comments onto this board about nothing in particular. They've provisioned for practically every single thing you could think of, including the cancellation of HS2. Kier Living isn't being sold piecemeal; it's got a £163m asking price; they have approx five bidders for the business; it doesn't include £10m of 'mothballed' land which I think is land that has been written down from £50m. Anyway, dyor and then maybe express your thinking.

Big jump in the Kier share price today. Up 21p and over 17%. No news that I can see. Break-out well established. I reckon it's gonna be a steady climb now to Thursday next week and beyond. £2 by Friday week.

Fairly big day for Kier shares today; up 5.5p almost 5% on increasing volume. Share price looks like it's broken out, finishing above 120p, ahead of results due on Thursday next week. Since the current p/e is around 1, if the results show that the business has made any profit and is not bust (all the signs are that debt is reducing and there will be some profits) I'm expecting this to take off in spectacular fashion. I was hoping to buy on a dip, but Kier got a lot of attention a few weeks ago with its trading update, so I might have to grab some at tomorrow's price. Hedge funds were shorting and one has exited completely, in anticipation of share price recovery. The others might be following.

Shorters haven't been 'flushed out'. It's the most shorted stock on the market. But some of the hedgefunds shorting kier are reducing their short. Current share price suggest that the company is going bust like carillion and interserve, but that was just the market making an obvious conclusion months back. Instead, according to the last trading update, debt is reducing. If the company isn't bust, this is underpriced by a factor of 3 or 4 at least. You've presented no facts to support your claim that 'this is going to zero'. Kier keeps winning contracts and is reportedly paying suppliers early! They had a rights issue none months ago and cancelled the dividend. Rights issue was £250m and the dividend last yr was about £67m. All of that money has gone into cash and is being used to reduce supplier payment days (down from massively from 57 to 41 days) and reduce debt. Results are out on the 19th. That's why the shorters are reducing. Kier isn't going bust and will likely be rerated on the 19th. Broker note from Peel and Hunt have a short term target of £2. So it's not 'a shorters' dream'. It might be a shorter's nightmare though.

Ripley: Is this just rumour-mongering? Which CEO, which contractors and which banks?

Luckily, most of Kier's work is local authority and regional groups. Kier is known as a regional construction company. HS2 isn't a big part of its work. Only has 2 small HS2 contracts out of something like 30 that have been signed on. Neither has broken ground. Kier has around 1,000 regional projects; that's where it's market is. When all the builders dropped the other day on Brexit news, Kier didn't move 1p. Solid resilient order book, with new contracts won practically every day. Results out on the 19th next. Expecting some writedown, but as long as debt is not going up, some asset sales and any kind of profit, with good turnover, this share should take off. Currently it's priced to fail. Anything less than a disaster in the results and the share price will probably hit the broker targets of today (£2). Might be volatile between then and now, but I'm buying on any significant drops. Also, one hedge-fund shorter appears to be closing its short (Squarepoint) reducing every few days and will soon be at zero. The other hedge funds not moving yet.

Peel Hunt has a new rating out on Kier - Buy with a target price of 200p. Widely reported (am not posting a link) easily googled.

I agree frog; proroguing parliament seems wrong and most people think so. However, the political machinations do not seem to be affecting the Kier share price. Reasonable share volume and the share price is steady around £1.20 at the moment. Just three weeks until the results presentation.

Post-brexit, gov has promised massive infrastructure spending. Sajid David's speech has been deferred, probably so he can position his big spending on construction at a meaningful moment pre-election.

The investment case here is that Kier is massively undervalued. The share price doesn't reflect any kind of value. Even as a construction business with low margin business, this company is worth more than £200m (ie the current market cap). Underlying profit is over £100m annually. New management team committed to slimming down the business and using less debt. Even current debt is easily paid by Kier (very low interest rates). Sentiment has driven this to an unrealistic low point. The share price is likely to get boosted by shorters closing (ie creating buys as they cover their short), the sale of assets, any news which shows debt reduction, any news which shows the business isn't going bust. I reckon £3 is easily achievable, which would probably be a p/e of about 5, if current write downs are taken into account. Avoid if you're a nervous type though. Results are out in three weeks. Maybe take a look then.