MPAC Group Live Discussion

forwardloop 06 Sep 2018

Brexit's fault S Thompson obviously has 2 pieces of inside info here that were NOT disclosed (to the below extent anyway) in the results today. Investors Chronicle : our small-cap stock picking expert Simon Thompson notes that a packaging engineering business that warned on profits in the summer is back on track. In fact, Simon can reveal that the company has just won a contract that will account for up to a third of the company’s sales next year to underpin expectations that operating profits could double in 2019. So, with cash on the balance sheet backing up the market cap in full, and a planning application on valuable non-core land due early in 2019, Simon believes there is 80 per cent potential share price upside in this special situation

forwardloop 06 Sep 2018

Brexit's fault Todays results - they won’t say. But sure as anything a 10acre site in Buckinghamshire is worth more than £800k if they get good planning permission. The Group owns an investment property and land comprising of 10 acres in Monks Risborough, Buckinghamshire, UK, which is held at a net book value of £0.8m and is not required for the Group’s operations. The Group is considering development opportunities and is seeking to have the site designated for residential housing. The Group is negotiating with the planning authorities if re-designation is granted, outline planning permission will then be sought to develop the site. It is difficult to be precise about the future value of the land if planning approval was obtained for housing. It is not the Group’s current intention to redevelop the site itself. The UK pension scheme is now in surplus (& is closed ) whilst the smaller US one has £5.8m deficit.

Gamesinvestor1 04 Aug 2018

Brexit's fault forwardloop: The pension deficit is well under control and the company is asset (property backed) as well as cash now following sale of the tobacco business as i recall. It is for now forward, but the issue isn’t so much about the current state of the deficit, as the sheer size of the pension relative to the size of the operational business. Further large deficits could easily cancel out some of any profits in any one year. The property aspect is interesting, any idea on the real value of this? Games

forwardloop 03 Aug 2018

Brexit's fault TX2 Actually you are wrong. The tobacco machinery business (its main trading asset) was sold 1 Aug 17 [link] The pension deficit is well under control and the company is asset (property backed) as well as cash now following sale of the tobacco business as i recall. Check out previous postings especially those of S thompson (IC) and stockopedia Fwd

Gamesinvestor1 01 Aug 2018

Brexit's fault “Enjoy the rest of your evening. I have enjoyed our debate.” Frog, no worries m8, we have polarised views it’s not personal - that’s life - the country has them right now, we can only see what happens next. More importantly, we all on here should be looking for the best investment opportunities, under any political circumstances. Of late I’m shooting for Ted Baker, I think Playtech has been oversold and TC-ICAP has been punished enough so I’m in on all three if any of these will be of interest. All three have world exposure and should have significant growth despite any recent headwinds they have experienced. Games

Gamesinvestor1 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault frog_in_a_tree: I have to say, and I said it on these pages at the time, that the Brexit politicians claiming that a cake deal would be the easiest negotiation in the world to achieve simply did not appreciate the politics of the EU and the determination that they would show in defending the integrity of the Union. Put bluntly, they were utterly stupid…and they remain so. Frog , They haven’t gone about it in the right way - May was the wrong person to lead it and in any event negotiation was the wrong approach - presenting the EU with what we will do was the right approach – Then you would have has a completely different outcome - the EU needs the UK’s money and lucrative market more than the UK needs to be a member - That’s why sensible countries like Switzerland haven’t joined. In business if you go into something with a losers mentality there is only one outcome, and you don’t negotiate by offering something and agreeing without a reciprocal benefit - so far nothing has been reciprocated “as expected” so nothing should ever have been offered. I think we must agree to disagree - the remain campaign has damaged the countries prospects by interfering in the wrong way and to the potential massive jeopardy to the UK’s economy and political standing - lets hope that can be reversed when May is deposed and replaced with someone with a brain over the summer. On MPAC, my last post sums up where I will be with this - I’m interested because it was a long standing holding - but I’m not sure I’ll be a holder for a 3rd time now. Games

Gamesinvestor1 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault TX2 – You are right and I was aware of the size of this back when I invested the second time and took an unnecessary risk. My first investment into this at 54p (Dec 2009) and sold for 170p in Feb 2013, having collected about a 10% dividend for 4 years. I then bought it back at 135p in Aug 2014 only to see it collapse again and a long ride out to wait for the lucky escape when they sold the tobacco machinery - sold for 208p So I’ve had two rather lucky bites at the cherry so to speak - but more by good luck than management – I agree with you, these are the fundamental aspects of the business and politics is never an excuse. Games - I’ll be watching but probably just that with MPAC

TX2 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault MPAC is a mega high risk investment for one reason,nothing to do with Brexit or remain;in actual fact the bulk of its products,cigarette manufacturing plant, are used in locations outside Europe . It has a pension scheme that is in terms of assets at least 10 times the size of the company.Circa £400m compared with company assets of around £40m.It costs a huge amount to service and if the pension liabilities were valued at present actuarial valuation Mpac could have negative assets of £100m.

frog_in_a_tree 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault Well maybe we can agree that another referendum “might” be a way of resolving this. On the outcome I will disagree with you. The first thing is that the younger voters are more mobilised than they were in 2016, the second thing is that Remainers are united in what they wand, the third thing is that Leavers are divided along a spectrum of soft and hard Brexit and a proportion of soft Brexiters would probably vote remain rather than for a hard Brexit outcome. This is what worries the Hard Brexit brigade , that a three way choice between Remain, the negotiated Brexit deal and Hard Brexit would split the leave vote. I suspect that you may be right that the Tories may lose the next election…come what may. Whether the party would split, I am not sure. The options wouldn’t be pretty now that UKIP is effectively not just a racist party but effectively neo-fascist supporting too. In the main, the most damaging thing to a party’s chances is to be perceived as disunited. Perhaps the most risky thing of all is for the Tories to deliver a Brexit that is against the will of the majority. It won’t be referendum day that counts but sentiment on the day of the General Election. They are lucky that Corbyn is the leader of the opposition. Most damaging of all would be if the Tories pushed us over the cliff edge with a Brexit that then brought about the economic damage predicted by Project Fear. Remember how long it took the Tories to recover from Black Wednesday. You talk of the underhand way in which Remainer MPs have sought to undermine Brexit. That’s politics for for you. We put them in parliament to represent the views of the people. Just over a third of the electorate voted for Brexit, and the remainder were split between non-voters and those voting Remain. All of those should have their views represented in parliament. Those you say are undermining seem to me to be doing their job. When all is said and done, the Leave politicians thought they could leave and retain the benefits of membership, as Johnson put it “have cake and eat it”. I have to say, and I said it on these pages at the time, that the Brexit politicians claiming that a cake deal would be the easiest negotiation in the world to achieve simply did not appreciate the politics of the EU and the determination that they would show in defending the integrity of the Union. Put bluntly, they were utterly stupid…and they remain so. Anyway, we started this discussion with a chat about MPAC Group blaming Brexit for their performance. I suspect that we will see many more companies reporting on Brexit related damage as we move on. I guess you are going to have to sack a lot of CEOs. Cheers, Frog in a tree

Gamesinvestor1 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault You are wrong Frog – a second referendum would be a more conclusive outcome in favour of leave than the first one for the simple reason that the EU has acted deplorably in trying to do everything it can to thwart Britain leaving and it’s not about the economics it’s entirely about political control - again even the dimmest of remainers realise that. In tandem with this, the Tory party has probably done enough now to remain in some form of opposition (or even de desolved as a party who knows?) for generations and peoples belief in politics has been diminished greatly in view of the crass incompetence and underhanded approach of the remain contingent of the parliamentary system. People thought they were living in a democracy only to see a small band of individuals trying to go against the democratic decision – If you can’t see that there really is little hope. Have another referendum by all means, but be careful what you wish for! Games

frog_in_a_tree 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault You may well be the tool of Putin and Trump’s strategy to eliminate the countervailing power of the EU, most of us don’t want to be. I disagree with you on most points you make about the EU. Most of the points are grossly exaggerated. The UK is best protected by being in an alliance with its continental neighbours. Democracy means that we can change our minds and the recent polling shows clearly that public support for Brexit is reducing every month. We should have a second binding referendum to decide it. Frog in a tree

Gamesinvestor1 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault Frog, With respect this is a total and complete misunderstanding of the current situation. “is that the Brexiters never had a clear strategy other than “cake and eat it”.” The country was given a clear choice to leave the EU, and it was CRYSTAL clear that that meant leaving the “Single Market”, the “Customs Union” and the “European Court of Justice”. You can not dispute this as even the remainer cabinet members were on record to have stated this countless times in their TV interviews and in their defence mechanisms to try to convince people to vote remain – they lost, that’s it there can NOT be an argument against that. “Since it became clear that that wasn’t going to fly there has been a steady drift away from Brexit.” There has never been a a clear indication that it won’t fly - we simply have to leave. The reason it’s been clouded is because the job of leaving was put in the hands of remainers, the principle figurehead being Teresa May who has lied to the public, her parliamentary members and is a disgrace to the country. Someone with and ounce of decency would never have done this. That CAN NOT be disputed – Brexiteers were never allowed to carry out the wishes of the electorate - this also can not be be disputed - unless one is hard of thinking of course. The hard Brexit was never in doubt if you are a bright person and understand how the EU works. The EU (which is not really representative of Europe - they are not the same) is a dictatorial regime that forces it’s will on nations by either browbeating them into signing deals along their terms or holding them to debt ransom. Joel Monier himself said at the meeting of the United Nations - “That the EU should be created by small incremental steps taking away national powers without the people realising it” That should be enough for even the thickest amongst the remainers that this is coercion by stealth and is tantamout to a block similar to the USSR’s lengthy period of terror and which took many decades and millions of lives in the process before it was dismantled. In any case - you can not have a successful joining of nations with a single currency without common fiscal policies - this will never happen as the Germans would be the first to block it immediately - the concept was already a failure at foundation - it’s just that it’s taken 44 years to throw half of the southern states youth on the scrap heap of unemployment and crippling national debts that can not be resolved without ultimate collapsing the debt with serious defaults. To effect Brexit, the most sensible thing to do would be to have written to the EU explaining that we are leaving with full control of law, customs, defence, immigration, fisheries and farming. In return we offer free trade - that’s it and wait. With a £100bn trade deficit, Merkel, Barnier and their cohorts would be hung out to dry if they allow interefrence with 20% of the EU’s internal car output forcing 10’s of thousands of car workers in Germany onto the streets. We don’t need a 2nd referendum - we need to implement the one we had and accept it. Britain’s opportunity is immense outside of the failing (44 years of decline) EU block which is over-regulated and killing trade with high tariffs that cost the UK economy billions and in which we must pay billions to remain a member of. There is No way this country, under May’s eejit plan that this country should ever be a vassal state of the EU. It’s clear - we should leave and set out our trade policies around the world and control our situation before it’s all too late. Games

frog_in_a_tree 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault Games, I guess I might have added that as there is no prospect of a majority in the House of Commons for any form of Brexit, hard or soft, that it is entirely possible that the matter may have to be put to a binding second referendum vote with three choices and the alternative vote system being used. It may be Theresa May’s only get out of jail card. Frog in a tree

frog_in_a_tree 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault Games, The problem, as I am sure that you will appreciate, is that the Brexiters never had a clear strategy other than “cake and eat it”. Since it became clear that that wasn’t going to fly there has been a steady drift away from Brexit. Things might have been clearer if the voters had been told the truth (by both sides) and that there would be economic and industrial damage congingent on Brexit. I don’t think that there was ever a majority for the kind of hard Brexit espoused by JRM and the like, as last year’s general election confirmed. The fact remains that there was a coup by hard Brexiters after the referendum that tried to run with a version of Brexit that didn’t have popular support. We need a second referendum…and the opinion polling shows that increasingly the public agrees. Cheers, Frog in a tree

Gamesinvestor1 31 Jul 2018

Brexit's fault Had we been bolder and not allowed government to try to reverse the decision, then we could have left and end of uncertainty. Sadly we have too many duplicitous people in parliament, thwarting what should have been a clear decision. Games