Bill1703
28 Feb 2017
Re: UK Consumer "Perhaps we all must downshift to cheaper clothes, despite this additional disposable income. Non of it makes much sense -- is the UK consumer better off and has decided to buy throw away clobber and spend the rest on iPhones at £700 a pop?"Games - this one will run and run. Makes sense that there HAS been more disposable income around, overall... full employment, lower housing costs, lower fuel costs, etc. But that could quickly reverse now - most likely, already is - with steady increases in inflation now being passed through in most retail areas with the weaker GBP, higher fuel costs again, etc. There has also been a clearly identifiable trend - for a good year or two now - of people spending less on "stuff" and more on "experiences"... holidays, leisure activities, going to LEGOLAND, whatever.So could be, people are down-trading on clothes (or at least, seeking out the discounts) and spending it elsewhere. It is logical that the mid-market operators like Next are bearing the brunt of this... Given their track-record, I would back them to adapt and reposition accordingly - but how long will they have to be pushing water uphill? And any evidence of falling behind the market in Online is a concern. Next were early innovators and 'winners' here, but as others catch up (if not overtake), this is an historic advantage for them that is probably never coming back?
SumTingsWong
28 Feb 2017
Anyone else buy this morning @ 3807? A gift at this price, sorry to hear of fellow share holders having problems with online ordering, however, I am more the "touchy feely" type if get my drift, I like to touch the material of what will be up against my skin before making the purchase and also like to try the garments to make sure they look as good on me as they do the 6ft 2" V Shaped mannequin with the 28" waist in the window display LOL! Experience has taught me that there is nothing worse than ordering articles of clothing that look great on the super models body in the catalogue and the material looks akin to cashmere, only to be hugely disappointed when Mr postman delivers something that resembles sack material and fits similar. I do appreciate that some people are pushed for time and often cant find any to visit a shop in person, yet dependent on the area you live, as far as my local Next goes the only gripe I have is there is always a wait before one can get into the changing room! Ta ra and my short term PT is 4300p which increases to 4800p by summers end.Happy shoppingMr Wong he love Next loooong time
Akis1999
28 Feb 2017
Re: UK Consumer "A very different view from that from Next!!"Well, it must be that Primark stores are packed full of customers, with 27 tills lined up in a row, and Next shops, well, not that full and with only one or two tills on the floor, well they do n't need any more...
gamesinvestor
28 Feb 2017
Re: Personal Experience Not Great Uncle Doug, Write up your experience and send it to Wolfson to see if you get a response.Ask him how he intends to compete with Amazon Prime?I ordered a lawnmower part on Saturday at 3
0PM and got it on Sunday afternoon - marvelous - I did check the Next web site first, in anticipation of possibly becoming an investor, but they didn't have it in stock lol!!I have to say I have a friend who's daughter just had a baby and she loves the Next baby clothes, but she bought everything in store which is somewhat of an exception these days in her age group (the ASOS era is probably appropriate).Games -- Be interesting to see how long it takes to get a response (4 weeks perhaps) and if he has a plausible explanation for your repeated disappointments. Doesn't sound great -- anybody else experienced similar problems?
gamesinvestor
28 Feb 2017
UK Consumer according the Primark man :-""""""Group finance director John Bason said: “The UK consumer has got more disposable income this year than a year ago – fact. “There is not an indication of people pulling back at this stage.” """"""A very different view from that from Next!!Perhaps we all must downshift to cheaper clothes, despite this additional disposable income. Non of it makes much sense -- is the UK consumer better off and has decided to buy throw away clobber and spend the rest on iPhones at £700 a pop?Games
Uncle Doug
27 Feb 2017
Personal Experience Not Great Thought I'd relate a recent personal experience. Went online t'other day to buy some baby clothes for niece with new baby. I am Uncle Doug after all. Well, I chose something from their headline range (i.e. the front page picture ... the new summer range). Then at checkout ... delivery time 3-4 weeks - this is abysmal. Hmm, OK, I thought ... maybe it's doing really well and has sold out so I went and bought some pretty standard baby grow suits - nothing special just day to day wear. Delivery time 2-3 weeks !! Oh dear. Unacceptable.Now, I'm a shareholder already holding paper loss and this kind of stuff is worrying me, especially if this is happening across the board. It's not the first time either - always found it difficult to get certain sizes (normal sizes nowt irregular) in their retail stores too. This is a highly competitive cut-throat business and NXT aren't the cheapest so what the heck is going on here. I was going to invest but I'm holding off for now. Not impressed.Oh ... I bought them anyway as I'm a shareholder and I can wait 4 weeks but many potential customers (even Auntie Doug) would have gone elsewhere and I probably will NXT time.
EssentialInvestor
27 Feb 2017
Many Thanks - Vitec For the replies folks, much appreciated.I thought if Le Pen wins, there may be a nice opportunity.Strictly FWIW as a thank you here is my best current idea- Vitec (VTC).Won't clog up the board on VTCoff topic, would just say on their investors siteworth listening to the 2016 Capital Markets Presentation, and the recent FYConference Call, if you can't sit through the entire FY CC, the last 5 mins approx,where strategy and new products are discussed is perhaps the most informative.On VTC valuation I ignore the exceptional items and focus on FCF, plus future prospects.Thanks Again,
gamesinvestor
26 Feb 2017
Re: Kingfisher (KGF) - Off Topic "And if I hadn't bought M&S a while back"I bought a bit a while back and it's underwater, but not by much.I love the deal M&S have done with British Airways for all the sandwiches and snacks on short haul flights. 100 million punters a year travel on these and they will have to buy the sandwiches from now on.If they can control the costs on the clothing side, the food business should pull it through.As M&S is 1.28% of my wad, I imagine (once I'm comfortable) with a place for Next and / or WTB.Games
Bill1703
26 Feb 2017
Re: Kingfisher (KGF) - Off Topic "Bill, I'm keeping you on your toes m8 -- don't want you nodding off in the chair and not picking up on everything - that would never do now would it?"It's a fair cop, Games... things do get quite dull in these pages quite quickly when nothing's doing. It gets to the stage when one is tempted to pop over and invent a scare story on Tesco, just to wind up the acolytes and fan-boys therein... but even that board's gone dark lately.Uncle Warren did do his best to keep us in content, but then departed the scene all too quickly and left us hanging... At least it pumped some life into my thesis, that this could be a bumper M&A year. Here's hoping... we could get that Sainsbury / Morrison merger yet! "... a pass for me on the King outfit, I reckon Next would be higher on the hit list, possibly Whitbread. Neither of which I'm invested in but watching, waiting - no rush on either..." Yes, I've always been underwhelmed whenever I've run a rule over KGF, and hard to say I've missed out - at current levels it's underperformed the FTSE (total return terms) on each of 1, 3, 5 and 10 years (albeit by not much in latter two periods). I suspect more of the same could be a reasonable expectation going forward (cue the massive-premium bid on Monday a.m.!)If I hadn't bought Whitbread recently, I might have gone for NXT. And if I hadn't bought M&S a while back I might also have gone for NXT... though it's still a toss up between those two IMHO. Next has the management story, but M&S the better retail story IMHO (yes, really!!) M&S might have a management story if it held onto the same team for more than 10 minutes...
gamesinvestor
26 Feb 2017
Re: Kingfisher (KGF) - Off Topic "Games - why do you keep asking these questions?"Bill, I'm keeping you on your toes m8 -- don't want you nodding off in the chair and not picking up on everything - that would never do now would it?Games -- It'd be a pass for me on the King outfit, I reckon Next would be higher on the hit list, or possibly Whitbread. - Neither of which I'm invested in but watching, waiting - no rush on either methinks!!
Bill1703
26 Feb 2017
Re: Kingfisher (KGF) - Off Topic Essential - a quick trawl through KGF (haven't looked at it for a while) confirms what I have heard elsewhere. Looks like a decent management ethos - proactive, ongoing management of the business, cost base and capital structure, with excellent reporting disclosure.But also looks a lot like running hard to stand still, with underlying performance fairly flat for the last couple of years, and likely to remain so in an intrinsically competitive backdrop (yes, they get an FX boost this year, but that'll now be 'in the price'). And it's not obviously cheap... c.15x P/E historic (bit under 14x prospective), 7x EV/EBITDA, 5-6% FCF yield on past 2 years. Dividend very nicely covered by EPS and FCF (>2x both), but yielding just 3% and not likely to grow that fast. Fully valued for me - several more interesting retail plays IMHO.Longer term, the competitive landscape would worry me. As Games says, it's not just Amazon (and I don't see weight/bulk being too big an issue) - I am hardly an expert yet even I know of plenty other online options, usually at better prices. And Homebase coming back hard may not help - again, as Games infers."For a company with net cash, why did it pay out £473M in financing activities last year?"Games - why do you keep asking these questions? It's all very clear in the financial statements - the vast majority is dividends paid and share buy-backs, in roughly equal measure. Nothing sinister here.As I said, I do like what they are doing with capital structure, but again, the benefits of this are largely just helping them to stand still in a tough (and likely to stay tough) market.
gamesinvestor
26 Feb 2017
Re: Kingfisher (KGF) - Off Topic Essential -- Never really spent much time looking at Kingfisher, although I think Screwfix is brilliant. It's overpriced, but most jobbing builders don't give a monkey's because they pass it straight to their customer.My concerns would be the following :-1. It hasn't grown it's revenue in 5 years2. It's pretax profit last year was less than 5 years ago £523m (2016) v £775M in 20123. You picked up on Amazon - there is this and lots of other online tool and supply shops4. Operating margins are too low for me at least at 5%5. You mentioned the pension in positive territory -- how big is the pension, I haven't checked - I mean what would happen if it swung to a deficit - would this be potentially big enough to impact profits in any particular year?6. What about this Australian bloke that has taken over Homebase?7. Basic EPS was 27p in 2012, yet it was only 17p last year -- have they diluted the stock?8. They have £2.7bn in intangible assets -- that's an awful lot of goodwill or whatever for a box and tool shifter.9. For a company with net cash, why did it pay out £473M in financing activities last year?All I can think of for now - apart from that it seems pretty stable -- I wonder how it will be tested in a severe downturn.Like Next, a 5% drop in sales could have a dramatic effect on the bottom line.Games - The Fisher King ---- [link]
gamesinvestor
25 Feb 2017
Re: Cash Flow Trend "So whether it is a "vulnerability" at all is open to question"Bill - I think you are right, and the word "discretionary" is everything here, for indeed the free cash flow, excluding the special dividend, or any dividend for that matter, is handsome.Undoubtedly the risk factor at £38 is mitigated, compared to £80 -- which seemed excessively high and I cannot fathom someone like Woodford's value based income funds entry at that level.Games - each to their own -- still watching!!
gamesinvestor
25 Feb 2017
Re: Sum Ting Think "Look on the bright side, m8, it was better than his buying Circassia heavily at whatever it was!"LK -- I guess that was the last time you followed him into the swamp, no?Games - I tink it was mine! or sum tink like that.
Gus1065
25 Feb 2017
Re: Dividend and Special Div No formal upcoming dividend dates confirmed so far as I am aware. You might find the attached link useful to keep track of ex divi and dividend payment dates.[link] you look at historic payment dates this should give you a reasonable idea of when they are most likely due.Best,Gus.
