Hardboy
22 Feb 2018
McArthur Sells I never like to see directors selling shares, but as he still has over £4.5m worth of shares in the business, I'm not too upset.
Hardboy
20 Feb 2018
Re: Pre Interim Trading Statement As they get a broader based business with sounder recurring income I wonder at what point they will consider switching to the main market. I'd guess they'd probably be targeting a Market Cap of over 250m at least. So still some way off.
Muzzletoff
20 Feb 2018
Re: Pre Interim Trading Statement I agree it was a pretty strong trading statement. I think we are past the point where prior periods didn't include acquisitions, so that would seem to support the warm words about strong performance. Cash looks good. EBITDA looks good. Contract wins are also mentioned. This currently seems to confirm market expectations, but might be poised in second half to do better by the sound of it? Some way to go though.
Hardboy
20 Feb 2018
Pre Interim Trading Statement Everything looks fairly good - reassuring.
Muzzletoff
16 Feb 2018
Re: Acquisitions I agree that the US market possibility for their track related software is possibly very big but management are very keen to play down the timescales around that, for understandable reasons.The problems down the line come from acquisitions or investments that don't exceed expectations, but basically perform in line, or slightly worse than when acquired. That produces a slightly soggy bottomed sandwich (techncial term 
) of a Company, where relatively small acquisitions drag on the business. Quite often the message is , oh one business unit slightly up on performance, and another down. That doesn't usually excite the market.Of course a bigger acquisition bet has more risk of exploding if it stretches finances, and under performs. I think barring some explosion in the American market Tracsis will face a dilemma, as an acquirer ( which is what it is) rather than an organic trading entity with a single market. acquiring small, they may in effect be buying at the bottom, and be able to surf a bigger upside, but it could be that they never scale (most don't). Cross selling different services across a group of companies is actually a much longer term exercise, and less exciting than it looks theoretically on paper.There is nothing wrong with being a steady eddie. Maybe there are too few of them. There is however, a metric which looks at return on return on capital employed (ROCE), and Tracsis currently is about 12.5% which is pretty average. In 2012 it was 26.5%, and it has been on a declining trend since, but has plateau'd for the time being. The PE is circa 20x which appears to be average for the market at the moment.So the stats suggest Tracsis is no longer super exciting, but may depending on what view you have on the management, have the capacity to surprise?
Hardboy
15 Feb 2018
Re: Acquisitions "It isn't a super growth company"With the current business as is you are right, but there are significant possibilities for very large growth in the overseas markets. If these pilots in North America ever turn into some serious contracts; or if the contracts they have in Sweden can grow in other European countries, again there is great potential. If either of those start to happen it could easily be 3-4 times the size in 5 years time; and that is without tangential movement into other markets. It is not so long ago they weren't really into traffic monitoring, or remote condition based maintenance, so they may see other related areas they can sensibly move into.
Muzzletoff
15 Feb 2018
Acquisitions I do wonder if the size of the recent Tracsis acquisitions, and the focus on 'investments' is indicative of either the acquisition market drying up, or of it being too expensive to buy bigger businesses to easily allow the management to scale up the total business.Generally, I approve of the Tracsis cautious approach to acquiring, in terms of reasonably focused and transparent approach. However, there is no doubt as a pretty small company, it is probably going to struggle to get liquidity or much of the attention of institutions on AIM at the size it currently is. It isn't a super growth company, but a steady eddie. I think expectations of super growth are locked into its current eps from a couple of years ago, when the American market was trailed as a big possibility. It is still possible I guess, but it is apparent that this is a longer game.It has done a number of deals where the up front payment isn't too large, but the deferred element is significant subject to performance. The question is how realistic are these deferred expectations?Also, if small acquisition don't scale they take up more of management time, for less reward. So I think 2018 is going to be quite an interesting time for Tracsis, as to whether they are really a plodder or something else?
Hardboy
14 Feb 2018
Re: Acquisitions I decided not to hang around - the price would be near enough, so I cancelled my limit order at 497 & bought in the market, and got 495. I don't understand (but I'm happy.)
Hardboy
14 Feb 2018
Re: Acquisitions Yes Muzzle, I saw those acquisitions, and while I'd never heard of the companies, the purchase makes a lot of strategic sense and fits nicely with the rest of their business. While you're patiently waiting for news of new contracts (as I am) I am patiently waiting for the share price to drop just a little lower - I have a limit order to buy just under £5, and though tantalisingly close, it's not triggered yet. Such are the perils of lowly traded companies: I suppose a few more sellers are needed to put shares in the market. I halved my holdings at 579, and would be happy to get those shares back now. Maybe I shouldn't be greedy for a few p, but I set my target re-entry and I'm sticking with it.
Muzzletoff
13 Feb 2018
Acquisitions I suspect there are only two men and a whippet occasionally looking at this board, so even though the two men might know, the whippet might not, that Tracsis have made some small acquisitions.These companies seem to be in the area of providing compensation for late/cancelled trains to travellers. This is a service which is outsourced effectively from the train companies, and is expected to grow.So a quite a niche service. The share price of Tracsis has come off a little bit since the mini stock market correction. I am patiently waiting to hear about the new contract that may be landed by one of the previous Tracsis acquisitions. A bit like trains sometimes new contracts arrive later than they are scheduled!
Hardboy
25 Jan 2018
Re: Happy New year! I am trying to attend more GMs; as they can be very informative, and information can be gleaned that is not in the public domain; but as you say they do vary. For AIM stocks, I was most impressed with the SRT Marine AGM - coffee & cakes on arrival, full tour of factory and office space guided by directors, presentastions of strtategy and results, lunch and informal cjhats with directors. Excellent.The one thing I regret about yesterday's AGM was that my interogation of the BoD apparently held up John McArthur's duaghter's birthday party! I got 2 cups of coffee at least.
Muzzletoff
24 Jan 2018
Re: Happy New year! Hi Hardboy. Many thanks for your feedback of the AGM.I think quite a lot of the AIM Tiddlers like Tracsis have sparsely attended AGM's, even when they are based in London. So it it probably came as small shock to them that anyone bothered to attend.So Kudos and thanks to you for putting in an appearance. I get the impression that the CEO and the FD do make an earnest attempt to reach out to Private Investors. This makes sense as PI's are the ones who move the share price, as institutions usually buy in lumps and sit on them. They also get the benefit of one to one briefings through their analysts, so don't bother turning up at AGM's.
Hardboy
24 Jan 2018
Reporting I forgot to add, they confirmed, they do not do AGM trading updates, but will issue a (Pre close) trading update in February, and the interims in March - as they have in previous years.
Hardboy
24 Jan 2018
Re: Happy New year! Hi Muzzletoff, I did indeed go to the AGM, and have nver been to an AGM like it. I travelled up from London, though I am doing other things in Leeds so it wasn't just for the AGM. Because of train times I arrived about 30 minutes early. Max, the CFO, came out & introduced himself, saying there was a Board Meeting going on before the AGM, so I'd have to wait in reception till they'd finished. About 13
5 I got ushered in to the Board Room (about 12 seats - obviously not expecting many attenders) and outside the BoD I was the only attendee (I still think that word should be attender, but it seemes widely used.) Each director stood, shook my hand & introduced themselves then the chairman said all AGM items had been passed by proxy votes so there wasn't any other business unless I had some questions. I'd wished I'd done more research before the meeting; but I asked enough intelligent (?) questions to keep them talking for about 30 minutes. Basically I sat at one end of the table, with the 6 directors focussing attention on me, and they let me ask and say what I wanted. At the end John walked me out and said they were very approachable, if I (or other share holders) ever had a question just drop them a line, and if I was ever in Leeds, I could just drop in. I was particulalrly intersted to get a feel for where the business is going after their metamorphasis over recent years, from a business which got railway rolling stock in the right place at the right time, to a business with 3 distinct lines of business; and get a feel for how optimistic they are about the future. I am reassurerd, and may buy more on the dips. They're very optimistic about the traffic monitoring and condition based maintenance strings. The railway stock management is a nice earner, so not being ignored. On overseas expansion they are optiomistic about the future, sure they will get plenty of work; BUT not sure when. Things can move very slowly or quite quickly. Although they don't relish a Corbyn Government, they think it could be good for Tracsis as they think there would be a lot of investment in rail and road infrastructure. Driverles cars they see as a great opportunity for their traffic monitoring/management business to get involved with building infrastructures to facilitate their advent. I think they were the main things I asked about. Once question I regret not asking was if they have any plans to upgrade to a main platform listing. Oh well I can just drop them a line!
Muzzletoff
24 Jan 2018
Re: Happy New year! Hi Hardboy.Did you go to the AGM, and was there any interesting chat?
