gretel
16 May 2017
Re: Looking good online The lack of stock seems to be permanent, and the share price has ticked up both yesterday and today as a result.Online you can only buy just 20 shares maximum at 655p, whilst you can sell 5,000 at a big premium at 635.11p.
gretel
10 May 2017
Looking good online £65,000 of buys yesterday and today have quickly reduced the available stock online from 5,000 shares to just a maximum 1,400 shares at 644.88p. Even more significantly, you can sell 5,000 shares at 630p, so there's demand out there.Much more encouraging.
gretel
03 Apr 2017
New all-time highs again Encouraging to see the price move up above 600p on a 1k buy.Almost trading at NAV now - wonders will never cease 
)) Perhaps now Mr Market would actually like to place some value on the three subsidiary companies as well ....
gretel
28 Mar 2017
Tipped by Simon Thompson in the IC as follows (cheers mate) - the company valuations are "clearly way below their open market values if sold":"Volvere's bumper resultsAnother constituent of my 2016 Bargain shares portfolio, Aim-traded investment company Volvere(VLE:585p), has issued a bullish updated ahead of the release of full-year results at the end of May. The company expects to lift pre-tax profits by a third to £1.8m driven by a 20 per cent rise in revenues to £33.2m and is pencilling in an 8 per cent increase in its net asset value per share to a record high of 614p.I would flag up that Volvere has cash and marketable securities worth £20.1m on its balance sheet, up from £16.3m a year earlier, a sum that accounts for 80 per cent of equity shareholder funds after adjusting for non-controlling interests. In other words, it has almost 500p a share of cash on the balance sheet.Moreover, the latest reported net asset value figure looks very conservative as it implies a valuation of only £6.5m for the company's three main investee companies. These include an 80 per cent holding in Impetus Automotive, a provider of consulting services to the automotive sector. Impetus posted a £900,000 rise in pre-tax profits to £1.5m on revenues up 43 per cent to £17.4m last year, an impressive return on the £1.3m the company paid for its stake in 2015. Volvere's wholly owned digital CCTV viewing business, Sira Defence and Security, is making good progress too, posting a 33 per cent increase in pre-tax profits to £160,000 on 23 per cent higher revenues of £380,000.True, profits slipped at frozen pie and pasty maker Shire Foods, a company in which Volvere owns an 80 per cent shareholding. Higher raw material costs following sterling's devaluation, and the decision of a customer to bring manufacturing in-house impacted the performance, but the business still turned in almost £1m of pre-tax profits on flat revenues of £15.4m.Combined these three businesses are being valued by Volvere on just 4.5 times their aggregate net profits, a valuation that is clearly way below their open market values if sold. So, with the investment risk skewed to the upside, and the company cashed up to make further value-enhancing acquisitions, I feel the shares - up a third on an offer-to-bid basis since I initiated coverage 13 months ago - are well supported. Run profits."
gretel
21 Mar 2017
Re: Almost 100% undervalued imho Here's a refinement of my prior post. Valuations are of course extremely subjective. However....Current NAV is 614p, including around 500p per share of cash. Impetus is making £1.5m PBT, or say £1.2m PAT. Give that a multiple of say 13, times 80% ownership, equals £12.5m. Let's call this 300p per share of upside on around 4m shares in issue given Impetus is in the Balance Sheet at de minimis.Shire is making £1m PBT, or say £0.8m PAT. Give that a low multiple of say 8 as a food producer, and you get say £6.5m. Shire's value in the Balance Sheet is basically its freehold property etc, which would hopefully contra off on sale. So on 80% ownership £5.2m is around 130p per share.Sira is growing and making £160k PBT, or say £130k PAT. On a multiple of 15 (given its customer list and recurring income) this could be worth £2m, i.e 50p per share.That's a total of essentially 1100p per share imo. Corrections welcomed.
gretel
21 Mar 2017
Almost 100% undervalued imho The share price is bonkers, particularly given yesterday's update.Impetus alone is making £1.5m PBT, so post-tax that's worth say £15m-£20m on its own, or say £12m even at the lowest on a post-tax P/E of 12 to reflect 80% ownership.Add that to the 614p NAV, plus say only £6m for the 80% of Shire and 100% of Sira and you're getting to around 1100p per share.
gretel
21 Mar 2017
RNS : £54,000 share buyback VLE have just bought back 10,000 shares at 540p. This is the first buyback in over a year.If that's not a signal from the company that they consider the current share price cheap, then I don't know what is![link]
gretel
20 Mar 2017
Fantastic tradng update just out! [link] - NAV of 614p (excluding the company uplifts of course) - £20m of cash - Impetus storming ahead, Shire doing OK if down despite Brexit currency moves, Sira now making £160k PBTThe share price should surely be at 600p and hopefully well above that now:"The Group expects to report revenue of approximately £33.2 million (2015: £27.9 million) and profit before tax of £1.8 million (2015: £1.34 million).""The Group expects to report increased year-end consolidated net assets per share (excluding non-controlling interests) of approximately £6.14 (31 December 2015: £5.69) and Group net assets of approximately £26.5 million (31 December 2015: £24.3 million). Of the Group net assets, cash including marketable securities represented approximately £20.1 million (31 December 2015: £16.3 million), of which marketable securities represented £nil (31 December 2015: £4.3 million)."
gretel
15 Mar 2017
£18.5m cash almost equal to m/cap Cash at 30/6/16 was £18.5m, so at the year end is certainly likely to be £19m+ conservatively, compared to the now £21.3m m/cap.It's almost a cash shell, with the 3 businesses valued at virtually nothing. And I've often seen listed cash shells with much greater premiums to their cash than this ))Nick2name, Messrs M&Z are Marks and Zimmerman, who each bought around 5% of VLE in the market some time ago at much lower prices and who must be nearly or completely out by now - it's their holding which has presumably been restraining the share price recently.
pharmaspecialist
22 Feb 2017
Chicken balti pie. According to Wikipedia, Volvere's Shire Foods originated the chicken balti pie which is claimed to have cult status amongst football fans. I wonder if there is any scope for a shirt sponsorship deal at Sutton United - it would certainly attract the headlines.
nick2name
21 Feb 2017
Re: New highs now hothehellare messers m+z?
gretel
21 Feb 2017
Re: New highs now Good to see a 1k buy just now cause another jump.It seems no-one has the text of the MF tip.
gretel
20 Feb 2017
New highs now Great to see VLE at new highs.VLE were tipped last week in a Motley Fool Micro Cap report. Hopefully the terrific volumes last week following the tip have cleared out Messrs M&Z completely.Has anyone got the full text of the Motley Fool Micro Cap Report - enough time should have passed by now for it to be OK? It would also be interesting to know what other comapnies were tipped.
stephenhow
11 Feb 2017
Bit of advice Hi I found some old nmt share Certs 110k worth purchased back in 2000 having been taken over by Vle what found they be worth I spent 8k back then yes a small fortune I thought they went bust
gretel
08 Feb 2017
Full Simon Thompson article Simon Thompson had some interesting views on valuations of VLE's investees in this week's IC.He believes Shire is worth another £5m on top of book value. And he implies that Impetus and Sira are worth considerably more than book value (as we know), but doesn't put a figure on this. If we say a conservative £10m, against the combined £1.2m or so operating profit, that's a surplus over book of £8.3m.The combined surplus over book value is therefore £13.3m, or around 325p per share, which added to the current 576p per share gives 901p per share of value, compared to the current 522p share price.Which will increase further after the last H2.Here's the full article:"The holding in Aim-traded investment company Volvere (VLE:530p) has performed well in the past 12 months and is likely to continue to do so. Run by Jonathan and Nick Lander, who have the respective roles of chief executive and finance director, the founders of the company have proved adept at investing in distressed and undervalued businesses with a view to turning them around and exiting at a hefty profit. They have been mightily successful as Volvere’s book value per share has increased at a compound annual growth rate of 14.3 per cent since the company was formed 13 years ago.It’s a pretty low-risk investment. That’s because Volvere has cash and marketable securities worth £18.5m for new investments, a sum worth 452p a share, and borrowings of £2.37m are very modest in relation to the profitability of its three investment holdings. These investments are very conservatively valued at £6.5m.For example, the Landers have been working their magic on Impetus Automotive, a provider of consulting services to the automotive sector, including vehicle manufacturers, dealerships and national sales companies. It was a well-timed and shrewd acquisition as Impetus reported underlying operating profit of £522,000 on revenue of £8.1m in the first six months of 2016, a dramatic improvement on a trading loss of £43,000 in the second quarter of 2015. In fact, Impetus has generated underlying operating profit in excess of £1m since Volvere took control in 2015, an impressive return on the £1.3m Volvere paid for its 79 per cent stake.The company also owns a security business generating £118,000 of annual profit. So, in effect, the combined book value of £1.7m for these two holdings equates to less than 1.5 times their annualised operating profit, a valuation that suggests the carrying value in Volvere’s accounts is far too modest. Furthermore, Volvere owns an 80 per cent shareholding in frozen pie and pasty maker Shire Foods, which is in the books at only £5m, or less than four times its underlying operating profit. True, higher raw material costs following sterling’s devaluation, and the decision of a customer to bring manufacturing in-house, are issues – but ones that are more than reflected in the modest valuation. I still take the view that the investment in Shire is worth double book value in a trade sale scenario.I would also flag up that Volvere’s retained profit from the second half of last year will undoubtedly lift its NAV per share to another all-time high close to 600p. So, with the investment risk still skewed to the upside, and the company cashed up to make further value-enhancing acquisitions, I continue to rate Volvere’s shares a value buy."
