Greyinvestor
18 Sep 2018
Results p.s sitting on a 17% loss so far. No need to copy me!
Greyinvestor
18 Sep 2018
Results After days of thought, I also have topped up. Didn’t notice your posts until today Buzz. I hate catching falling knives, but in this case have done so. My reasoning; there is a big discrepancy between broker forecasts and the company forecast. Broker forecasts are much lower. Cash is the achilles heel, in my view. There are about £67m of assets v £38 m of liabilities, if you include pensions. But £29m is inventory. This company has destroyed a lot of shareholder value. But I agree that it’s a cheap deal to snap up, with a decent IPR base and lots of plant. I won’t be buying again before results day. Fingers crossed… Ennismore seem to have a strong track record…
Hugh_Betcha
18 Sep 2018
Results I’m struggling to see how my perfectly reasonable comments about ‘biscuit barrel’ are an insult to you or anyone else, unless someone pointing out that you were wrong about something is an insult to you, in which case you’re in the wrong place. Added to which if you care to look back at the debate biscuit barrel and I had about this share, small cap stocks and the equity market, you’ll see the insults all flowed from his keyboard, not mine. I’m sorry if you’re sore because you’re long, wrong and looking at a loss but that’s part of equity investing. If you can bear that, stick to cash.
The_buzz
18 Sep 2018
Results Post 2: “This is by far our largest licensing agreement to date in the apparel sector and underlines the inherent value of our design archives†Another useful royalty and going with H&M should not degrade the W Morris brand. The link to the Vogue article British Vogue Why H&M Has Teamed Up With Another British Heritage Brand The Swedish giant has tapped Morris & Co to inject some quintessential craftsmanship into its high-street offering for AW18 shows quite a few items. WGB seem to have again been very good at squeezing yet more juice from the royalty ‘lemon’. I note that H&M had a previous collection with GP & J Baker so one must presume that was successful and therefore H&M have high expectations for its W Morris collection. This will not affect the wallpaper (and fabric??) turnover, which I suspect is being directly affected by BREXIT (that has been blamed for reduced trading in the housing market). On that premise, once BREXIT is out of the way, there will be some pent up demand that may help WGB’s turnover? The Buzz
The_buzz
18 Sep 2018
Results Recently I have been posting on the LSE board, but I did recently post on the ii CFX bb which is relevat to WGB shareholders. Post 1:- I went to the CFX AGM yesterday. They have many close similarities with WGB. Their trading statement showed good business in the USA but more challenging European and UK markets. The USA business is benefiting from the ‘booming’ US economy. Much uncertainty on the way ahead due to BREXIT. I asked why they they are doing so well whereas WGB seems to have its share price almost a quarter of where it once had been. Part of the problem would appear that WGB lost a key person in charge of brands. I admitted that I had completely sold out when WGB was over £2 but had been buying back in at around 70p. I had the impression that they agreed with my assessment. CFX regularly buy back their own shares but they are no longer finding large chunks of shares for sale and it is not cost effective to do so at the current share price. Ironically WGB once had a valuation large enough to contemplate buying CFX but now it is valued at only £46m whereas the market cap for CFX is now larger at £53m. Pure speculation on my part but my thoughts are that WGB is still a bit big to buy outright now, but CFX could buy a stake in WGB and put a bit of their magic in the direction of WGB?? Their results for the end of April 2017: [link] showed cash of £9.2m, so some activity cannot be ruled out - there is currently enough cash to buy 20% of WGB at the current valuation. There are many areas where consolidation would save lots of cash, such as both of them having showrooms in the same city (When I went to Boston both companies had space in the same multi company show room!!). As I said in the earlier post, I would add if the price fell, so I have just bought a small top-up of 4k shares at 64.75p, but have plenty of cash in reserve if the price falls a bit more. I am still way off my previous holding size. I think that the share is now significantly under valued and many of the weak holders now seem to have gone judging by the low turn over… but I could be wrong! I have posted my AGM report for the CFX AGM on the ii web site. The Buzz
Greyinvestor
18 Sep 2018
Results Sometime soon you’ll hopefully realise that there are a bunch of decent people posting to this board, and communicating regularly with each other. The good ones are happy to share both failures and successes. I have no idea where you have sprung from, but it would be good if you could stop insulting my fellow posters. I appreciate their comments and thoughts. You can keep insulting me; it won’t make any difference to my approach…
Hugh_Betcha
16 Sep 2018
Results It’s five months since biscuit barrel took me to task for expressing negative views about this share. Apparently my views were all theoretic nonsense, not wedded to actual reality of a small cap stock which was so obviously undervalued that only an idiot like me could be capable of not seeing this as a plain fact. The shares then were trading at well over double the current price. I’ve looked in vain for biscuit barrel’s post in which he concedes that maybe I was right after all and maybe not quite as ‘theoretic’ as he had assumed and that perhaps his ceaseless bullishness was misplaced. Perhaps mummy has taken his pencils away.
Hugh_Betcha
16 Sep 2018
First purchase So with the bid price 60p, is ‘Greyinvestor’ still claiming to be at ‘break-even’ or down 22% in two months? If it was ‘simply underpriced’ at 80p, what is it now?
Greyinvestor
07 Sep 2018
First purchase I agree and thanks for all the good posts. WGB is in a tough segment of the market, in a tough overall market, so the results will not be great. I still see these as a longer term hold, in the hope of an upturn in price or a bid. I will await the results, still a Hold/Buy for me. Apart from the inevitable Brexit pain, the currency should be helping exports…
The_buzz
07 Sep 2018
First purchase Yes the placing was announced 12.10.2016 - not quite 2 years ago at 190p. I would be a bit more than annoyed had I seen such a loss in such a short time frame! [link] Well last night after close of play there was an RNS of a further significant purchase by Ennismore to reach a holding of 5.7% of the issued shares. Their recent purchases have been:- 24.8.2018 3.03% 31.8.2018 4.32% 6.9.2018 5.87% That sort of appetite by a new major share holder ought to take some of the selling pressure from the market. There is no clear maximum holding - so I could see potentially purchases on the open market - as opposed to between major shareholders - and in turn give a floor to the share price. So far the market seems to be in think mode with no meaningful transactions taking place, but at least the share price has firmed up slightly to 67-72p. [link] Looking at last year’s RNSs it looks like the next key event is the announcement of interim results at the start of October and later a trading update mid-November. So not too long before some updates come along. The market has been primed for adverse news, plus there is a new major shareholder in the wings, so I perceive limited scope for further significant share price falls. Not quite a one way bet but I think the odds are on the side of a purchaser . The Buzz
TX2
06 Sep 2018
First purchase To offer 66p for this quantity of shares would tend to indicate that the Market Makers have a customer lined up;or it is an agreed deal between buyer/seller. I am not surprised that some institutional holders are keen to get WGB off their investment books and are perhaps more than a bit annoyed.Two years ago institutional investors put up £17m for shares at from memory 190p a share in connection with the purchase of Clarke & Clarke and many more have paid £2+ before & since! Like you I am hopeful that the present price represents good value but the management have much to prove to say the least…
The_buzz
06 Sep 2018
First purchase Some hue sells going through at the moment - must be about 3m shares at around 66p a share. Bound to be an RNS shortly? The key event coming up is that WGB will announce its half year results for the six months ended 31 July 2018 on Wednesday 10 October 2018. I am banking that the results are not at the extreme end of bad. To think that in next to no time the value of the share has gone to about 1/3rd of is value of only a short time ago. The Buzz
The_buzz
04 Sep 2018
First purchase Lots of buys going through today. Just topped up with 9339 shares at 70p. My judgement is that the weak holders have probably mostly gone and that the share seems to have hit a good support level - so scope for a bounce - especially if they give an autumn trading statement that is slightly more optimistic. I am still way down on a previous peak holding level so may add a few more were the price to fall. The Buzz
Greyinvestor
29 Aug 2018
First purchase Heavy sales going through today…
Hugh_Betcha
23 Aug 2018
First purchase I think you slightly missed my point, which was that it is a classic private investor error to believe that because Institution X has a holding or has recently bought shares, it must be okay (and some go further and argue it must therefore be a buy). This obviously ignores at least two crucial points: Institution X bought shares previously owned by Institution Y; and, as I said, when a company goes under there are normally many institutional holders, thereby demonstrating that the ‘smart money’ argument is fallacious. I was not suggesting WGB is going bust - I was making a broader point.
