Results from Quintain Estates And Development (LON:QED) always interest me, as I've traded the shares in the past (profitably) several times, and have drilled into the numbers in some depth, been to a few meetings with management, etc.
In the end I came to the conclusion that it wasn't at all clear that they're creating much (or indeed any) shareholder value. There's no dividend, and the share price has been at a substantial discount to NAV for some time. The shares are currently 54p (£279m mkt cap), and NAV (EPRA) per share has fallen again to 109p (from 116p 6 months ago, and 126p a further 6 months before that).
So with a clear downtrend in NAV, and no dividend, it's hardly surprising that the shares are at a 50% discount to NAV. Once again most of the gross profit is swallowed up in administrative costs (i.e. plush Mayfair offices & staff/Directors), so you have to question just whose benefit this company is run for? Right now, the answer seems to be its Directors & staff. Whilst shareholders provide the capital, yet get no return. Not really a happy situation, so I won't be tempted back into these shares.
Sure there is development upside on their flagship projects at Wembley and Greenwich, but I'm not convinced that is enough to make much difference to NAV in a reasonable timescale. And how do shareholders actually benefit from a higher NAV anyway, if there's no dividend? Unless someone bids for it, the money is just dead.
It reminds me a bit of Inland Homes (LON:INL) , whose AGM is tomorrow (which I will be attending & reporting back on), where Directors who have been successful in a property bull market, are floundering in a less favourable market, yet still expect to be paid handsomely for delivering negative shareholder value! Seems to me the whole sector needs a wake-up call from the providers of capital, to reduce costs substantially in order to achieve a more equitable distribution of rewards.
Immunodiagnostic Systems Holdings (LON:IDH) interests me, as it came up on a PAS filter used on my other website www.SmallCapValue.co.uk although it didn't quite make it into the model portfolio there, as I wanted to do more research…
