Small Cap Value Report (10 July 2017) - SDM, ACRL, FLO, CLLN, IPX

Hi Doug

I'll second that as Microgen (LON:MCGN) is one of my core holdings. The TU was super positive and results will be published before the end of July, so not long to wait. Maybe Paul or Graham could review in-depth on results day (24 July)? Without the updated numbers, the shares looks expensive but hopefully, that will correct once results are published. It will also be interesting to see the shift towards recurring revenues, renewal rates and geographic split. Personally, I feel the company is a prime takeover target, even with a highlish rating.

Cheers
Simon

Regarding Carillion (LON:CLLN), I would be extremely concerned about the £170M of convertible bonds that are outstanding on this. Who owns these? If it's the hedge funds that have been shorting the common shares, they may decide to use their leverage to convert the bonds to equity at very low prices.

I think ordinary investors are best staying away from this one. Despite the significant headline pre-tax profit, only an average of £33.5M in free cash flow was generated over the last 10 years.

In reply to jonno, post #1

Hi Jonno, covered that. Cheers!

Graham

I had the pleasure of meeting Ray O'Rourke once or twice a long time ago. He had recently purchased Laing Construction from Laing for £1 to form Laing O'Rourke. From memory, he even left Laing holding the bag for pensions and cost overruns. An absolute steal for Ray. Laing ended up also selling off property development to Kier and house building to Wimpey and focusing exlusively on owning infrastructure assets. Amongst other things, Ray talked about the dangers of fixed price contracts and the need for intense management focus on contract risk. He seemed acutely aware of the dangers of the construction industry.

“It is with humility that I have to report our first loss in 15 years of trading as Laing O’Rourke. In the trading period to 31st March 2016 the group made a loss of £245.6m. The genesis of this deterioration in profitability is rooted in the fact that coming out of a recession that had a negative impact over some six years (2009-14), it would have been difficult to avoid the severe headwinds our industry has endured through this period, which drove margins down to painful levels, alongside revenue reductions." That's a quote attributed to Ray O'Rourke (http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/laing-orourke-racks-up-246m-losses)

Even the smartest and most successful people in the construction business aren't immune from losing their shirt at least once.

I found someone describing this as Carillion "shitting the bed" while googling the train wreck earlier:
https://breakoutboy.com/2017/07/10/carillion-analysis-of-a-loss/

Graham/Paul, would be interested in your view on ATYM. Update Thursday I think.

Gately Holdings PLC results tommorow (11th july 2017)

In the 2 years they have floated only 1 time did a result pull the shares down(sept 15). Hopefully a 10-15p rise would be nice

With Brexit and all these other contracts needing revisiting the law industry is milking it

£500-£700per hr --yep per hr... Billback phone systems,everything is chargable

Im super over weight Law with BUR and Gately

In reply to cholertonandrew, post #4

Hi Andrew, in short, my views are mostly in line with those of the Austrian school when it comes to monetary analysis. So I prefer gold to paper money. But I also agree with Warren Buffett and Munger that equities and other productive, real assets will vastly outperform gold over the long run. Pawnbroking shares make sense to me because they are productive assets which are also positively correlated to the price of gold.

I hope that's helpful, and thanks for sharing your reasoning too.

Cheers

Graham

In reply to dahokolomoki, post #14

Great point, which I have mentioned in my write-up.

Thanks

In reply to crazycoops, post #21

Hi Simon, updated for IPX now, thanks for the suggestion.

Cheers

Graham

Thanks for adding your perspective on Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) Graham, much appreciated.

Why would anyone hold shares in anything with low margin contracts??? Crap!

In reply to Paul Scott, post #35

Didn't you hold shares in CTO at one point Paul...?

In reply to Paul Scott, post #35

I would agree however Costain (LON:COST) is low margin and it has not done so badly in the last year, up 50%.

Redrichmond
I've had a look at Gately Holdings. Positive results and looks like plenty opportunities for futher growth to come. Anyone else been watching this or indeed invested here?

Interesting to see how clln have handled their problem – perhaps they have learned from the disastrous way Balfour Beatty and Interserve handled theirs over the last couple of years. Both BBY and IRV fed their bad news out piecemeal, which gave investors the distinct impression that their respective managements didn’t know their arses from their elbows. Same result in each case – new management – lessons learned etc – but my suspicion is that these sort of “construction conglomerates” are almost impossible to adequately manage, because the reporting of the true financial state of major contracts has to get from site level through a considerable chain of command, with the possibility of damaging many careers. When combined with the fact that individual job forecasts, produced by the site staff, are subject to the opinion of people whose continued employment might be jeopardised by a pessimistic forecast, you have a recipe for potential trouble, especially where the board is trying to put the best gloss on results rather than a conservative one.

I haven’t studied clln results in detail, as they are not a company I would be interested in, but a couple of things stood out in a cursory look this morning. IIRC they said that the future cash outflow to be incurred because of the bad contracts was expected to be £150m, with a write off of £850m. That makes me think that they are writing off very substantial “contractual entitlements”, or claims as we used to call them – they were always a very important and subjective part of regular site forecasting, which I used to make as project manager. They are also very difficult to challenge from above as they often rely on a detailed understanding. It would not surprise me if clln have gone quite a bit too far the other way with their write off, as the senior quantity surveying types working with the accountants to come up with the figures are, imho, much better served by overegging the pudding than not. So, although it might take a year or two, I reckon some of that write off may be written back – perhaps £200m? Whether clln and its shareholders are still around to benefit from such a windfall if it occurs, or some other company has “saved them” in the meantime remains to be seen.

In reply to Graham N, post #31

Hi Graham, thanks that's very helpful and makes a lot of sense. Thanks for replying.

Regards
Andrew

I'm typically wary of acquisition sprees, but given that the raison d'etre of Flowtech Fluidpower is to consolidate a fragmented, cottage industry this does not concern me. Ticks a lot of my boxes and Malcolm Diamond's (of Trifast fame) involvement is encouraging.

In reply to andrea34l, post #36

Hi andrea,

Didn't you hold shares in CTO at one point Paul...?

Yes, I can't remember exactly when, but I remember buying this share when a positive update came out. It was a fairly good trade from that point.

Over time, it dawned on me that it wasn't as good as I originally thought.

I've since tightened up my checklist, and wouldn't now buy a very low margin contracting business, unless it got ridiculously cheap.

Regards, Paul.

In reply to guyrendell, post #41

Flowtech looks a nice, decent margin niche business. Worth a look (I don't hold currently).

Regards, Paul.