Small Cap Value Report (Fri 9 Sept 2022) - ASC, XPF

Good morning, from Paul. 

I don't know what to say this morning, as our head of state has died.

Let's take a moment to collect ourselves.

Moving on, I'll take a look at Asos ASOS (LON:ASC) a bit later.

Also, an opaque update from XP Factory (LON:XPF) (I hold)

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ASOS (LON:ASC)

688p - mkt cap £785m

Trading Update

FY 8/2022.

If you can make any sense of this waffle, then good luck to you -

ASOS today issues an update on trading for the 12 months ended 31 August 2022.

Full-year sales, adjusted PBT and net debt are anticipated to be in the range of market expectations1. However, after having seen good growth in June and July, sales in August were weaker than anticipated. This reflected the impact of accelerating inflationary pressures on consumers and a slow start to Autumn/Winter shopping.

Profit is anticipated to be around the bottom end of company guidance, with constant currency sales growth of c.2% and net debt c. £150m2.

While ASOS remains cautious about the outlook for consumer spending, it continues to make strategic progress and manage the business for the current environment.

ASOS will report full-year results on 12 October 2022.

1 Company-compiled consensus as of 15 July 2022 for 12 months ended 31 August 2022 
· Total Sales Growth in the range of 0.3% to 6.3% [Consensus: 3.2%]
· Adjusted PBT in the range of £9m to £43m [Consensus: £28m]
· Net Cash / (Net Debt) in the range of (£235m) to £101m [Consensus: (£77m)]

2 Company Guidance issued as at 16 June 2022:
· Constant Currency sales growth in the range 4% to 7%
· Adjusted PBT in the range £20m to £60m
· Net Debt in the range £75m to £125m

My opinion - the Sunday Times seems to get better guidance than the market. We’re told that c.£4bn revenues, and something around breakeven might happen.

It looks a bit of a shambles to me, and I’ve heard bad things about ASOS internally - for many years - that internal cliques are disorganised. That’s probably why it’s never made any free cashflow or paid out divis.

Mind you, £4bn revenues means a lot of leverage if markets turn positive.

Associated British Foods (LON:ABF) looks tons better, on a PER of 10. Why waste your time on ASOS?

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XP Factory (LON:XPF)

  (I hold)

I think this is a really interesting format. The attraction is that it's getting great deals on new sites, for innovative competitive gaming formats - which landlords really like, and prefer to conventional cocktail bar type operators.

The trouble with the update today, is that it's so vague, I've read it 3 times, and still can't work out if it's good or bad.

Which tends to lead me to believe that the PR &  BS factor is rather too prevalant maybe?

So I'd like to see some harder numbers before investing any more money here, beyond an initial starting stake.