Small Cap Value Report (Mon 15 Oct 2018) - CAKE, SHOE, SDRY, CBOX, PURP, SYS1

Hi Graham, RE. Superdry (LON:SDRY) and your comment about "Global Digital Brand? That's more of an aspiration than a reality for now"

Found this on their careers site:
The Superdry brand is a genuine British success story that has grown to a turnover of £872m, £96m profit and a strategic plan in place that will make us a £1bn turnover company by 2020. Our brand is already worth £1.6bn in total global consumer sales. We are a multichannel operator with well-developed and highly successful retail, ecommerce, wholesale and franchise businesses and customers in virtually every country in the world. We are well on our way to achieving our goal of becoming a global digital brand.

As you say, feels very odd and out of place!

All the best,
CID

"Financial analysis isn't possible with fake numbers!" (Graham Neary)
I love it!!! Absolutely spot on.
One of the reasons I never bought in was that the dingy cake shops and 'so so' quality food never quite stacked up with the excellent reported returns.
Something strange must have been going on if (as we expect / hear / understand) the FD has been taking cash out of the business. He could not have hid this for ever, especially with an HMRC winding up order floating around. If that sort of money was now in his back pocket you would expect him to be sunning himself in South America. I wonder where all the money went.
All just speculation of course.
re: Patisserie Holdings (LON:CAKE)

In reply to post #408794

Hi clifftoppler

Yup multiple portfolios are available 8-10 at least...so you’ve no excuse not to join!

Hope to see you around here more

Cheers

In reply to post #408794

Clifftoppler - you can probably have as many Portfolios as you want - I currently have 7 (as well as my SSAS and 2 ISAs I like to keep track of what's happening with Ed's NAPS.

In reply to post #408794

Cliff
You ask about share prices - there are many reasons to subscribe (principally the stock ranks) but share prices are not one of them because of the quirk of using the latest trade price,

Let me give you an example: Bloggs Group, a small cap has traded for the last few days at 98 - 102 giving a mid price of 100. If that continues most sites show 100 unchanged but on Stocko every time somebody sells at 98 it shows that as the price and -2% and every time somebody buys at 102 it shows that as the price and +2%. The larger the spread the more giddy it will make you feel!

In reply to post #408794

Note that, at the moment, you need to make manual adjustments for stock splits, dividends etc, though Stockopedia does provide a facility to adjust holdings for this, and it will probably become automatic at some future date. For the time being though, you might not find your Stockopedia 'Folios' accurate enough to use as a very easy and convenient way of tracking performance of your individual and consolidated share-dealing accounts, especially if you are reinvesting some dividends - a shame since it would make life much easier if you could enter all those details and be sure that your Stockopedia folio(s) would replicate your actual accounts exactly and in one place. The folios are still very useful though for tracking your holdings and recording notes and transactions for individual shares.

Here's my complete guess on the situation behind Patisserie Holdings (LON:CAKE). Long-term associate of LJ thought he could play the Bull markets off the books with company cash, hoping to keep surplus gains and return cash.

Problems arose when trading did not result in gains. Board confirmation and minutes of overdraft documents were forged using image signatures used in printed accounts. Bank thought multiple directors were authorising, but only one party was.

New bank account details were forged for existing supplier to move more cash out of business to a bank account set up in name of forged company invoice. No doubt doubling down on trades to try and recoup previous losses.

Situation spinning out of control as HMRC and Landlords became victims of cash crisis. Suppliers may have been used to late payments.

I’ll repeat what I posted about Superdry (LON:SDRY) a while back - the store local to me in (a very upscale mall) has permanent sales and is typically empty, even on peak weekend trading days. This store is in Los Angeles, arguably there’s not much of a need of the heavy jackets etc the brand purports to be known for. And this location must be very expensive in terms of rent. But obviously you can’t extrapolate one store to the entire group!

I think the bigger concern for me (if I was a holder) is where the brand is heading and how valuable it actually is. From casual observation, their customers are not 20s or 30s but more middle aged dads, a market that has very different spending patterns and repeat business, as several have commented today. Clothing retailers can make money in this sector, but can also lose a lot - witness M&S spending years trying to turn around their menswear offerings.

In reply to post #408874

Maybe gambling on currency or even online poker. Near where I live on the South coast, three bank managers inc an area manager plus the wife of a stockbroker stole vast amounts to fund gambling on fruit machines and poker. Some of the jackpots are huge...5 million £ etc....and people empty their accounts chasing. I remember reading an article about a guy who had everything; nice home, business, family etc. He lost everything in weeks gambling online 20 hours a day. He even managed to borrow hundreds of thousands.....lost the lot.

In reply to post #408844

"If that sort of money was now in his back pocket you would expect him to be sunning himself in South America. I wonder where all the money went?"

Maybe he invested it into Patisserie Holdings (LON:CAKE) Put options?!

It beggars belief that such a fraudulent action could go unnoticed for how long? This is another instance of poor quality auditing and weak systems of internal controls, poor management?
It is also a reflection on the banks and there so called due diligence. Be interesting to see if CAKE take action against them.
Just glad I got out at the top. I don't subscribe to the view that 50p will be a support for the share price unless existing investors are going to average down big time....time will tell?

Patisserie Holdings (LON:CAKE)

Grant Thornton chief to stand down.

https://www.stockopedia.com/share-prices/nichols-LON:NICL/news/accounting-firm-grant-thorntonaposs-uk-chief-to-step-down-urn:newsml:reuters.com:20181015:nL3N1WV4LL/

Phil

In reply to post #408939

Not sure that is anything to do with Patisserie Holdings (LON:CAKE) specifically.
One of the senior partners at the firm released her appraisal to the FT (ridiculous and with partners with that kind of integrity, would you really trust their signature)
Apparently there was something of a civil war amongst the partnership and her desire to "pursue a socialist agenda".
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://amp.ft.com/content/c95dfa70-bdb6-11e8-8274-55b72926558f&ved=2ahUKEwi71N7jlIneAhWDSsAKHT_eA90QFjAAegQIABAB&usg=AOvVaw2oiyw2EY-WeCPIBl8vOmqQ&ampcf=1

In reply to post #408819

Climate change does not mean "extreme weather". This world was a lot colder and a lot warmer at recurring times. It has gone through cycles, thus ever was and will ever be (at least to our puny existence). Human civilisation advancement has be correlated to these cycles. When the earth was in warmer phases industry, technology, population increased. In times when the earth was in its natural cold cycle (causing ice ages) human advancement slowed.

Cake Box Holdings (LON:CBOX) - I'm told they only do eggless cakes because Hindus don't eat eggs, which means it has a limited, Desi, market. Now, if they were to expand their audience by offering a vegan option I think they'd be onto something big.

And as for Patisserie Holdings (LON:CAKE), I have no idea what the disgraced ex-CFO looks like or what he was up to, but for some reason the Viz comic character 'Fru T. Bunn, the Master Baker' springs to mind :-)

In reply to post #408964

Bushranger - Cause: effect. Cause: effect. Small: far away. Small: far away.

In reply to post #408904

Beggars belief if people are chasing losses at fruit machines but online poker and betting exchanges are zero sum games.Whatever someone is losing out there someone else is winning .
If people believe in their ability at poker or picking sports winners it is not necessirily stupid to bet big as long as one is not stealing money to fund ones gambling

In reply to post #409249

Really, what about losing your house, getting divorced, losing your job, is that ok as well?

In reply to post #409249

duplicate post deleted

Last on Patisserie..Not sure if anyone posted it.
Crystal Amber: we offered Patisserie Valerie a loan
https://citywire.co.uk/investment-trust-insider/news/crystal-amber-we-offered-patisserie-valerie-a-loan/a1165353?re=59022&ea=298887&utm_source=BulkEmail_Investment%20Trust%20Insider%20Weekly&utm_medium=BulkEmail_Investment%20Trust%20Insider%20Weekly&utm_campaign=BulkEmail_Investment%20Trust%20Insider%20Weekly&_ga=2.204698064.1799243591.1539708794-945208811.1539708794