(I may review this and add some more detail on Thursday night)

Wey Education announced their interims on 8th May and that evening held a private investor evening. This consisted of presentations by both David Massie (Executive Chairman) and Jacqueline Daniell (Executive Director) followed by timeboxed group questions with some input also from Barry Nichols-Grey (new Finance Director) and ending with an informal session where all three were available to answer questions. We were also given newly commissioned research from WH Ireland, a copy of David's presentation and of the results RNS.

The purpose of this post is principally to give answers to the questions I had prepared or been given in advance of the meeting rather than a full report. Everything is from very hastily scribbled notes and supplemented with memory so mistakes are possible.

Results: https://investegate.co.uk/wey-...
SCVR: https://www.stockopedia.com/co...

Before I get to the questions, I would like to highlight a couple of things that came to light:

They were forced to change banks and this caused disruption

Wey previously banked with HSBC who dropped them over money laundering concerns. Had I not already been aware of HSBC's appalling reputation in this regard then I would have been horrified at this news, but anybody who has concerns should do a quick internet search to reassure themselves how commonplace (and bizzare) this is.

This resulted in CPAs (card Continuous Payment Authorities) stopping and various online advertising with it for a period of "weeks rather than months". Clearly this took longer to discover than it should have done, but my main concern (that it indicated a lack of cash-flow forecasting / monitoring) was assuaged. It also resulted in some delays in receiving payments. Overall, compared to some of the HSBC horror stories you read it seems they weathered the storm pretty well.

There was lots of criticism of excluding some marketing from the adjusted profits

Although there was initially some defensiveness, I think it is fair to say all three of them received the message loudly and clearly that this was a mistake. They main argument seemed to be that it was for consistency with the previous year and that they were advised to do it.

1) Where is your competitive advantage in providing TEFL courses in China / why are you entering that market?

- Quality of teaching
- Customer is Chinese state schools…

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

Already have an account?
Login here