Tag: share price

Midwich goes cuckoo over market valuation

Posted on January 17, 2018 by - News

the-midwich-cuckoos-770Print and audiovisual distributor Midwich has seen its market valuation cross the £500 million threshold.

The share price has been growing after the outfit indicated that profits for 2017 would come in “comfortably ahead of its previous expectations”. Yesterday saw it up 17 percent.

Crossing the £500 million milestone puts it onto the radar of a broader range of institutional investors.

Midwich has been making a lot of acquisitions, including Iberian Earpro, Dutch Gebroeders van Domburg and UK-based Sound Technology.

In a pre-close trading update for its year ended 31 December 2017, Midiwch said this morning that it had enjoyed “encouraging growth” across all its divisions in its second half, adding that all of its 2017 acquisitions performed on a par with or ahead of expectations.

The outfit has 700 staff across the UK & Ireland, France, Germany, Iberia and Australasia, and consequently expects 2017 revenues to rise 28 percent to about £470 million. This includes a three per cent increase from favourable exchange rate movements.

Midwich group managing director Stephen Fenby said: “2017 was another year of substantial growth for Midwich, with strong performances from the Group’s existing businesses and significant contributions from the acquisitions made through the year.

“We have been pleased with the integration of all the businesses we acquired, and they are all trading in line or ahead of management’s expectations. Through 2018, management will continue to explore cross-selling opportunities in the current portfolio while also evaluating the healthy pipeline of potential acquisitions both in the Group’s existing markets and in new territories.”

 

Apple could be worth double

Posted on October 10, 2014 by - News

two-applesA man who owns rather a lot of shares in the fruity cargo cult Apple, claims that they are undervalued and wants them to go up a bit.

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn said Apple) shares could double in value if it used its $133 billion cash pile in a buy back scheme.

In an open letter to Apple’s board, Icahn said Apple was dramatically undervalued in today’s market, and the more shares repurchased now, the more each remaining shareholder will benefit.

Icahn who said he would be hanging on to his own stock out of any repurchase claimed that Apple stock should be trading at $203.

“At today’s price, Apple is one of the best investments we have ever seen from a risk reward perspective, and the size of our position is a testament to this. This investment represents the largest position in our investment history,” Icahn wrote.

Icahn urged Apple to buy back as much as $100 billion in stock and said he hoped other investors would also press for a buyback.

In June Apple split, its stock seven for one and in April it raised its share repurchase authorisation to $90 billion from the $60 billion announced a year earlier.

Shareholders did not seem that impressed. Apple shares rose less than one percent in early trading to $101.49 but slipped to $100.84 later. The stock has gained 25 percent since January.

Icahn owns 53 million shares and is one of the iPhone maker’s top 10 investors so he will get back a huge amount if the share price doubles. Needless to say he has been urging the company to buy back more shares and raise its dividend.

We would take all this with a pinch of salt. In his letter, he said he expects the Apple Watch, the company’s first new product category since the iPad in 2010, to boost the company’s growth and suggested that television is another large opportunity for the company, which is more than anyone else believes.

Apple has long signaled it will not be pressured into making hasty decisions. On Thursday, spokeswoman Kristin Huguet declined to comment directly on Icahn’s letter but said “We always appreciate hearing from our shareholders.”  We are sure she does.

Unsinkable Apple hits Selfiegate iceberg

Posted on September 4, 2014 by - News

Der Untergang der TitanicHistory says that Apple’s share price should be going sky high right now buoyed by the expected launch of a new iPhone6 and whipped to a frenzy by its free publicity provided by the Tame Apple Press.

However, the company shares are suffering their worst day and one brokerage warning of a stock downgrade unless its new products show better promise for profit growth.

Shares of the smartphone maker slumped four percent as users realised that the company’s iCloud was not the safest place to store their snaps. Apple has done its best to say that its security was not at fault in its Cloudgate boob, which saw naked snaps of Hollywood stars appear online, however evidence is mounting that is not the case.

It seems investors are starting to realise that Apple has not introduced a new product since the iPad in 2010 and is not expected to create anything brilliantly new with its coming iPhone.

It has been thought that an increasingly desperate Apple would unveil a version of a smartwatch next week but even the technology for that has been done to death as Jobs’ Mob’s own version was constantly delayed.

Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves said unless next week’s shows massive incremental profit opportunities, he was likely to downgrade Apple’s rating.

Apple needed a security flaw in its iCloud exposing like a hole in the head. Apple wants its clouds to become repositories of sensitive home and healthcare data, and payments and financial information too.

Security experts have been warning for ages that Apple’s cloud is not up to snuff security wise and the current breach just proves how untrustworthy it is.