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Interserve

For discussion of the practicalities of setting up and operating income-portfolios which follow the HYP Group Guidelines. READ Guidelines before posting
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jackdaww
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Re: Interserve

#180039

Postby jackdaww » November 13th, 2018, 5:02 pm

Bouleversee wrote:That's interesting: HL have IRV s p at 38.48p to sell and 37.48p to buy. :?


===

backwardisation .

EssDeeAitch
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Re: Interserve

#180042

Postby EssDeeAitch » November 13th, 2018, 5:28 pm

Having been a supplier or goods and services to Carillion, Interserve, MITIE and others in the Support Services sector, there is no way I would invest a single penny in them. They win contracts on the cheap and then squeeze suppliers, compromise on quality and delay payments to manage profit and cash flow. It seems to be the norm within this sector (and I refer specifically to their Facilities Management divisions).

There is no doubt in my mind that Carillion were the worst of those we dealt with but all were grotty customers and make for grotty investments.

Bouleversee
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Re: Interserve

#180045

Postby Bouleversee » November 13th, 2018, 5:49 pm

EssDeeAitch wrote:Having been a supplier or goods and services to Carillion, Interserve, MITIE and others in the Support Services sector, there is no way I would invest a single penny in them. They win contracts on the cheap and then squeeze suppliers, compromise on quality and delay payments to manage profit and cash flow. It seems to be the norm within this sector (and I refer specifically to their Facilities Management divisions).

There is no doubt in my mind that Carillion were the worst of those we dealt with but all were grotty customers and make for grotty investments.


How about Morgan Sindall, who have done relatively well for me for some years but, like many, not so well this year? Also Balfour Beatty and Babcock if they come in the same category? They have been pretty useless. Have you had dealings with any of them?

EssDeeAitch
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Re: Interserve

#180122

Postby EssDeeAitch » November 14th, 2018, 5:30 am

Bouleversee wrote:
EssDeeAitch wrote:Having been a supplier or goods and services to Carillion, Interserve, MITIE and others in the Support Services sector, there is no way I would invest a single penny in them. They win contracts on the cheap and then squeeze suppliers, compromise on quality and delay payments to manage profit and cash flow. It seems to be the norm within this sector (and I refer specifically to their Facilities Management divisions).

There is no doubt in my mind that Carillion were the worst of those we dealt with but all were grotty customers and make for grotty investments.


How about Morgan Sindall, who have done relatively well for me for some years but, like many, not so well this year? Also Balfour Beatty and Babcock if they come in the same category? They have been pretty useless. Have you had dealings with any of them?


Not dealt with MS other than some new build projects; they were not heavily involved in facilities management so I cannot speak for them. Balfour Beatty were no different to Interserve et al but were better as a debtor. Babcock were quite good, we dealt with both their nuclear and facilities management divisions and they were open in negotiations and generally a good customer.

Bouleversee
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Re: Interserve

#180150

Postby Bouleversee » November 14th, 2018, 7:59 am

Thanks for response,
.

Gengulphus
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Re: Interserve

#180249

Postby Gengulphus » November 14th, 2018, 1:58 pm

Bouleversee wrote:That's interesting: HL have IRV s p at 38.48p to sell and 37.48p to buy. :?

At a guess from the 16:54 timing of your post, those prices were probably from the 'closing auction' period (normally 16:30-16:35, though it can get extended - I forget exactly what the maximum possible extension is, but IIRC it's somewhere in the range of an extra 10-15 minutes). Allowing for the prices being 15-minute-delayed ones and a bit of time for you to decide to post and actually do so, or for undelayed prices and rather longer for you to do your part, I think the timing fits that guess pretty well.

What happens in the LSE's systems during an 'auction' is that they stop matching buy and sell orders with each other on the usual basis that if there's an order to buy at a price and an order to sell at the same or lower price, the two orders are immediately matched with each other to form a trade and so disappear from the order book (or if they're different sizes, the smaller is removed and the larger is reduced by the size of the smaller). Instead, all orders are simply accumulated during the 'auction' and then a grand matching happens at its end.

So at normal trading times, that normal matching ensures that the bid price (which is simply the lowest price of any sell order) is always higher than the offer price (the highest price of any buy order), because any addition of an order that would make that not be the case will immediately result in orders being matched to form trades and removed until it is the case again. But when normal matching is suspended during an 'auction', that isn't the case and it's quite possible that the bid price becomes less than or equal to the offer price: all it indicates is that shares are likely to be traded at the end of the 'auction' (only likely, because orders can be cancelled during it). And if they are, it won't necessarily be at either price: they'll all be traded at the same price, which will generally be somewhere between the two (though it could be equal to one or the other - or even both if they're equal).

By the way, putting orders into an 'auction' is generally not possible using an ordinary broker account. I believe one needs a DMA (Direct Market Access) account to do so, and they seem to be available only from a few brokers and only to clients who meet conditions to be classified as a more sophisticated type of investor than the usual 'retail investor' type. Those conditions look to be imposed by the FCA, I'd guess because there is a distinct danger of expensive mistakes and possibly even criminal market abuse for those who use them naively.

The net result is that if you see peculiar-looking price behaviour that apparently lets you sell at a higher price than you can buy at, and so make an instant profit, those prices are not both really available and so the profit isn't either!

Gengulphus

jackdaww
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Re: Interserve

#180251

Postby jackdaww » November 14th, 2018, 2:04 pm

jackdaww wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:That's interesting: HL have IRV s p at 38.48p to sell and 37.48p to buy. :?


===

backwardisation .. ;) ..

Bouleversee
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Re: Interserve

#180257

Postby Bouleversee » November 14th, 2018, 2:36 pm

Thanks for the explanation, Geng. I learn something every day,

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Re: Interserve

#180427

Postby Gengulphus » November 15th, 2018, 8:09 am

jackdaww wrote:
jackdaww wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:That's interesting: HL have IRV s p at 38.48p to sell and 37.48p to buy. :?


===

backwardisation .. ;) ..

I'm sure that plenty of readers here won't know what that single word means - so perhaps you'd like to explain? (Or if you actually mean "backwardation", that will do just as well.)

A link to an internet source will do fine - no need for anything lengthy. I'd do it myself if I could easily find one that I considered remotely relevant to this discussion - but I can't, so I'm taking care to avoid misrepresenting you...

Gengulphus

dspp
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Re: Interserve

#180463

Postby dspp » November 15th, 2018, 10:04 am

Bouleversee wrote:
EssDeeAitch wrote:Having been a supplier or goods and services to Carillion, Interserve, MITIE and others in the Support Services sector, there is no way I would invest a single penny in them. They win contracts on the cheap and then squeeze suppliers, compromise on quality and delay payments to manage profit and cash flow. It seems to be the norm within this sector (and I refer specifically to their Facilities Management divisions).

There is no doubt in my mind that Carillion were the worst of those we dealt with but all were grotty customers and make for grotty investments.


How about Morgan Sindall, who have done relatively well for me for some years but, like many, not so well this year? Also Balfour Beatty and Babcock if they come in the same category? They have been pretty useless. Have you had dealings with any of them?


I have not dealt with MS, so can't comment there.

Babcock's tried ripping off a systems design of ours, but did the copying badly. We then refused to supply the key components to boot. I was extremely unimpressed and said so. One of their manager resigned.

Balfour were middling to middling on work that I reviewed. They showed very little understanding of the brief and just let some juniors play on it.

Both are expensive without being correspondingly excellent. I hold neither, and they don't go on my tender list either.

regards, dspp

jackdaww
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Re: Interserve

#180491

Postby jackdaww » November 15th, 2018, 11:08 am

Gengulphus wrote:
jackdaww wrote:
jackdaww wrote:
===

backwardisation .. ;) ..

I'm sure that plenty of readers here won't know what that single word means - so perhaps you'd like to explain? (Or if you actually mean "backwardation", that will do just as well.)

A link to an internet source will do fine - no need for anything lengthy. I'd do it myself if I could easily find one that I considered remotely relevant to this discussion - but I can't, so I'm taking care to avoid misrepresenting you...

Gengulphus


=============================================

thanks.


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