Interserve - £90M write down

[Crazbe7]

May be of interest to some here.

Another write down to their Waste to Energy business. Write downs now stand at £170M.

Shares down 22% in early trading.

Waste to Energy - the projects that just keep ruining your balance sheet. Hot on the heels of problems with Costains Manchester Waste contract.

Crazbe7

[Arborbridge]

Ouch

[monabri]

Double ouch! This lightbulb will need some time to fix itself! Reading the IRV share chat on ADVFN, it says that the board were asked several times about the divi and could not get an answer*. I'm off to stick my head in a bucket of cold water now. I'm beginning to wonder about CLLN now!


* - I've just deleted the expected divi for the rest of the year in my spreadsheet.

[monabri]

Just thought I'd summarise some of the views from our friends over at TMF!

11 Nov 16
http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2016/11 ... r-profits/


11 Jan 2017
http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2017/01 ... ys-update/

15 Jan 2017
http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2017/01 ... e-in-2017/


14 Feb 2017
http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2017/02 ... m-to-grow/


And, somewhat belatedly at about 10am this morning!

20 Feb 2017 (Hmm !)
http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2017/02 ... portfolio/


I suppose that they will argue that the Mgt. Team at IRV did not disclose the full extent of the issues. But after so many "positive" statements followed by the strongly negative one no doubt rushed out early this morning - it makes me wonder how much TMF really know?

[daveh]

Interestingly I just tried to view two of those reports and on the 2nd Motley Fool says I need to register. So I try logging on with my old username and password from pre board closure days. Says I have no active subscriptions. So it seems old Motley Fool accounts may have been locked or terminated.

[Bouleversee]

Monabri -

Thanks for those links. Makes me feel a whole lot better, in that I might just be able to forgive myself for being a complete idiot because I don't claim to be any sort of expert in stock selection but those who do make as many stupid mistakes. Having topped up after the first drop, I am now down £6,152 (64.79%). I do wish company announcements wouldn't say "in line with previous expectations" without reiterating what they were. As for the directors, they can't have a clue what they are doing.

What to do now? Absolutely no idea. Rights issue? Must be joking. Another Cobham, which is also further down today.

[monabri]

daveh - the links I posted above seem to work for me. Annoyingly, when you click on any TMF "story" it lets you read for a paragraph or two and then asks you to log in. I just hit the "back" button on the browser and then the "forward" button and you can then read the article.

[daveh]

daveh - the links I posted above seem to work for me. Annoyingly, when you click on any TMF "story" it lets you read for a paragraph or two and then asks you to log in. I just hit the "back" button on the browser and then the "forward" button and you can then read the article.

I can read them, particularly if I just look at one a day. I was just surprised MF seems to have deleted or locked accounts from pre board closure days for those without any active subscriptions (unless I'm doing something wrong.

With respect to Interserve haven't the Waste to energy plant problems been well known for some time, its just that the size of the problem has got bigger. So analysts should have known there might be further problems (don't problems always get worse cf BT's Italian problems).

[monabri]

I was registered as a Fool many years ago and didn't do anything when they closed down the forums. The back/forward solution on the browser button allowed me to read the articles (although I'm coming to the conclusion that they are not worth reading..especially when they rush out todays article on IRV .. what use is that ?).


The EfW (energy for waste) issue has been known about for some while as you say- I think it is the market's view is that "you didn't understand the loss by a factor of two, so what else don't you know". If there is any more bad news for IRV I fear for the worst. Hopefully they will have given a worst case for the anticipated losses (they had better!). The analysts can only react to the news/info they are given. I would expect heads are going to roll at IRV in addition to the recent departure of Mr Ringrose.

[jackdaww]

Double ouch! This lightbulb will need some time to fix itself! Reading the IRV share chat on ADVFN, it says that the board were asked several times about the divi and could not get an answer*. I'm off to stick my head in a bucket of cold water now. I'm beginning to wonder about CLLN now!


* - I've just deleted the expected divi for the rest of the year in my spreadsheet.

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

i seem to have avoided both of these - dont know why - some base instinct perhaps?

[idpickering]

Interestingly I just tried to view two of those reports and on the 2nd Motley Fool says I need to register. So I try logging on with my old username and password from pre board closure days. Says I have no active subscriptions. So it seems old Motley Fool accounts may have been locked or terminated.

Just refresh it, that seems to work.

Hth

Ian.

[monabri]

JD - You also avoided COB! Perhaps you should re register as "mystic meg"? You do seem to have a 6th sense...What then will be the next company to post bad news?

[StepOne]

JD - You also avoided COB! Perhaps you should re register as "mystic meg"? You do seem to have a 6th sense...What then will be the next company to post bad news?

Monabri, I was also lucky enough to avoid these 3 (Cobham, Carillion and Interserve). It wasn't sixth sense for 2 of them - Carillion and Interserve are both too small for me to consider. Even Cobham is much smaller than I would normally go for. I think Pearson was the smallest company I put in my HYP and it was around £6b at the time (smaller now!).

StepOne

[daveh]

JD - You also avoided COB! Perhaps you should re register as "mystic meg"? You do seem to have a 6th sense...What then will be the next company to post bad news?

Monabri, I was also lucky enough to avoid these 3 (Cobham, Carillion and Interserve). It wasn't sixth sense for 2 of them - Carillion and Interserve are both too small for me to consider. Even Cobham is much smaller than I would normally go for. I think Pearson was the smallest company I put in my HYP and it was around £6b at the time (smaller now!).

StepOne

But what's wrong with CLLN. The dividend is good and nothing the company has said seems to suggest it will be cut, or that there are problems that are going to lead to a profits warning. The only thing that's is worrying is the consistent drop in the share price. Unless something nasty crawls out of the woodwork this is a chance to buy income on the cheap. Saying that I'll be waiting until after the next set of results before I think of buying more. I hold CLLN but not COB or Interserve.

[monabri]

But what's wrong with CLLN

I've already asked that question! (views on Carillion?) .... Maybe have a look on that thread!

[daveh]

But what's wrong with CLLN

I've already asked that question! (views on Carillion?) .... Maybe have a look on that thread!

Yes, I've read that thread, and after however many hundred posts the conclu
sion seems to be that there must be something wrong as the price keeps going down, even though everything seems fine from the recent RNS's.

[JohnnyCyclops]

Monabri -

Thanks for those links. Makes me feel a whole lot better, in that I might just be able to forgive myself for being a complete idiot because I don't claim to be any sort of expert in stock selection but those who do make as many stupid mistakes.

Which is exactly the point of a portfolio approach, because as private investors none of us can claim deep insight into these businesses (unless we happen to be a former or current employee). In our 35 stock HYP the average holding value is 2.7%. The difficulties at COB see it now on just 1.1% value, but that's only down ~1.6%.

[77ss]

But what's wrong with CLLN. The dividend is good and nothing the company has said seems to suggest it will be cut, or that there are problems that are going to lead to a profits warning. The only thing that's is worrying is the consistent drop in the share price. Unless something nasty crawls out of the woodwork this is a chance to buy income on the cheap. Saying that I'll be waiting until after the next set of results before I think of buying more. I hold CLLN but not COB or Interserve.

Yes, bit of a puzzle, this one. Like you, I managed to avoid Cobham and Interserve, but have held CLLN for nearly 7 years now. Negative XIRR, but the dividends keep rolling in, with increases - albeit modest ones. Finals tba on the 1st March.

[Breelander]

Interestingly I just tried to view two of those reports and on the 2nd Motley Fool says I need to register. So I try logging on with my old username and password from pre board closure days. Says I have no active subscriptions. So it seems old Motley Fool accounts may have been locked or terminated.

No, I can assure you that the old TMF account names and passwords are still valid and active, indeed you can (as you were always able to) log in to the US site with them - you can even get posting rights over there if you ask nicely.

By some luck, my UK TMF log in cookie is still a valid one and I can read all those articles in full. If I use another browser that doesn't have a valid log in cookie I get the same 'give us your email or log in' message as you. These have always been two separate login processes, one for the boards and the other for subscription accounts. All login links for the board accounts have been removed from the TMF site now. The login you tried was only for the subscription accounts, saying:

Already a subscriber to our paid services (e.g. Share Advisor, Pro, Hidden Winners)? Please login here.

However, there's a simple way to read all Fool articles without restriction - just give them an email address. Doing so puts a cookie on your PC that unlocks all subsequent articles. It's an email gathering exercise, no doubt to try and drum up new subscribers - I gave them my old TMF registered email address (which they already know).

[Bouleversee]

Tempus in The Times advises selling. Can I bring myself to do that with such a large loss? What are others doing?