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Marks and Spencer Group PLC (MKS)

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Bouleversee
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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263051

Postby Bouleversee » November 8th, 2019, 5:00 pm

Thanks to all. I'll hang on for a bit longer but without any enthusiasm or much hope.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263079

Postby Gengulphus » November 8th, 2019, 7:12 pm

Arborbridge wrote:You are lucky if you get discount vouchers: my broker stopped them years ago. I wonder if they get passed around their office?

Very unlikely, I think, because sending the vouchers to the brokers for them to send on to their nominee account shareholders would be a cumbersome and costly way of going about distributing them. A much more plausible way of doing it is to ask the nominee brokers to supply the company's registrar with names and addresses of qualifying nominee account shareholders, so that the registrar can send the vouchers out to all of those shareholders plus qualifying shareholders whose shareholdings are registered by the registrar (i.e. certificated shareholders and CREST shareholders). And as well as it being more plausible, I have personally also had direct evidence that that's the way it is actually done: I used to get four sets of vouchers each year (*), all in identical envelopes apart from minor name/address differences (**) and generally all arriving at my address in the same postal delivery. I suppose that could in principle be due to the registrar getting the shareholder vouchers and a supply of suitable envelopes to the broker, together with insisting that the brokers post them on to shareholders at a specific time and date, but in practice I can neither see the registrar wanting to do it that way when they've got generally well-functioning facilities to do mass shareholder mailings themselves, nor three different brokers all agreeing to take on the job, especially with that sort of time constraint (three rather than four because my fourth set of vouchers will have been due to my CREST shareholding).

(*) It was only two sets of vouchers this year rather than four, I'd guess either because a couple of brokers decided no longer to co-operate or because the registrar got better at duplicate elimination. I haven't bothered enquiring which it is, because I don't shop at Marks & Spencer very often and have never found I wanted more than one set...

(**) E.g. things like whether the name is "Gen Ulphus Esq.", "Gen G. Ulphus" or "Mr G. G. Ulphus", and whether "Cambridge" in the address is followed by "Cambridgeshire".

Gengulphus

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263209

Postby dealtn » November 9th, 2019, 1:05 pm

Arborbridge wrote:
NeilW wrote:The figure that counts is the cash flow.

Cash is a matter of fact. Profit is a matter of opinion.


And on that basis, if these figures from Morningstar are correct, all seems OK:



Cover shown is for the five year period, but until matters improve, there isn't room for dividend increases without dropping cover a little. However, 2x cover is better than most of the companies I've looked at recently apart from WPP.

Arb.


Not sure about the figures. Assuming DPS stands for Dividends per share I see the last 5 years as being 18p, 23.3p, 18.7p, 18.7p and 13.9p. (Not that I care what the dividend is and would be happiest if I never received another one - but as this is HYP-P presumably this matters "most" to those on here).

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263220

Postby PinkDalek » November 9th, 2019, 1:50 pm

dealtn wrote:Not sure about the figures. Assuming DPS stands for Dividends per share I see the last 5 years as being 18p, 23.3p, 18.7p, 18.7p and 13.9p.


As confirmed in the History section here https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/investors/shareholder-information/your-dividends.

There was a 4.6p special dividend paid in July 2016, which is included in your 23.3p (18.7p+4.6p).

Morningstar would appear to knock 5% off each and every dividend, if my mathematics is correct (and Arb. hasn't included the special above):

https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xlon/mks/dividends

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263225

Postby Arborbridge » November 9th, 2019, 2:17 pm

PinkDalek wrote:
dealtn wrote:Not sure about the figures. Assuming DPS stands for Dividends per share I see the last 5 years as being 18p, 23.3p, 18.7p, 18.7p and 13.9p.


As confirmed in the History section here https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/investors/shareholder-information/your-dividends.

There was a 4.6p special dividend paid in July 2016, which is included in your 23.3p (18.7p+4.6p).

Morningstar would appear to knock 5% off each and every dividend, if my mathematics is correct (and Arb. hasn't included the special above):

https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xlon/mks/dividends


How strange - I wonder why Morningstar would chop off 5%? The special wasn't mentioned by Morningstar either,which is why it wasn't included. One may or my not include specials, but if one does and takes this new list of dividends, it brings the cover to 1.89x. Still very respectable compared with other HYP companies at this time.

I suppose I should now find out if Mornginstar regularly chops off 5%, or whether this is an oddity. Anyhow, I'm grateful for your correction.

Arb.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263228

Postby PinkDalek » November 9th, 2019, 2:30 pm

Arborbridge wrote:[The special wasn't mentioned by Morningstar either,which is why it wasn't included. One may or my not include specials, but if one does and takes this new list of dividends, it brings the cover to 1.89x. Still very respectable compared with other HYP companies at this time. ...


I'm unsure where you looked but the Special is in the headline rounded 0.22 and is in the detail below for 2016.

https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xlon/mks/dividends

I can't help on the 5% as Morningstar is not somewhere I use but would be interested if this happens on other equities over there.

Edit: I can see some of the numbers you used via tools.morningstar.co.uk.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263230

Postby monabri » November 9th, 2019, 2:35 pm

I don't own shares in MKS but isn't there a 1 for 5 rights issue, May 19, to be taken into account? (Sorry about the formatting but see link to dividendata)

Adjusted

https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/dividend ... y?epic=MKS

Code: Select all

Year End | Interim | Final  | Special | Total* | Growth
03/2020  | 3.90p   | tbc    |       - | tbc    | tbc   
03/2019  | 6.53p   | 6.82p  |       - | 13.35p | -25.63%
03/2018  | 6.53p   | 11.42p |       - | 17.95p |   0.00%
03/2017  | 6.53p   | 11.42p |       - | 17.95p |   0.00%
03/2016  | 6.53p   | 11.42p | 4.42p   | 17.95p |   3.88%
03/2015  | 6.14p   | 11.14p |       - | 17.28p |   5.88%


Unadjusted

https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/dividend ... dData=True

Code: Select all

Year End | Interim | Final | Special | Total*
03/2020  | 3.9p    | tbc   |       - | tbc   
03/2019  | 6.8p    | 7.1p  |       - | 13.90p
03/2018  | 6.8p    | 11.9p |       - | 18.70p
03/2017  | 6.8p    | 11.9p |       - | 18.70p
03/2016  | 6.8p    | 11.9p | 4.6p    | 18.70p
03/2015  | 6.4p    | 11.6p |       - | 18.00p


Specials not included in totals on the dividenddata site.
Last edited by monabri on November 9th, 2019, 2:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263231

Postby PinkDalek » November 9th, 2019, 2:43 pm

monabri wrote:I don't own shares in MKS but isn't there a 1 for 5 rights issue, May 19, to be taken into account?


Good point, I don't hold either but that seems to explain much of the differences! Not that I can can recall why a 1 for 5 effectively reduces the numbers by 5%.
Last edited by PinkDalek on November 9th, 2019, 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263233

Postby dealtn » November 9th, 2019, 2:50 pm

I would always be looking forwards not backwards anyway. In share selection criteria terms etc. I know HYP-P practitioners are interested in dividend history but to me that is barely relevant, nor I guess should it be to HYPsters once shares have been selected and "strategic ignorance" takes over. (Some might disagree I suppose).

The point, at least with regard to dividends being covered by cashflow going forwards, is that there are now more shares, following a Right's issue, and that the dividend policy has been amended (ie. cut). Averaging the past 5 years, whether haircut by 5% or not, isn't particularly logical or useful.

As I have made clear, on this thread, and on others I'm not a HYP practitioner anyway and would be happiest not to receive a dividend from my investment in MKS as that would mean my motives for holding would have been satisfied.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263255

Postby monabri » November 9th, 2019, 4:51 pm

"Dividend Cut - 03/2019 annual dividend cut from 18.7p to 13.9p and future dividends to be reduced."..noted on the dividenddata site.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263267

Postby Gengulphus » November 9th, 2019, 5:27 pm

dealtn wrote:
Arborbridge wrote:
NeilW wrote:The figure that counts is the cash flow.

Cash is a matter of fact. Profit is a matter of opinion.

And on that basis, if these figures from Morningstar are correct, all seems OK:


Cover shown is for the five year period, but until matters improve, there isn't room for dividend increases without dropping cover a little. However, 2x cover is better than most of the companies I've looked at recently apart from WPP./quote]
Not sure about the figures. Assuming DPS stands for Dividends per share I see the last 5 years as being 18p, 23.3p, 18.7p, 18.7p and 13.9p. ...

That will almost certainly be due to rights issue adjustments, which are basically done because if you take up all your rights, you're adding capital to your holding, which is what you also do if you top the holding up with an extra purchase of the shares - it's a different mechanism to a straightforward purchase, but in both cases your cash balance is reduced. And if you don't take up any of your rights, you end up getting capital back from your holding, either because you sell the rights, or because you let them lapse without either taking them up or selling them, in which case you receive a lapsed-rights payment from the company which is likely to be roughly what they could have been sold for, and in both cases, the mechanism is different to that of a straightforward sale of part of your holding, but it has the same effect of increasing your cash balance.

One would generally never attribute the increase in the dividends one receives if one does a top-up purchase to the company, nor the decrease in the dividends one receives if one sells part of a holding: basically, it's only the changes in the total dividends one would have received if one hadn't done the purchase or sale that can fairly be attributed to the company. And if you look at share splits and consolidations as well, more generally it's only the changes in the total dividends one would have received if capital had neither been added to nor removed from the holding that can be fairly attributed to the company: those that are caused by additions or removals of capital due to shareholder actions should instead be attributed to those shareholder actions. In particular, if e.g. you have 1000 shares in a company that is paying 10p of DPS in a year, and the company splits its shares 2-for-1 and then proceeds to pay 5p of DPS in the following year, your total dividends from that company are £100 in both the pre-split and post-split years (assuming you don't buy or sell any shares, nor anything equivalent to that). So a fair assessment is that the company has held its dividends, not that it has cut them by 50% as indicated by the unadjusted DPS figures. To adjust for that, a split adjustment is applied to all the pre-split dividends (*): they are all divided by 2, basically because each post-split share is equivalent to only half a pre-split share. After that, the relevant part of the adjusted dividend record goes ..., 10p/2=5p, 5p, ..., reflecting the fact that your total dividends haven't changed, which the unadjusted dividend record ..., 10p, 5p, ... definitely doesn't!

To apply that principle to rights issues, one needs to find a way to get through the rights issue without either adding capital to the holding or removing capital from it. The most obvious way is simply to counterbalance capital added taking up rights against capital removed by selling rights or letting them lapse, which leads to the quite common practice of 'tail swallowing': selling enough rights to raise the cash needed to take up the rest. There are others, such as selling all your rights and using the proceeds to buy shares on the market, or letting the shares lapse and using the lapsed-rights payment to buy shares on the market. All of them end up with an increased number of shares in the holding without having added or removed capital - i.e. essentially the same as a share split does, though not generally one as numerically simple as a 2-for-1 split. And the rights issue adjustment compensates for that by adjusting all pre-rights-issue dividends by a suitable factor, just like a share split adjustment does for a share split.

There is one more complication about that, which is that there are multiple ways to get through a rights issue in a no-net-capital-added-or-removed way and they all involve at least one market sale or purchase whose exact outcome depends on exactly what price was obtained. As a result, the exact adjustment factor calculation depends on assumptions about which method is used and when the trading was done. So different sources can end up using different adjustment factors, and it's quite likely none of them will be exactly right for any particular shareholder who tries to get through the rights issue in such a way. However, they will usually all be within a percent or two of each other, so none of them should be wrong by much.

That at last allows me to explain the differences in the numbers Arborbridge quoted from Morningstar and the numbers you've obtained. Yours are unadjusted DPS figures, matching the unadjusted figures given in the company's financial reports and in https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/dividend ... dData=True apart from the question of whether the special is included in the total (the page mentions the special but does not include it in the total), while Arborbridge's are adjusted DPS figures, quite close to though not identical to those given in https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/dividend ... y?epic=MKS. It has its flaws, mainly that it doesn't cover all shares, but as long as they're about shares it does cover, http://www.dividenddata.co.uk is a very useful source for sorting out discrepancies in dividend figures, as it supplies both unadjusted and adjusted figures and tells you what the adjustments are for. In this case, the right hand column says:

"Dividend Adjustments

Adjusted dividends are shown in italic. Ordinary dividends from 03/2019 final dividend and before have been adjusted for the following corporate action(s):

May 2019 - 1 for 5 Rights Issue
"

The fact that Arborbridge's figures from Morningstar don't exactly match the dividenddata figures presumably means that the two sources calculate the adjustment factor using different method/time assumptions. I haven't tried to work out just how they've each done it, though!

(*) To be precise, the split adjustment is applied to all dividends that went ex-dividend before the split. Note incidentally that this can result (though it hasn't in this case) in an interim dividend being split-adjusted, but not the corresponding final dividend, in which case the adjustment that needs to be applied to the total dividend is a somewhat more complicated calculation than just dividing it by the adjustment factor.

Edit: I see that monabri posted the dividenddata links and figures while I was writing this post, but am letting it stand because I've added the rationale for the rights issue adjustments.

Gengulphus

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263272

Postby Gengulphus » November 9th, 2019, 5:53 pm

PinkDalek wrote:
monabri wrote:I don't own shares in MKS but isn't there a 1 for 5 rights issue, May 19, to be taken into account?

Good point, I don't hold either but that seems to explain much of the differences! Not that I can can recall why a 1 for 5 effectively reduces the numbers by 5%.

Basically, if a 1-for-5 rights issue had no subscription price, it would be a 1-for-5 bonus issue, which is equivalent to a 6-for-5 share split, requiring previous dividends to be divided by 6/5 = 1.2, or equivalently multiplied by 5/6 = 0.8333.... So in that case the adjustment would be to reduce the numbers by 16.6666...%.

And if it had a subscription price equal to the current share price, it would be equivalent from a small shareholder's point of view (*) to being able to buy shares on the market, which is of course always available anyway. In that case, no adjustment at all would be needed.

With a subscription price somewhere between nothing and the full share price, an adjustment between those extremes of 0% and 16.6666...% is needed. Calculating just what it should be involves some maths, which I don't have time to write out just now, but that's essentially what's going on.

Gengulphus

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263273

Postby dealtn » November 9th, 2019, 5:59 pm

How does the 17.75p for 2019 get explained?

Any analysis on this company's ability to continue paying its dividend from its free cashflow - which I think(?) is what we are discussing here - has to recognise there are now a different number of shares, post Rights, and that the dividend policy has changed - surely?

Looking backwards at the last 5 years, even if the table is, or was, correct isn't particularly helpful in this respect I think. Maybe others hold a different view, and that may or may not be part of what makes HYP followers different from me, I don't know. Maybe I can be educated here.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263275

Postby PinkDalek » November 9th, 2019, 6:11 pm

Gengulphus wrote:[With a subscription price somewhere between nothing and the full share price, an adjustment between those extremes of 0% and 16.6666...% is needed. Calculating just what it should be involves some maths, which I don't have time to write out just now, but that's essentially what's going on.


Got it, thanks. The adjusted figures at dividenddata would reflect the fact that the Rights Issue was at a discount to the theoretical ex-rights price. Shame they don't show their workings. Don't worry on my account about the maths. It is good to be re-educated.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263291

Postby Gengulphus » November 9th, 2019, 7:33 pm

dealtn wrote:I would always be looking forwards not backwards anyway. In share selection criteria terms etc. I know HYP-P practitioners are interested in dividend history but to me that is barely relevant, nor I guess should it be to HYPsters once shares have been selected and "strategic ignorance" takes over. (Some might disagree I suppose).

I suspect that comment is being made with some sort of mistaken impression about what "strategic ignorance" actually is. It is pyad's term for his recommendation that one should ignore all long-term predictions about the futures of companies, business sectors and the economy - even any such predictions that one makes oneself. It's not a recommendation that's accepted by all HYPers, nor one that this board's guidance even mentions. And for those who do accept it, its most obvious relevance is when selecting shares, so it's definitely not a matter of "strategic ignorance" taking over afterwards, more of it relinquishing control to at least some extent. Possibly even completely in the case of a 'non-tinkering' HYPer who draws down all the dividends rather than reinvesting any of them.

So I'm not certain what exactly you think takes over once shares have been selected, but I'm pretty certain it isn't actually "strategic ignorance"!

dealtn wrote:As I have made clear, on this thread, and on others I'm not a HYP practitioner anyway and would be happiest not to receive a dividend from my investment in MKS as that would mean my motives for holding would have been satisfied.

A football fan can be open and upfront about being one and still be a welcome guest in a cricket club - but the chances of that are reduced quite a lot if he or she harps on about thinking football is a better game than cricket and which aspects of cricket he or she doesn't accept! I'd suggest applying the same principle here...

Gengulphus

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263293

Postby dealtn » November 9th, 2019, 7:59 pm

Gengulphus wrote:
dealtn wrote:As I have made clear, on this thread, and on others I'm not a HYP practitioner anyway and would be happiest not to receive a dividend from my investment in MKS as that would mean my motives for holding would have been satisfied.

A football fan can be open and upfront about being one and still be a welcome guest in a cricket club - but the chances of that are reduced quite a lot if he or she harps on about thinking football is a better game than cricket and which aspects of cricket he or she doesn't accept! I'd suggest applying the same principle here...

Gengulphus


Thanks for the suggestion! I thought I was being particularly open and honest, and certainly not harping on. In fact quite the opposite. Given the history of this particular board I was, at least attempting, to be as polite as possible. I, and am sure many other non-HYPers, own such shares in their portfolio, and discussion shouldn't be a monopoly here (as long as its not impolite about the investment strategy).

The reality is threads about companies in general are somewhat thin on the ground and it seems having multiple threads in different boards aren't particularly useful when discussing general subjects, at least in my opinion. I am sure if a topic about a company's cash flow on the back of its latest results was on another board a broadly similar discussion would have taken place, and I'm not sure duplication would be particularly efficient or necessary. Perhaps you, and others disagree.

I have learnt something from my interaction on here, and thanked a couple of contributors, but it feels even polite non-HYPers can be discouraged from engaging in general conversations here. I can see why moderators have a thankless task here. Do we want to descend to a point where every contribution on this board needs determining whether it is strictly "practical" or "company news"? Or have numerous cross posts across boards? I hope not.

I am happy to engage with anyone with respect to shares in my portfolio, whatever their particular strategy, but it's increasingly unlikely such discourse will happen, where we might even learn from each other, when conflict is seen or imagined so frequently.

Moderator Message:
Please everyone, on this board above all others, only engage in discussion on the shares. No meta-level discussion about discussion please, i.e. here endeth this particular rabbit hole. Thank you. dspp

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263316

Postby Gengulphus » November 10th, 2019, 2:42 am

dealtn wrote:How does the 17.75p for 2019 get explained?

Basically by a post-rights-issue share only being the equivalent of a fraction of a pre-rights issue share, since part of its capital value has been returned to the share holder as rights, and the shareholder has always benefited from that one way or another, either by being able to use the right as part-payment for new shares if they take the rights up (one pays a right plus the subscription price for a share obtained that way, not just the subscription price), or by getting the sales proceeds if they sell the right, or by getting the lapsed-rights payment for it if they neither take it up nor sell it.

Some gory details (those allergic to maths should look away now!), doing the calculation 'backwards' to work out the share price used from the adjustment, whereas of course the data providers would have done it in the opposite direction, starting with a share price and working out the appropriate adjustment:

Morningstar's dividend adjustment down from 18.70p to 17.75p says that they reckon a post-rights issue share is equivalent to 17.75p/18.70p = 94.92% of a pre-rights issue share, with the remaining 5.08% being split off into the rights. Since it took five pre-rights-issue shares to produce one right, that means that they reckon a right was worth 5 * 5.08% = 25.40% of a pre-rights-issue share, or 25.40%/94.92% = 26.76% of a post-rights-issue share. The other ingredient in the maths is that during the subscription period of the rights, the market price of a right can have been expected to be less than the market price of a share (necessarily a post-rights-issue share, since the rights don't exist before they've been issued) by something very close to the subscription price of a right, since buying a share and buying a right plus paying the subscription price are two alternative ways of acquiring a share (*). So they calculated the rights issue adjustment on the basis that the 185p subscription price was about 100.00%-26.76% = 73.24% of the price of a post-rights-issue share, i.e. that that share price was about 185p/73.24% = 252.6p.

Dividenddata's figures instead adjust the dividend down from 18.70p to 17.95p. Doing the equivalent calculation, they reckon that a post-rights-issue share is equivalent to 17.95p/18.70p = 95.99% of a pre-rights-issue share, making a right worth 5 * 4.01% = 20.05% of a pre-rights-issue share, or 20.05%/95.99% = 20.89% of a post-rights-issue share. So they reckoned that the 185p was about 100%-20.89% = 79.11% of the price of a post-rights-issue share, making that price about 185p/79.11% = 233.9p.

The subscription period for the rights was from May 29th to June 12th, according to https://www.investegate.co.uk/marks---3 ... 00067725Z/. Closing share prices for that period were:

June 12th: 219.2p
June 11th: 218.9p
June 10th: 220.5p
June 7th: 220.5p
June 6th: 223.5p
June 5th: 230.4p
June 4th: 229.9p
June 3th: 227.1p
May 31th: 225.2p
May 30th: 221.1p
May 29th: 232.0p

So Morningstar's adjustment looks to have been done on the basis of a distinctly too-high share price, while the share price used by DividendData looks a bit too high but could be explained by normal share price fluctuation and/or rounding errors in either their calculations or mine.

(*) This argument breaks down if the share price drops down below the subscription price, for reasons to do with the fact that rightsholders are quite entitled not to pay the subscription price, but instead leave the underwriters to pay it in the usual case of an underwritten rights issue, or simply leave the rights issue to fail to raise the funds the company wants for a non-underwritten rights issue. That doesn't usually happen, and didn't for the MKS rights issue.

Gengulphus

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263324

Postby dealtn » November 10th, 2019, 8:25 am

Yes, I get the Rights issue (and the maths but thank you). But why are they, and you adjusting 18.7p anyway is my question?

We are talking about 2019 when the dividends are (interim) 6.8p and (final) 7.1p giving a total of 13.9p, which you may or may not now want to adjust.

As I have, again politely, tried to say we have had a Rights issue that has changed the number of shares, and a change in dividend policy that has reduced the pay out (per share), to take into account when looking at the affordability from cash flow of the dividend expense going forward. If you, or others, want to look at this kind of affordability by some kind of averaging of the last 5 years perhaps you can explain why 13.9p isn't the (adjusted) appropriate entry. For what its worth Stockopedia use 17.2 17.9 17.9 17.9 and 13.6 for the last 5 years.

I acknowledge the future is unknown so might decide to use figures from the past to form an estimation of what "might" happen going forwards, but a simple average, even with figures I am happy with, is too simplistic to me. I might decide to weight them giving greater worth to more recent ones, for instance. It might hold for all companies, but for MKS in particular given the Rights Issue, and part purchase of the Ocado business, the company looks different to that of even a year ago, and certainly much different to 5 years ago.

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263428

Postby Arborbridge » November 11th, 2019, 7:58 am

dealtn wrote:I would always be looking forwards not backwards anyway.



So would I, if it were possible! Let's have some actual forward free cash flow figures and we will all be satisfied! :lol:

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Re: Marks & Spencer Group PLC (MKS) - Interim Results for Year Ending 31 Mar 2020

#263430

Postby Arborbridge » November 11th, 2019, 8:03 am

PinkDalek wrote:
Arborbridge wrote:[The special wasn't mentioned by Morningstar either,which is why it wasn't included. One may or my not include specials, but if one does and takes this new list of dividends, it brings the cover to 1.89x. Still very respectable compared with other HYP companies at this time. ...


I'm unsure where you looked but the Special is in the headline rounded 0.22 and is in the detail below for 2016.

https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xlon/mks/dividends

I can't help on the 5% as Morningstar is not somewhere I use but would be interested if this happens on other equities over there.

Edit: I can see some of the numbers you used via tools.morningstar.co.uk.


Yes, for info: it was here, bottom of page under Dividends:

https://tools.morningstar.co.uk/uk/stoc ... encyId=BAS


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