The Vultures are Circling – Woodford, Carpetright et al

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With the demise of the Neil Woodford’s empire and the winding up of the Woodford Equity Income Fund, investors are looking for whom to blame – other than themselves of course for investing in his funds. One target is Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) and other fund platforms who had it on their recommended or “best buy” lists, including long after the fund’s problems were apparent. Now lawyers are only too glad to help in such circumstances and at least two firms have suggested they can assist.

One is Slater & Gordon. They say they are investigating possible claims against HL. and that “We’re concerned to establish if there was any actionable wrongdoing or conflict of interest by Hargreaves Lansdown in continuing to include Woodford funds on their ‘Best Buy’ Lists if it had concerns as to their underlying investments. We’ll also be looking at the price achieved when buying and selling instruments, such as ordinary shares, on the Hargraves Lansdown platform and whether or not this represents Best Execution”. You can register your interest here: https://tinyurl.com/yyrhbfb3

Another legal firm looking at such a claim is Leigh Day who say they already have 500 investors interested in pursuing a case. See https://tinyurl.com/y6r2buav for more information.

Having been involved in a number of similar legal cases in the past, my advice is that there is no harm in registering an interest but do not pay money up front and certainly not until the basis of any legal claim is clear. In addition bear in find that it would be very expensive to pursue such a claim and lawyers may be willing to do so simply in anticipation of high fees when there is no certainty of winning a case. How is the case to be financed is one question to ask? Funding such cases by private investors alone (the majority of HL. clients) is likely to be difficult so “litigation funding” is likely to be required which can be expensive and erode likely returns. Insurance to cover the risk of losing the case is also needed and expensive.

Yesterday saw news announcements from three companies I have held in the past but all sold some time ago. The most significant was from Carpetright (CPR) which I last sold in 2010 at about 800p. It’s been downhill ever since. The Daily Telegraph ran an article today suggesting that this was a zombie company and that it was a good time of year for zombie slaying. After the announcement of a trading update and possible bid yesterday the share price is now 5p.

The Board of Directors “believes that Carpetright is performing well….” and “the prolonged sales decline appears to be bottoming out….”, but the company has too much debt and needs refinancing. One of its major lenders and shareholders is Meditor who have proposed to make a cash offer of 5p per share for the company. The share price promptly halved to that level because it is likely that the offer will be accepted by enough shareholders to be approved. So it looks like we will have a company with revenues of £380 million (but no profits), sold for £15 million. Founder Lord Harris, who is long departed, must be crying over this turn of events. But it demonstrates that when a company is in hock to its bankers and dominant shareholders, minority investors should steer clear.

Another announcement was from Proactis Holdings (PHD) which I sold fortuitously in mid-2018. They announced Final Results yesterday. Revenues increased by 4% but a large loss of £26 million was reported due to a large impairment charge against its US operations. The business has undertaken an operational review and restructuring is in progress. It has also been put up for sale but there is little news on potential “expressions of interest”. Just too many uncertainties and debt way too high (now equal to market cap) in my opinion.

The third announcement was from Smartspace Software (SMRT) which I sold earlier this year at more than the current share price as progress seemed to be slow and I wanted to tidy up my over-large portfolio. It reported interim results where revenue was up 57% but there was a large loss reported (more than revenue). There were some positive noises from the CEO so the share price only fell 0.7%. The company has some interesting products for managing office space but it’s a typical “story” stock where the potential seems high but it has yet to prove it can run a profitable business.

I have also noticed lately that the fizz has gone out of the share price of Fevertree (FEVR). It’s been falling for some time. I sold it in 2018 at a much higher level. It still looks quite expensive on a prospective p/e basis. Overall revenue is still growing rapidly but the USA is still the big potential market yet to be proven. I like the business model and the management even if I don’t personally like the main product. But perhaps one to keep an eye on. But generally buying back into past investments can be a mistake.

Given my track record on the above, perhaps my next investment book should not be on choosing new investments but on choosing when to sell existing ones?

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

Post Date: November 2, 2019

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