TX2
21 Mar 2018
Re: Results There is one serious problem Empiric is barely covering its costs from its letting income.It needs to be remembered that property companies present their P&L accounts in a different way from other businesses in that revaluations of property are included in the accounts.Essentially it is paying its dividend by borrowing money not from profits made from net rental income from lets;because the overheads of providing the student rooms are almost the same as the income earned on them .Basically they seem to be having difficulties finding students prepared to pay enough for them to earn any return on their assets.
shareordie
21 Mar 2018
Results A quick scan of these and they look very good,the business looks to be on the mend .“· Bookings for the 2018/19 academic year are currently 48% compared to 22% at the same time last year, an increase of more than double.”That’s very encouraging!“Targeting an operating margin of 70% in 2019 with tangible progress towards that target in FY 2018.”“Targeting administration expenses of £10 million in 2018, a reduction of 26% on FY 2017.· Targeting a dividend of 5.0 pence per share for the year ending 31 December 2018.· On an adjusted basis we expect to see a fully covered dividend by the year ending 31 December 20191 with significant progress towards that target in FY 2018.. 1 The figures in relation to prospective dividends set out above are not intended to be, and should not be taken as, a profit forecast or estimate, or a dividend declaration.”Happy that the business revue and implementation has been so fast.At the moment very happy to see such a fast turn around,obviously if they keep up the good work this won’t be on a 20% NAV discount for long.
shareordie
07 Mar 2018
Bought in Today and yesterday,I like the value on offer here, good quality assets at such a big discount is rarely available,and the income is great.I can see they have had problems but with new management in place this can turn around.Hopefully this will trade at NAV within 12 months + 6%+ dividend
PhilipJD
26 Feb 2018
Re: Dividend - declared today So it has been declared today as per RNS - [link] The Board of Empiric Student Property plc (ticker: ESP), the owner and operator of student accommodation across the UK, has declared a dividend of 1.25 pence per Ordinary Share in respect of the quarter ended 31 December 2017, payable on 23 March 2018 to all Ordinary Shareholders on the register on 9 March 2018. The ex-dividend date will be 8 March 2018.0.84 pence of this dividend will be paid as a Property Income Distribution ("PID"
in respect of the Company's tax exempt property rental business and 0.41 pence will be paid as an Ordinary UK dividend ("non-PID".The Board is targeting a dividend of 5 pence per share for the year to 31 December 2018.(1)
FRTEB
16 Feb 2018
Re: Evening Standard Lazy journalism? Need story to fill space - regurgitate old news (rumours)?
Chucko63
16 Feb 2018
Re: Evening Standard That does not make a lot of sense. Perhaps the author used the wrong numbers and not the “like for like” small increase (very welcome though that is) that is the reality.And if it were really the “centre of takeover chatter”, why is it pretty well at its lows and at a huge discount to NAV? (unless without the takeover chatter it would be at 73p or so??). I do not subscribe at all to the latter theory.
Luseferous
15 Feb 2018
Evening Standard The London evening standard has a short piece on ESP tonight in their business section under the heading “Student digs specialist at centre of takeover chatter enhances value”. Mostly it describes the “value surge” in the property portfolio. There is a reference to property experts suggesting the discounted shares make it attractive to suitors, and another bit about the company fuelling takeover speculation, but nothing more illuminating than that. Anyone seen any other suggestions that a bid for the company might be on the cards?
sharegardener
15 Feb 2018
Trading update No mention of the Q4 2017 dividend today! Full year results out 21st March.'In line' expectations from the November update where they said Cardiff & Aberdeen were struggling, otherwise demand is encouraging and cost reductions as previously guided.SG
sharegardener
26 Jan 2018
Re: Dividend '' The Company is targeting a further dividend of 1.25 pence per Share for the quarter ending 31 December 2017'' (1)''The Company is targeting a dividend of 5.0 pence per Share for the year ending 31 December 2018'' (1)(1)''The target dividend is a target only and not a forecast. There can be no assurance that the target will be met and it should not be taken as an indication of the Company's expected or actual future results.''From the November trading update audio presentation they seemed confident about the 1.25p for Q4- but as the CEO has been ditched since then, the only recently appointed CFO will have been busy and the dividend target of 4 x 1.25p for 2018 may turn out not to be deliverable as it wasnt covered by EPRA earnings anyhow.We should find out soonSG
Callun
26 Jan 2018
Dividend I was expecting an announcement re dividend for final quarter by now. (declared 11th Jan last year). Has it all been shunted down the line?Callun
freddie99
10 Jan 2018
HSBC VS HARGREAVES LANSDOWN Impossible to buy these through HSBC Invest Direct at the moment because the necessary KID is not available. Hargreaves Lansdown has already got the information available to potential investors!
averageup
28 Dec 2017
Re: New Normal? ...blaming ESP performance on Brexit doesn't make sense as you just have to look at Unite or GCP - I am convinced it is a case of a particularly clueless guy in charge who has now gone (see my previous post). The fact is the largest and certainly the fastest growing international student nationalities are non-EU (China, Malaysia, HK, US, Nigeria etc) and in any case all international students are now being encouraged by £ weakness. That is not to say there is still not a huge problem with charging domestic students £36k at chunky rates of interest (most of which will never be repaid) in order to massage the UK's financial metrics (fiscal deficit and debt to GDP etc) for something many of us on these boards got for free and with maintenance grants to boot. Oh and Scottish students (last I heard still in the Union) get it for free!..so something is going to have to give or Corbyn really will have a chance. Then since you asked the question..your hypothesis about the 'left behinds' (presumably of the ignorant type) voting for Brexit is also a typical generalisation used in the great debate - I was/am neither. At least you are not making the bigotry charge or worse. I can understand financially self-interested remainers voting that way even if I think you are wrong and worse are those who did so using liberalism or high morals as a cloak. So why is it that remainers are unable to see why someone would want to vote to repatriate some sovereignty to these lands on a long term view that we will ultimately be better off and / or that Europe as a construct is unstable even if it was/is not in my short term financial interest? As it happens my best trades of the 2016/17 were made immediately after Brexit into certain UK property companies (and even UK exporters like GAW) which were indiscriminately sold by panicking, short term focused investors. Brings me back to ESP where we do have something in common - I too thought the dividend cut was priced in and its been one of my worst SIPP performers. We differ again though in that I have been buying all the way down to well over sold 83 level and am fairly convinced this will retrace to 105 NAV either on standalone (cost out measures) or on probable take-out over the course of 2018. So I for one am not going to give up on yield plays whilst you/others chase high risk growth assets (and I assume you don't mean of the bitcoin type!) as we saw what ultimately happened in the tech boom.
averageup
15 Dec 2017
rare opportunity for a competitor to build scale managing a business of this nature is not that complicated so the remaining pair (CIO/CFO) should be able cut enough costs to cover a 5p div which makes this quite attractive (very limited downside) even if a sale doesn't occur. With hindsight having an architect turned businessman in charge of something requiring strong operational control was always going to be an issue. He was clearly a creative sort with, as it turns out, a dangerous ability to convince investors to hand over their money so he had to go. However, I think the consolation is that the assets he has assembled are of reasonably good quality in attractive locations. That ought to be mean one of the other (at least) 4 or 5 players in this market will be willing to pay the current asset valuation (105ish)with the prospect of driving out further central and property management costs as this is fundamentally a scale and density game and this is a rare opportunity to add c8k operational beds. The idea that any management can make that much (negative in this case) difference to a static, modern property portfolio means we are going to recover either way. I would add equally the premium attaching to Unite is wholly unjustified and its shareholders should be switching between the two - an investment no-brainer. Certainly no-one should be selling ESP here in my view.
PhilipJD
14 Dec 2017
Re: CEO terminated - ESP for sale? Looking at FT, there are 602.89 million shares outstanding, so if they sell for the quoted £600 million, that is 99.5p per share.
PhilipJD
14 Dec 2017
Re: CEO terminated - ESP for sale? [link] certain what £600 million means on a per share basis.
