Research archive for L4L

Yesterday we received results from Long 4 Life. In case you forgot, this is Brian Joffe's latest venture that listed in 2017. Here is a timeline of the company's brief history to fill you in.

Yesterday Long4Life reported 6-month results which looked decent considering the environment.

Holdsport have announced that they are paying a special dividend of 99 cents, the pay date is 15 December, the last day to hold them to qualify will be 10 days prior to that. After the 15 percent dividend tax, the net amount is 84.15 cents. This of course was telegraphed in the results, the interim dividend of 85 cents (72.25 cents after tax) will be paid on the same day, a lovely early Christmas present for shareholders. The stock is up smartly over the last month and a half, as are the rest of the local retailers, trading closer to a YTD high.

Holdsport, one of the worst performing (share price wise) of the Vestact retail stocks reported their interim numbers this morning. Sales were up modestly (7.3 percent) to 677.1 million Rands, marginal gains across all their segments except for the performance brands. Mind you, performance brands account for only 28.6 million of that total (it was down 7.3 percent relative to the prior reporting period), which is around 4.22 percent of total sales.

Review time, this time for one of the smallest client holdings across the client portfolios, Holdsport released their annual report in the last couple of days. Annual reports are part glossy, but because the levels of financial reporting are always heading in the direction of more transparency. The optimist in me likes to think that the good businesses remain good, because they are of course committed to all the standards that we try and live by. I remember an older investor, whom I have an enormous amount of respect for, said to me once, something along these lines: "Nobody goes into business to try and do bad". I guess what he is saying is that people take risks, make investment decisions in order to get the commiserate return based on an opportunity that exists at that time.

On Tuesday we received full year results for the year ending 28 February 2014 from Holdsport which seemed fair considering the current conditions. Remember Holdsport comprises of 35 Sportsmans Warehouses, 20 Outdoor Warehouses and they manufacture and wholesale performance brands such as First Ascent and Capestorm. Below is a table which shows sales and sales growth for each of these divisions.

Holdsport, one of our preferred smaller retailers released a sales update for the 4 months ending 31 December.

Holdsport. This is a tricky investment theme, but one that I think has legs, no pun intended. For all of the reasons that we have mentioned above, more people are starting to take their health seriously as the best alternative to living a healthy life. It is far better to prevent the diseases than to battle them. Think about when you walk into the pharmacy, there are rows of health supplements and equally slimming products. We all want to be in shape and recognise that by being out there participating in sports and related activities that we can live a longer and healthier life. Truth. Sporting apparel and equipment is a much more competitive market than it used to be, there are loads of choices.

This morning we received full year results from one of our recommended retailers, Holdsport. For the year ending 28 February, the company managed to grow sales by 10.5% to R1.375bn which resulted in operating profits of R243 million. This was up 7.4% from last year and equated to headline earnings of 416c a share. Let's have a look at their sales mix.

It has been a tough start to the year for the retailers as the majority of their updates have not shown the growth that their share prices expect. That caused the index to drop nearly 16% as everyone started panicking about a credit bubble, strikes, inflation and a strong Rand. Yes these are factors one needs to consider but we have always been of the view that the selloff in the sector was an overreaction.

Earlier in the week we had half year results from a retail company called Holdsport. They own Sportsmans Warehouse (34 outlets), Outdoor Warehouse (18 outlets) and two performance brands, namely First Ascent and Capestorm which they wholesale across the country.

About two weeks ago Holdsport came out with a trading update that indicated a 20% increase in earnings against the last comparable period. Yesterday the company that owns Sportsmans Warehouse, Outdoor Warehouse and First Ascent came out with consolidated results for the half year ending 31 August 2011. Core headline earnings came in at R61 million or 159c per share from revenues of R546.9 million which was up 7.2% from last year. There were a few once-off costs and the amortisation of trademarks which brought headline earnings to 141c per share. An interim dividend of 47c was announced. The company is in growth mode so I would definitely expect this cover to increase going forward.

We'll look at Holdsport first, the guys who own Sportsmans warehouse, Outdoor warehouse and First Ascent.