This one as a market cap around 20 million and floated only a few months back but looks to have been overlooked by the small investor and could be a sound play as a defensive in these docile markets.

We all know about the number of people in debt and over burden with credit and also the huge increase in bankrupts. I picked out Debt Free Direct about 18 months ago as I could forsee the present market conditions taking place. Accuma is cheaper than Debt Free Direct after its large rise, and as far as I can see as larger number of areas it covers.

Heres a top fund manager commentating on it.................

Allsopp told Citywire: "Accuma is a perfect play on consumer debt and the softness of the high street. It will exhibit enormous growth going forward and is cheaper than bigger rivals like Debt Free Direct."

Heres what the company does..........................

The Group is a provider of tailored financial solutions and advice to
individuals who are experiencing debt problems. The Group's principal aim is to
help individuals regain control of their financial affairs by advising them on
the most appropriate course of action based on their individual circumstances.
The Group is highly regulated as its key product, an IVA, is a legally binding,
court-approved agreement and can only be administered by Insolvency
Practitioners (IPs) - individuals licensed under the Insolvency Act 1986 to
undertake insolvency appointments.

The Group's operations comprise a personal insolvency practice specialising in
IVAs, general debt advice and the referral of individuals to other solution
providers where appropriate. The Group does not lend money, nor does it take
clients' debt on to the balance sheet, thereby limiting its business risk. The
solutions offered to individuals depend upon personal circumstances and
principally comprise the following:

Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA)

IVAs were introduced as part of the Insolvency Act of 1986 as an alternative to
bankruptcy, enabling individuals who were struggling with unsecured debt
payments to reach a legally binding compromise with their creditors. Penetration
of IVAs has historically been low due to the limited number of providers, cost
to the consumer and perceived complexity.

The Directors believe that this gives the Group an opportunity to build critical
mass and create barriers to entry in a relatively short timescale.

An IVA is a legally binding, court-approved agreement between the individual and
his/her creditors, under which the individual agrees to make fixed monthly
payments, generally over a five-year period.

IVAs must be supervised by an IP and have many advantages for both the debtor
and creditors. The debtor avoids bankruptcy which can be of particular
importance for home owners or those employed in occupations where bankruptcy
would be highly disadvantageous. The IVA conveys a legal obligation on the
creditors to freeze all interest and charges and, subject to adherence of the
terms by the debtor, to write off any outstanding debts after expiration of the
fixed period. An IVA therefore provides both certainty to and reduced pressure
on the individual.

From the creditors' side, the attractiveness of an IVA is the ability to
forecast a higher return than in bankruptcy combined with lower administrative
costs compared to traditional debt collection. This is driven by a legal
obligation on the part of the debtor to make fixed monthly payments, or to
introduce other funds, which have been assessed by Accuma Insolvency
Practitioners (AIP), one of the Group's trading subsidiaries, as being
affordable and sustainable.

AIP does not directly charge the debtor a fee for its services; these are
received as a priority from the contributions made by the debtor into the IVA
and are agreed and funded by the creditors. AIP charges the creditor an initial
fee of 2,500 - 3,000 as well as an average 78 monthly supervisory fee which
over the five-year period gives good cash-flow visibility. Where AIP believes an
IVA is inappropriate the following solutions will be recommended:

Informal Arrangement

AIP advises on two types of informal arrangement, managed and self-managed,
under which creditors agree to extend the repayment period for the individual.
This is not a legally binding agreement and often interest and charges continue
to be applied until the individual has repaid the amount in full. Under the
managed scheme, AIP refers individuals to a non-connected company which manages
the scheme between individual and creditor.

Re-mortgage

This solution is usually suitable for homeowners with positive equity in their
property. This has until recently been a particularly strong area of activity in
the UK with individuals re-mortgaging to consolidate high interest credit,
taking advantage of lower mortgage interest rates and the high perceived value
of their property. AIP refers such individuals to professional finance brokers
and receives a percentage of any commission payable to the finance broker.

Consolidation Loans

This is a highly competitive area of the market where individuals take out a new
loan to repay existing unsecured debts. AIP recommends professional finance
brokers and would usually receive a percentage of any commission generated.

Bankruptcy

If an individual is made bankrupt, a trustee is appointed to manage their
financial affairs and to sell any assets that may exist in order to repay their
debts. Accuma does not directly advertise or promote bankruptcy as a solution.
However, as the Group aims to provide a full range of solutions, if bankruptcy
is deemed the most appropriate option, the individual is provided with free
information detailing the actions to be undertaken. ENDS.

Well worth a punt in these markets as a defensive play.

DYOR.

cheers GF.

This ones starting to come back to life......... NICE.

07/33am accuma says half year H1 profits up fourfold. 1.17 min stg upfrom 304'000.

I've just dipped my toe. I hope that I'm calling the bottom but you never know!

Accuma warns on FY profits UPDATE
AFX


(Adds analyst reaction)

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Debt management company Accuma Group PLC warned that its full-year profits will fall short of analysts' forecasts, blaming 'difficult' conditions in the market for Individual Voluntary Agreements.

'Profits for the current financial year to July 31 2007 will be materially below market expectations,' the company said in a statement.

Accuma specialises in arranging IVAs, a less onerous form of personal bankruptcy under which lenders agree to write off part of the outstanding debt. The company has been hit by a downturn in business volumes as lending banks, which blame rising IVA numbers for a jump in bad debts, increasingly withdraw their cooperation.

Accuma, which last month predicted an upturn in IVA numbers later this year, today said it no longer expected an imminent recovery.

'With approval rates remaining low as a result of creditor pressure, we do not expect our run rate to recover in the way we had anticipated,' the company said.

Analysts at Teather & Greenwood suspended their ratings and forecasts on the group.

'Another profit warning from Accuma just three weeks after its interim results is deeply unwelcome,' they wrote in a note to clients.

The group also blamed 'disappointing' results from a revamped marketing strategy, and said its marketing director had left just six months after being appointed in November.

Accuma arranged an average of 199 IVAs per month in the third quarter, down from 221 in the three months to Jan 31.

The number of IVAs in England and Wales in the first quarter of 2007 rose 4.7 pct compared with the previous three months, and by 47.6 pct on the same period last year, according to official statistics published today.

Accuma shares closed 42 pct lower at 40 pence.

I've never timed an entry into a share so poorly.......!

double posted sorry.

Take care on this one, there are a lot of burnt fingers out there trying to boost the situation into looking good and it ain't!

There were enough warnings along the line please bear this one in mind.

By the way the number of AIM listed companies going through the hoop is on the increase!

Queen1 - ouch!

Sorry to see you getting caught there queen1.

You have my sympathy too, queen1

Many thanks all.

The timing was so poor that I actually found myself laughing. Seriously. I figure that it's a lesson in that no matter how smart you think you are, how much research you do or how right you think your judgement is, the market can, and will, trip you up. Obviously the SP plummeted through the stop loss I had in my mind so I'm going to sit tight and see what happens over the next few months. It could come good. Stranger things have happened.

it may be an emotionally tough decision, but why sit and hope for miracles? ..... that is what, as a good example, the holders of SEO have done for ages ..... cut your losses, have a little cry in the corner, and start rebuilding elsewhere .... i know if i had not taken the knife to some badly performing stocks (CHP and PCI to name just two) i would not have had funds available for a fortuitous entry into RTR, and indeed some other profitable investments over the past year or so.

Thanks for your 2p worth cynic and for the ground-breaking advice. However, I shall follow my own course. My decision to hold may prove to be wrong and I may lose more than my current paper loss. I accept that and understand it. But the reasons I bought the share in the first place haven't altered because of a profits warning just two days later. So for now I hold.

With respect Queenie, surely your decision to buy was based on facts that now longer exist?

That said I can understand your desire to hold. Good luck.

your call, your money, your loss ..... you may not like the advice or more to the point, you might find it difficult to bite the bullet (clearly so) and to admit that the choice of investment was WRONG, or certainly so in the light of unfolding events ... you even admit that your stop loss was (easily?) passed through, so where's your hard-nosed logic?

Q 1, I agree with you, the Company and sector are doing just fine, (spoilt by silly announcements), I too will now have to wait.

Thanks york, all the best to you.

Davie - The "facts" that I based my purchase on did not fly out of the window within 48 hours because of this announcement. Admittedly I'd rather things were looking better in the short term and again I'll point out the fact that I could lose all (although I don't feel this is particularly likely) but for the medium to longer term (and I'm that kind of player) I still believe the company has prospects. Thanks for your good luck statement.

cynic - My call, my money, my (paper) loss. Exactly. Mine. Not yours. Once again you're following me around the BB like a spectre, dishing out your own particular brand of wisdom and advice. Who exactly are you to tell me that my choice of investment was, and I quote in capital letters as you seem to like those, "WRONG"? Now, my timing could have been better (by 48 hours) which is why I made my post 2 days ago but then I don't possess a crystal ball. My stop loss was passed through as the SP fell by 40% in half an hour and I happen to work so cannot be at my computer 24/7. And my "hard-nosed logic"? Well I'm not quite sure what you're getting at there but I don't think it is particularly logical to sell a share 48 hours after buying it for many valid reasons because of a profits warning but I guess we're all different.

Sorry to read about your loss queen 1, I brought into dets a few weeks back, so could have been or maybe could be in same position as you. I believe the sector will recover in time with some company's doing better than others, I had Accuma on watchlist for a while but they seemed accident prone and DFD seemed over valued. Debtmatters and Debts.co.uk seemed stronger, so I plumped for Debt.co.uk.

I will stick with DETS, but must admit if my stop/loss was breached for what ever reason I would bail out. That's one rule I would never break, however hard it hurts. I have had to activate my stop loss with two company's recently, one as Cynic knows was GTL and other was Delling, but no regrets.

Good Luck whatever you do........

1) old market truism is that bad news and profit warnings come in threes ....... 2) a paper loss = a real loss; its smell is can be hidden in the "bin" where its owner can fool himself that out of sight = out of mind.

Thanks spitfire43. Always interesting to hear what others who are invested in the sector are thinking and doing. I was lucky enough to quadruple a stake in DFD a couple of years back and agree that it now seems over valued. But the British public are not about to stop spending and I (still) think that the prospects in the longer term for ACG and the others are good.

"...its smell is can be hidden " - I'm guessing English isn't your forte cynic. And if I was hoping for "out of sight, out of mind" do you really think I would have posted on this thread? Following your logic I would have secretly held but told the World that I had got out with a small loss. However, what I wanted to do was to chat with other holders rather than an ambulance chaser.