Surprising that no existing thread on Debtmatters (DEBT). Big run up this year and Shares are expecting more to come. Been watching for a while but recent news of accelrating expansion has encouraged me on board.

DEBT is a relative newcomer to the market: revenue up 230% to 2.44 at interims to Sept 2005 and pbt up 530% to 818K. In comparison DFD turnover to October 2005 (interims) more than doubled to 6.4m with pbt of 1.86m. DEBT achieved 200 IVA's for the first time in September: this became 344 in January and 534 in March. DFD has approaching 20% of the market which appears to be expanding at about the rate achieved by DFD as their share is constant. From this I deduce that DEBT has a way to go at its exceptional current growth rate. OK a pe around 90 appears high but two years could bring it to 30 and then 10.

From the charts there is terrific momentum in the climb. It may be that we have had two legs of a three-legged climb. Best to be on board for the journey!

Eric

Eric - it's not the sector which fell 4-5% today, it's DEBT which fell 8% - don't know why it's more volatile - maybe it has fewer insti's holding and more PI's/daytraders. Hope jimmyb's right about beta working both ways!

sd

In fact later trading was positive so this seems to bear out your comments, jimmy and sd. Volume not that big so seems like part of a general mark-down.

Eric

In my opinion this got off lightly today ,i expected to see it down a lot more than 1p ..

As i thought when i looked last night ,it had got off lightly ,not today though ,,if the market turns this will turn sharply with it ,my only concern is that this is more than just a correction ,i suppose the next few weeks will tell .

Jimmy: I suspect it is just a greater level of volatility probably arising from the proportion of hot money in the share and possibly also shorting it. Was shaken out at 304p as I held the shares in a cfd and couldn't risk a further fall. Convinced on the fundamentals but it is cioping wioth the market! How is my doggy friend taking it?

Eric

Sorry to hear that Eric ,this is not normal circumstances ,since i was in,, it has bounced around but always climbed ,,i stopped myself out of a large spread bet on CHTR (just as well) other than that i'm staying out until it looks like there is some sort of direction to the market ,i'm not clever enough to read this one .

Jimmy. Well done as you saw the merits of this one earlier than most of us. Bound to be a shake out in this sort of market even though the analysis by sd and others shows that there is a way further to go. If you are sitting on a really good profit, might be worth taking half of it or, better, recovering your original stake.

Eric ,i took profits a while back and left a few to run ,i also sold those when the market turned ,so i got this one right ,luckily i wasn't in much when the market fell ,except a large spread bet on Charter ,however that was enough to turn me to alcohol .Cheers .

Well done again, Jimmy. A lesson that it has taken me a long time to learn is, if you don't get in early, don't get in at all. Its the early birds that catch the worm. Have you any juicy worms in sight?

This has come storming back ,,i thought it would.

Debtmatters has been my 'star' share. Got in @75p & still holding. Debts.co.uk is a new company to the market & Invocas which floated earlier in the year has apparently 'got the Scottish market sewn up'. Agree with an earlier post, much talk on the boards of the mining & oil stocks but just need to looks at the gains made by Accuma, Debt Free Direct & Begbies Traynor & easy to realise that exposure to this sector is worthy of investment

Gaining back all it's losses now .

Good to see finals showing a 20% improvement on my (hardly dare believe) estimates in post 12 above to 2.8m pre-tax, giving a fully taxed EPS of 7.96p and a PE of 42 / PEG of 0.13.

Looking forward to studying the deails when published on 16th June.

sd

Good to see finals showing a 20% improvement on my (hardly dare believe) estimates in post 12 above to 2.8m pre-tax, giving a fully taxed EPS of 7.96p and a PE of 42 / PEG of 0.13.

Looking forward to studying the deails when published on 16th June.

sd

Results yesterday confirm the trading statement from earlier in the month. Great growth company with a growing market share of a market expected to double in 2006 (having pretty much doubled in 2005 as well). Seems well run and good margins / ROCE. EPS, PE, PEG all looking good as its astronomical rating comes down to market average PE of 14 over the next 2 years. Nice positive statements from Chairman Noel Guilford and CEO Ges Ratcliffe.

Turnover on the IVA business was at the more optimistic level of my two forecasts back in April, but margins were slightly lower at 58.5% than the 60% I anticiapted, with overhead lightly less than my guess. Overall operating profit 12% ahead of my guestimate.

The Unique Business corporate insolvency practice with net assets of 114k acquired from the CEO for 400k has turned in operating profit of 208k very nice too.

Only small cloud to watch on the horizon is the acquisition of loan broker Loanmakers for up to 19M against pre-tax earnings of 1m, to be paid for by 10m loan from RBS and the balance in cash/shares over the next 24 months earn-out. This whooshes the gearing up to 224% - not very clever in this day and age of rising interest rates - and removes all the cash (assuming the large list of debtors pay up) from the B/S for the next couple of years, reducing the prospect of any dividend for the foreseeable future. Still an exit PE of 19 is less than half DEBT's PE of 42 (diluted by end of year shares in issue) so, if it grows as fast as its parent, it could well have a silver lining.

Looking at this year, we are on track for 6.9m operating profit (nearly double turnover, margin of 60% and ooverhead of 2m ??) from the two existing businesses and, say 1.1m from the acquisition, makes 8m, or 5.6m after tax. EPS and PE calculations are difficult to assess given the acquisition of Loanmakers and part payment in shares to be issued, but it should look pretty good for this year and even better next year as the effect of the acquisition washes through and its earnings start to move forward.

sd

DEBT ticking up a few points this morning - i see DFD are due to post their preliminary results tomorrow - might be worth keeping an eye out for, expected to be good.

Attached release from DEBT adds great credibility to this company which is now poised to continue its rapid growth in this sector - interesting how its share price growth has mirrored DFD, but at a 'delay' of about 5 months - looking at 4.00 - 4.50 by christmas IMHO

augustman

Debtmatters Group PLC
14 September 2006


DEBT.L

Debtmatters Group plc
('Debtmatters' or the 'Company')


Major accreditation award and new Insolvency Practitioner appointment
underpin further expansion

The Board of Debtmatters is pleased to announce that it has received
accreditation under ISO9001 for the Company's quality management system. The
Company believes that this prestigious award reflects Debtmatters' ongoing
commitment to delivering best advice to all who contact it. The detailed audit
of Debtmatters' systems undertaken as part of the accreditation has reinforced
the Company's confidence that it is not only achieving compliance in all its
working practices, but also has sufficiently robust systems to continue its
rapid rate of growth.

The Board also supports recent sentiments concerning regulation of the debt
industry and would welcome any future regulatory requirements The challenging
accreditation achieved by the Company, in a process taking almost a year,
demonstrates its willingness and ability to meet any increase in regulation
which may be introduced.

As part of the Company's ongoing growth strategy, the Board is delighted to
announce the recruitment of another Licensed Insolvency Practitioner ('IP'),
Martin Hepworth, bringing the total number of active IPs to six. Martin was
formerly a partner in Debtmatters' predecessor practice, Ratcliffe and Co,
before moving to establish his own practice. He has considerable IVA experience
and his arrival will strengthen resources in this key area, enabling business
volumes to continue their rapid rise.

This continued growth, has necessitated further premises expansion. The Company
now employs around 200 Debtmatters staff and 70 Loanmakers staff, and has agreed
terms for a further 20,000 square feet of office space immediately adjacent to
its existing 15,000 square feet of offices. Half of this will be used to
accommodate Loanmakers Limited and the remaining half will facilitate organic
growth in Debtmatters Limited.

A pre-close trading update will be announced during the week commencing 18
September 2006.


Ges Ratcliffe, Chief Executive, commented,

'We are delighted to have been awarded this accreditation for the quality of our
systems. We believe it to be the first of its type in our industry, and
particular thanks go to our Insolvency Director, David Rankin, and his team for
all their hard work in achieving it. I am also pleased to welcome Martin
Hepworth to the business. Having worked with him before I know what a valuable
contribution he will make to the Company's continued expansion. I look forward
to updating shareholders on our progress more fully in a week's time.


For more information, please contact:

Ges Ratcliffe CEO, Debtmatters Group plc 01204 678 200
Dugald Carlean / Freddy Crossley Charles Stanley & Co. Limited 020 7739 8200
Shane Dolan / Dan Bradley Biddicks 020 7448 1000




This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

from donaferentes on the other board

Good strong trading update on DFD this morning with robust attitude to welcoming regulation - should help sector sentiment.

looks like some form of regulation will start to be applied to the debt co's - should benefit the larger + more "ethical" players - DFD and DEBT - while the banks start to face up to the problems caused by their loose lending policies over the last few years.

I guess the industry will concentrate down to a couple of leading players, who work with (& are recommended by) the UK banking industry; the growth in this subsector should follow that from the US, where penetration rates are over 5x those in the UK currently for this kind of product. (IVA)

Sentiment for the stocks should start to improve , the likely rate rise this week will help, while I can almost see the headlines already about Christmas debt levels...