Since the demerger from Chorion the shares have not done well ..... despite a clutch of director buys last June the price has halved .... mostly on market worries and the idea that peeps wil stay away from the City centres as talk of a war and possible terrorist action grows ..... not so IMHO - my children are still out clubbing and soon forget about talk of war - after the first drink or so.

The format is for the 20/40 age group who like to spend and have a good time but the main bars and restaurants are open most of the day to catch lunch time trade etc.

last broker comment - about 5 weeks ago - Numis Securities sees no reason why Urbium should not trade at a similar multiple to rival Inventive Leisure. Accordingly it has set a 15p target price.


Trading

after an encouraging statement on Christmas and New Year trading. The group, which owns the 'Tiger Tiger' bars and the 'Sugar Reef' and 'Zoo' outlets in London's West End, said like-for-like sales over the four week period to Dec 31 rose by 3.4%. Total sales for the period were up by 37% to 9.8m. Within these figures, the flagship 'Tiger Tiger' brand increased its like-for-like sales by 11.7 pct, with the West End outlet recording a 7% increase on the same period last year.

"In 'Tiger Tiger' we've got a different product from the rest of the high street operators," group managing director Robert Cohen told AFX News. "We've never seen London and the West End as a weakness and 'Tiger Tiger' is a well-known brand that punches well above its weight," he added. Based on today's trading update, Cohen said the group had reversed a first half 1.1% decline in like-for-like sales with the second six months producing a gain of 1.0%.

Total bar nightclub sales were up by 32% to 34.8m in the second half of 2002. "There was a much stronger performance in the second half and this leaves the group well placed to meet current market forecasts for the year to Dec 2002," Cohen added. Analysts presently anticipate pretax profits of between 8.8m and 9.2m for 2002.

House broker Old Mutual Securities this morning reiterated its 'strong buy' for the shares. It reckons full year sales will be around 60m with profits of 9.15m. "This is a very commendable performance given the downgrades which have recently been required for other leading operators in the sector," the house said in an investment note this morning. Based on forecast earnings per share of 1.54 pence for the current year to Dec 2003, the stock currently trades on a "ridiculously low" multiple of 3.6 times, OMS says. "Based on this reassuring update, there must surely be some re-rating of the shares," it added.


ains


shares on 20/02 mid 5.12p - currently 6.25p mid 24/02

Just another part of the endless gravy train in corporate UK .... guess the incentive is to make sure this is the bottom .......... currently 5.38p mid

Imagine if a company actually issued some whereby they had to increase the market cap to make money

there's a thought

sounds rather revolutionary to me dick ..... next you will be wanting them to make profits before awarding themselves big bonus's and salary increases

one step at a time ains

wassup?

don't know .... guess it's the US stepping up terror alert

hi ains

hope you are well

haven't been out in the west end for a while so can't really comment what the market is like there

having said that I would have thought that the current price has factored in 10 tonnes of debt already

anyhow still watching

ho hum ho hum

inclined to agree dick .... my eldest is there all the time and there doesn't seem to be any shortfall in customers ... tracking to add a few


ains

ains - fyi

Gerry usually posts with his brain

gerrystewart - 21 May'03 - 08:29 - 1033 of 1037


Have to 'confess' to having got out (final tranche - 200k on Monday). The reason is, as I have reported on a number of occasions on this BB, that I go to the Leeds Tiger Tiger regularly (once a week on average). In recent weeks, the numbers have been a bit dissapointing and considerably below that of the first 3 months or so of the year and this despite the re-introduction of the '2 main courses for 10' deal (they took it off for 2 weeks, hardly anybody was going and they re-introduced it!). I notice, as awell, from the Urbium web site that they are introducing even more promo's in London suggesting that things are getting worse rather than better (though Portsmouth must be having a 'bonanza' with the port being used as a 'staging post' for returning US troops and the Ark Royal returning). However, the final straw was the week-end scare stories about terrorist activities. I suspect it vastly exaggerated (the media cannot report anything without sensationalising it) but the local (Yourkshire)media here was full of headlines suggesting that Leeds is a major target. Hence, I suspect that we might see a continuation of a trend which I have been noticing for a little while now and that is, that whilst travelling through the Leeds suburbs (particularly Moortown and Chapel Allerton) en route to my weekly trips to TT, I had noticed that the many suburban resturaunts were actually quite busy. What might be happening, therfore, is that TT's target market (the 25-40 somethings) are still going to eat out but they are simply not venturing into the City. I fear the media coverage of terrorist activities will simply exacerbate this trend and make matters worse.

This, is, of course, merely my observations. It might be a very localised phenomenon and, beyond this, I have no evidence whatsoever of whether trade is bouyant or not. For all continuing holders, I wish you luck.

Thanks dick .... interesting and honest post. I have to say my own experiences are based on London only - where people tend to stay after work rather than return after dinner. I suspect peeps in the northern cities live closer to where they work and a trip back into town might be less attractivee if local clubs/restaurants offer is attractive.



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