The Sunday Telegraph finance editor doesnt like the idea of Mears anymore and, several weeks ago, suggested selling them -@128. Since then, they have been up to 138 and are now around the 130 mark. Since the Telegraph suggestion Fidelity Investment have stached away a 3.31% stake - as have others.All this for a share that was languishing, with others, at 58p just a wee while ago. NOW. How much are they worth? REALLY WORTH. To assess their ability to stay in business one only has to look at the average Council Executive. Reared on HIGH SALARIES and SMALL WORKLOADS their main aim is off load as much responsibilty as possible commensurate with spending extended time on the golf course and at sensible restaurants. Remember High Executives of Councils are not there with the intention of actually working themselves. Mears, therefore, is a ready made OUT for this idle,lazy band of brothers.A responsible, trustworthy, diligent and patently HONEST outfit who will assume the responsibility and afford our overloaded executive the ability to goof off for another lunch/game.YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE.Would anyone like to guess if I own a restaurant?

Interim Management Statement

Canaccord Genuity Buy 369.25 440.00 440.00 Reiterates

Liberum Capital Buy 369.25 420.00 420.00 Reiterates

Investec Buy 369.25 400.00 400.00 Reiterates

Espirito Santo Execution Noble Neutral 369.25 350.00 350.00 Retains

AGM Statement

Mears issued its Interim Management Statement on 14 May 2013. I am pleased to announce that the positive trends referred to in the May statement are continuing and are summarised as follows:

· Mears continues to deliver solid trading across both core divisions in line with management expectations.

· Mears has secured new contract awards since 1 January 2013 of circa £125 million. In addition the Group has experienced strong spends from its existing customer base and has achieved 95% visibility of the £915m consensus revenue forecast for 2013 and 80% visibility of the £960m consensus revenue forecast for 2014. The order book stands at £3.8 billion and the bid pipeline remains at £3.0 billion.

· Following the acquisition of Morrison Facilities Services Limited, the Group has reached an advanced stage in the restructuring of the senior operational management and social housing support functions. The integration is substantially complete. We anticipate that the Morrison operations will deliver a break-even result for the half-year before the exceptional cost of integration. The speed of this turnaround is ahead of our original expectation.

· Mears continues to benefit from a strong balance sheet.

Half Yearly Report

Financial:
· Revenue increased by 49%.
· EBITA to cash conversion at 100% (2012: 100%) for the rolling 12 month period to June 2013.
· Strong Balance sheet.

Social Housing Division:
· Revenues grew by 76%, including strong organic growth of 17% to £378.9m (£215.0m).
· Operating margin delivered at 3.7% - a blend of a Mears margin at 5.6% (2012: 5.0%) and Morrison at break-even.

Care Division:
· Revenue increased by 8% to £60.5m (2012: £56.1m) as a result of the acquisition of ILS.
· Operating margin maintained at 8.1% (2012: 8.1%).
· Acquisition of ILS enhances our higher acuity care offering.

Group Outlook:
· Order book of £3.8 billion (2012: £2.7 billion). Solid pipeline of new opportunities.
· Full visibility of consensus forecast revenue for 2013 and in excess of 85% for 2014.
· Two new infill acquisitions to develop further our housing management offering.

Canaccord Genuity Buy 420.13 430.25 440.00 490.00 Reiterates

Investec Buy 417.63 400.00 440.00 Reiterates

Liberum Capital Buy 416.13 413.00 420.00 485.00 Reiterates

Interim Management Statement

Proposed Disposal of M&E Division

Looking at a new high @441.50p.

Trading Statement in January.

Pre-Close Trading Update

Trading Statement
Mears anticipates reporting results for the full year to 31 December 2013 in line with management expectations, coupled with strong cash performance.

The current order book stands at £3.8 billion and the bid pipeline remains at £3.0 billion. The Group has 90% visibility of consensus revenue forecast for 2014 from continuing operations of £911 million.

Integration of Morrison Facilities Services Limited ("Morrison")

Mears acquired Morrison in November 2012 and has previously reported that the speed of turnaround has exceeded management expectations and this continues. The integration of the support service functions was completed in the first half year and the migration to the Mears IT systems is substantially complete. Morrison has delivered a positive contribution in the year. The key focus is now at an individual contract level to maintain the improved service delivery whilst continuing to resolve the remaining financial challenges.

Disposal of Mechanical and Electrical division ("Haydon")

Mears completed the disposal of Haydon in November 2013. The disposal has allowed the Board to focus fully upon its core and growing Social Housing and Care businesses. The division continued to generate losses up to its disposal which will be shown under Discontinued Activities in the full-year results.

Developing the Care market - Wiltshire County Council ('Wiltshire')

As previously announced, the award by Wiltshire of an innovative partnering contract to Mears represented our most important milestone since entering into Care and an important development in the Domiciliary Care market in the UK. In a move away from traditional "task and time" based contracts, Mears will be paid by results, which pays providers on meeting desired outcomes that have been agreed directly with service users. That Mears was awarded this landmark contract demonstrates Mears' leading position in the Domiciliary Care market. The contract, which mobilised in September 2013, has started positively.

While still early days, there are indications now that a number of other Local Authorities are looking to follow the lead of Wiltshire. It will be particularly beneficial to Mears that Wiltshire is a strong reference site to support the Group securing other similar opportunities.

ILS Group Limited ('ILS')

In April 2013, Mears announced the acquisition of ILS. One of the principal attractions of ILS was its greater proportion of work providing higher acuity services and which is now being delivered through the Mears Nurseplus brand. It is pleasing to report that we have continued to achieve strong growth in this area.

Financial position

Mears continues to benefit from a strong balance sheet. The efficiency with which the Group manages working capital continues to be a cornerstone of the business as evidenced by net debt being less than management expectations as at 31 December 2013. The Group has extended its existing revolving credit facility of £120 million by a further 2 years to July 2018.



Commenting, David Miles, Chief Executive, Mears Group, said:

"I am delighted with the progress Mears has made in 2013. Revenue visibility, order book and the bid pipeline all remain strong.

"The UK Care market is going through a period of significant change and I am proud of the robust business we have established. Mears will continue to be at the forefront of change in the sector in 2014 and beyond.

"With Mears now focussed solely on Social Housing and Domiciliary Care, I am delighted to report that we continue to achieve high levels of service delivery and customer satisfaction. The quality of our service delivery continues to be our key differentiator and underpins our success in bidding new contracts in both of our core growth sectors."


The Group will be announcing its results for the year ended 31 December 2013 on 18 March 2014.


-ENDS-

Investec Add 478.38 479.25 440.00 495.00 Downgrades

Liberum Capital Buy 479.63 478.00 - 528.00 Reiterates

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/social-housing-landlords-cheated-by-repair-firm-mears-group-tribunal-hears-9085454.html

Pop!

FIL Limited > 5%

Final Results

Financial Highlights
· Record revenue of £898.2m (2012: £679.5m), growth of 32%
· Profit before tax of £36.6m (2012: £29.0m), growth of 26%
· Excellent EBITDA cash conversion of 103% (2012: 108%)
· New contract wins in excess of £500m: Social Housing awards of £420m with a conversion rate of 32% (2012: £380m and 32%) and Care awards of £96m with a conversion rate of 69% (2012: £63m and 57%)
· Strong balance sheet with average net debt of £70.0m (2012: £75.0m), and net debt at 31 December of £0.5m (2012: £12.4m)
· Progressive dividend policy, increasing by 10%, in line with earnings, to 8.80p per share (2012: 8.00p)
· Loss on disposal (non-cash item) from M&E business of £18.5m in line with expectations.

Interim Management Statement

Mears Group PLC (LSE: MER), the provider of services to the Social Housing and Care sectors in the UK, today releases its Interim Management Statement ("IMS") for the period from 1 January 2014 to date.

Mears continues to deliver solid trading across both core divisions in line with management expectations.

Mears has secured new contract awards since 1 January 2014 of circa £110 million. The Group has now achieved 94% visibility of the £908 million consensus revenue forecast for 2014 and 72% visibility of the £960 million consensus revenue forecast for 2015. The order book stands at £3.8 billion with a bid pipeline of £3.0 billion.

Business Development

We have continued to make solid progress in our Social Housing division having secured a 10 year contract with Medway Housing worth £40 million. In aggregate, Mears has secured new social housing contracts since 1 January 2014 amounting to £70 million. While the speed of new opportunities coming through has been slower than we anticipated, the bid pipeline remains unchanged at £3.0 billion.

Our Care business has progressed strongly. We have secured a number of important domiciliary care contracts, especially in Scotland on the back of our ILS acquisition, including a £20 million contract over four years with Stirling and Clackmannanshire and separate three year contracts with West Lothian and East Lothian worth £2.5 million each. In aggregate, Mears has secured new Care contracts since 1 January 2014 amounting to £40 million.

Developing our higher acuity offering

Complex care represents 14% of our total Care revenues, having doubled over the last three years. Since 1 January 2014, these activities have continued to make strong progress. We have made further investment in the structure of our higher acuity Nurseplus business and we will continue to target this area to drive growth. Particularly pleasing is that we have secured our first Nurseplus work in Southern England, through our Wiltshire County Council ('Wiltshire') contract. We have a strong pipeline of future higher acuity opportunities across the whole of the UK.

Developing the Care market

As previously reported, the award by Wiltshire of an innovative partnering contract to Mears represents one of our most important milestones since entering into the Care sector and an important development in the Care market in the UK. In a move away from traditional 'task and time' based contracts, Mears is paid by results, based upon meeting desired outcomes that have been agreed directly with service users. This change in commissioning is central to the Group's strategy and we are well positioned, as a high quality business focused upon service delivery, to benefit from this market change. We are pleased to report a number of opportunities in the pipeline are now following outcome based approaches similar to the stance taken by Wiltshire. The Wiltshire contract, which mobilised in September 2013, has continued to develop positively.

Financial position

Mears continues to benefit from financial strength and the efficiency with which the Group manages working capital continues to be a focus of the business. The Group's revolving credit facility of £120 million is committed until July 2018 and provides sufficient headroom above our current working capital requirements to fund future potential in-fill acquisitions.


Commenting, David Miles, Chief Executive, Mears Group, said:

"I am pleased with the progress made by the Group in 2014. Both the Social Housing and Care divisions continue to deliver high quality customer services, which remain our key differentiator underpinning our success in bidding new contracts, and provide a strong visibility to revenues. Trading at this early stage in the year is in line with the Board's expectations."

Investec Add 474.50 520.00 520.00 Reiterates

I've gone long here - seems to have moved strongly away from the 200sma.

Ex-divi wed 11th June (6.3p)
I hold stock which I bought recently.
Hoping for c30p profit per share plus divi! Might take profit though if it gets there before the divi.