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?

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.

Harry I've traded/held these for ten years or more - the chart looks very positive (to me) - I'm +10p on today's trade - so quite smughappy!

AGM Statement

Mears Group PLC (LSE: MER), the provider of services to the Social Housing and Care sectors in the UK, will hold the Company's Annual General Meeting at 9.30a.m., today during which the Chairman will make the following statement:

"Mears issued its Interim Management Statement on 19 May 2014 which highlighted the following:

· Mears continued to deliver solid trading across both core divisions in line with management expectations.
· Mears had secured new contract awards since 1 January 2014 of in excess of £110 million. The Group had 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 stood at £3.8 billion with a bid pipeline of £3.0 billion

· Mears continued to benefit from a strong balance sheet and a strong focus on working capital management.

I am pleased to announce that the positive trends referred to in the May statement are continuing."

Liberum Capital Buy 473.75 473.75 - 560.00 Reiterates

Not heading in the right direction atm.......fallen below the 200 DMA. Post ex-divi date so fall not unexpected, but hoping for a recovery pdq!

That's better!

Almost back to breakeven.............sp now above 200 DMA.......... have had the divi. Would be nice to achieve a little profit before moving on!

Strong looking chart - interims tomorrow 19th.

Interim Results

Financial Highlights
· Profit before tax* from continuing activities of £18.7m (2013: £16.9m), growth of 11%
· Excellent EBITDA cash conversion from continuing activities of 100% (2013: 85%)
· New contract wins in excess of £200m: Social Housing awards of £135m with a win rate of 35% (2013: £235m and 33%) and Care awards of £66m with a win rate of 63% (2013: £21m and 37%)
· Strong balance sheet with net cash at 30 June 2014 of £2.7m (2013: net debt £21.7m); average net debt of £63.0m (2013: £74.2m)

Liberum Capital Buy 492.75 493.25 560.00 560.00 Reiterates

Investec Add 489.88 520.00 520.00 Reiterates

Interims seemed reasonable. I go away for a week and sp goes into reverse for no apparent reason!

460 gone.

Bearish engulfing candle....

Isn't that a Bullish engulfing candle (but the wrong colour!). Doesn't a Bearish engulfing candle follow an obvious uptrend?

I knew there was something missing (the up trend) :-)

Clear as mud to me!!! The one in mid Nov last year is presumably a better example.
My understanding is that this should now be implying 'over sold', but if only it was that simple!