Has Speedy hire turned the corner?
It's looking interesting. Any thoughts?
Takeover time?

Liberum Capital Buy 64.00 64.00 - 88.00 Initiates/Starts

RNS accounting irregularities in the middle east CEO resigns.

Not looking good - extended auction.

29 Nov: Panmure Gordon: Sell - TP down from 75p to 52p. Downgraded.

More on the SDY saga here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/supportservices/10482201/Speedy-Hire-boss-quits-after-discovery-of-5m-accounting-black-hole.html

sp under 50p down 22% being hit hard by accounting problems overseas.

market cap reduced by £75m today is there more bad news to come?

lets see how is moving on after the sharp drop with bad news.

marked up from the start after press comments, but already losing half the gains

at what point will the shares bounce from?

Liberum Capital Buy 51.38 50.50 88.00 67.00 Reiterates

Details of the Panmure Gordon note (post #175):
"Accounting irregularities are never good news, and this looks no different. Speedy has revealed “deliberate circumvention” of accounting processes regarding a number of small contracts in its Middle East operation. For this we presume the issues involve something more that wrong depreciation policies, and the suspension of the divisional FD suggests a more serious (and complicated) issue given a legal investigation is also under way. So far, the adjustment to the current year to March looks to be circa £3m (some of which will include investigation costs), with re-statement to previous years International contribution. We believe the appointment of a new International MD (Andy Wright from Lavendon) has brought this problem to light, and CEO Steve Corcoran also resigns as a result.
Outlook: For this to happen just as investors were becoming more optimistic about a recovery in activity levels is unfortunate to say the least, though to be fair the view on Speedy has never been unanimous and this possibly clears the decks now? UK operations are not involved and “95% of revenues remain unaffected”, though we suspect it will need a full set of results before there is confidence given we would expect a full internal audit on Group procedures as a result of this. That said, similar issues for Hargreaves Services (where fraud in Belgium was uncovered) appear to have been more than discounted given its own share price performance since announcement of issues, and we expect the same for Speedy given the opportunity for geared recovery and its strong market position. We suspect Speedy pops up on a number of radars over the coming weeks as a result, despite a breach of banking terms as a result of this (which we expect is an automatic trigger in these kind of instances), and while we believe this is a (fairly big) setback this is not a game-changer for the medium term.
Forecasts & Recommendation: we reduce our bottom-of-the-range £19.8m to March 2014 to £16.8m (new EPS 2.5p, -13.8%) and our £25.5m to March 2015 to £23.5m (3.5p, -5.4%), though this remains our “best guess” given the events. We reduce our Target Price from 75p to 52p, and switch our Hold recommendation to Sell."

StockMarketWire.com
Cantor Fitzgerald has effectively double-downgraded its recommendation on Speedy Hire (LON:SDY) and moved straight to "sell" from "buy" following last week's announcement that full year pre-tax profits would be cut by around £3 million after the company identified accounting irregularities in its International Division. As a result, the Finance Director of this division has been suspended and Group Chief Executive, Steve Corcoran, announced that he will be stepping down in due course. The broker has lowered its price target to 45 pence per share (from 75 pence) to bring it in line with its peer group. "We were previously BUYers of the shares as we saw Speedy Hire as a geared play on UK economic recovery, Cantor said. "Given last week's events, we have changed our view."

3 Dec: Seymour Pierce also joins the Sell lot. TP down from 75p to 45p.

4 Dec: RBC Capital Markets: Neutral - TP down from 70p to 51p.

The CAT bounce did not last long and now back further down

a 45p would be a reasonable price to start buying again as is also around the NAV 45.8p

StockMarketWire.com
Speedy Hire has now received waivers in respect of the breach of those terms and continues to be in compliance with the financial covenants under its banking facilities.

On Nov. 28, Speedy said that, following management changes within its International Division, information had emerged indicating the mis-statement of a number of accounting balances within the International Division over recent accounting periods.

The Company said whilst it remained in compliance with the financial covenants under the Group's banking facilities, these circumstances had resulted in a breach of certain other terms.

Seems to be ticking up quietly and steadily.
What do you make of that, HC, Skinny? Is it better to
err on the side of caution?

I was waiting for more news as they said that they were in breach of 'other terms'.....whatever they are! I considered the risk too high that more bad news was to follow. Not currently holding SDY and think I will stay out for the moment.

Thanks, HC. I've always bought under 60 and sold between 64 and 65,
so have done well out of them and don't hold now, as I sold a few days before the debacle.
I was tempted but on reflection, I will err on the side of caution.

Feb 12:

Investec Securities reiteration: Buy - TP: 100p.

Panmure Gordon reiteration: Buy - TP: 88p.

Sp seems pretty reluctant to get anywhere near the broker targets.