Gladstone is a company which has recently become cash generative and is experiencing a turnaround in its buisness. Following a board change the group has turned the corner in securing future profitablility and is on track to report profit ahead of expectations within the next few months. Currently valued just over 5mil this stock is need of a re-rating and seems to have been exempt from the recent rallys.

Excerpts from Full year:

"Gladstone has made a full year profit after tax for the first time of 184k (last year loss 1,676k).

- Earnings per share before goodwill and exceptional items has risen to 1.53p (last year loss 1.50p).

- The quality of earnings has improved. Software support contracts and rentals now represent 37% of turnover (last year 31%).

- Ongoing investment in our core product MRM.plus2 continues to position us ahead of our competition."

"Our MRM trading division is performing in line with management expectations. We raised 260k by an equity placing in September 2003 and will continue to use
this cost efficient route to raise funds for expansion when appropriate. We are
continually looking for the right international opportunities and are exploring
the use of overseas distributors. Holmes Place, one of our private sector
clients, recently decided to upgrade to our central database solution and will
be using our software across 5 European countries. We have good reason to be
optimistic about the future."


Chart:




Full year:

http://moneyam.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200312231436156124T.html

i rang the company the other day to enquire re the date for results i was informed that they have till the end of feburary to issue the results for this year ... but stated that it will be more likely before then as per last year ..in which case we are looking at the start -mid december ..expect some movement ( most likely upwards around then )

i hold gladstone

Yes, beginning of December is expected.

What are the fixed assets made up of? It has a high net assets value against its market cap.

i have sold out on these today.. good company with a static share price.. there is value elsewhere ....

Well I never, people selling out of GLD! Fair enough, yes there is value elsewhere and I expect the share price is being held down for the upcoming consolidation. However, giving the recent rises in tech stocks this is looking even more undervalued than it was. Not for those who like the rollercoaster ride, but the AGM and interims should prove interesting and hopefully the end of the price manipulation.

Kantona - Static for 9 months yes, but the 50 & 200 day MA suggests that GLD could well break out on the upside very soon; and when it does break, well there looks to be an easy 50% upside. That 9-month plateau will act as a considerable springboard, so I would recommend you look at the chart and reconsider. This share is now a strong Buy - currently c.13p

One of the few good techs not to have broken out yet - when it does be ready!

I noticed the price as been sliding back to its support level during the week, on little volume.

Late on though a surge of bigger buying for this tiddler took place.

Could it be about to blow early next week. Check the trading out over the past month and you can see it looks like someone is building a stake and then letting the price slip back as people get bored with holding the stock while others around are moving up. Then they move in again, in larger 50k blocks.

I am going to buy Monday as I can see no down side. They are just building cash,that they mau use to buy the smaller shareholders out with.

This is a hot stock for the coming weeks. I can see a price of 15 -18p by end of month.

Contracts announcements also due.

I'm a chartist, but not an expert in candlestick interpretation; so I reproduce the following without comment. Posted by Isis on a competitor site:

"Hammer is a potentially bullish pattern which occurs during a downtrend. It is named because the market is hammering out a bottom.

Recognition Criteria:

The long lower shadow is about two to three times of the real body.
Little or no upper shadow. The real body is at the upper end of the trading range. The color of the real body is not important."

Any minute now, any minute now, any minute now....

This is one i have a lot of faith in. And the Directors have mopped up a lot of shares after the restructuring. Volume improving, breakout may be imminent.

This was in this weeks edition of Shares magazine:-

Chiefs sign up to a pumped-up Gladstone
When Ben Merrett, chief executive of Gladstone (GLD), joined the group two years ago, it was losing 250,000 a month. It is now profitable, generating cash and able to benefit from tax losses which should last for at least another two years.

The news that both Merrett and chairman Jeremy Stokes have bought shares in Gladstone is an indication of their increased confidence in this company, whose results are rapidly improving. Together they invested 102,000, mainly at 10.06p.

Gladstone provides customer-relationship management software to the leisure industry, in particular local authorities and membership health clubs such as Holmes Place. As a result of the e-government initiative, local authorities have to be prepared for online booking and payments. Gladstones systems are designed to do this.

Also, the membership clubs are faced with the need to become more efficient. The companys systems allow for direct debits and one-to-one relationships between clubs and their individual members. These are relatively inexpensive.

The interims are due later this month and could lead to further interest in the shares, which are selling on an historic PE of 10. The company indicated in January that it had good reason to be optimistic about the future. The interims will be the first opportunity to flesh out this optimism with actual profits.

Good spot paddington bear - now basic business is profitable and they have cleaned up old share register they look well placed, albeit existing customer base seems thin. Some parallels with PTL in growth area of local authority work - with PTL it was government directive for hospitals to put in place facilties for patients. It took longer than hoped but did get there in the end and PTL have responded accordingly. GLD appear to have strong market position on e-government requirements of local authorities. Nature of that market suggests it probably will again take time, but downside now looks very limited. I bought at time of share consolidation/split and expect to hold minimum one year. Once real evidence of growth in local authority market, it could take off like PTL. DYOR.

Bought inot this today on the basis of the share tip

Sdaly down a little but am waiting for the news to come flowing in

There were some reasonable buys today which could've broken us out - unfortunately it is only natural that some who have been in a while could'nt resist the temptation to take a profit.
Directors recently spent 100k on shares - Still cool for 20p+

This thread seems to be attracting the wildlife - bears, pumacats, partridges - could be time for crocodile,stockbunny et al to join in? While waiting for it to rise, notice that its full name is an anagram of lots ganed (missing an i but still reassuring!)

Some big buys today - should please all the beasts on here!

As long as the buys keep coming I dont think the wildlife will bite!!!!

Looking forward to the results and perhaps then we will discover why the directors invested 100k of thier own money in the company - must be good news

i got my dividends today so whats on the cards????????????????/

er, i don't think there dividends - i would buy a pint & some fish & chips, then forget about them.