I have been in and out of these a few times :-)) ..... bumping around their bottom but starting to bounce a little ..... closed @ 87/90p on Friday.

They have fallen from grace because of poor distribution probelens caused by poor management and an out of House warehousing system. THis is being sorted and new guys have replaced the old .....

Great brand name and selling could be overdone ..... anyway I am in for a few @ 90p and will let them ride for a while - not a t trade. Recent director buying around this price


ains


bought @ 90p - currently moving up at 141/145p 13/05 = plus 56.66% net

Its getting worse out there in retail land so be careful.

I got stopped earlier @220.1 +13 and I'm contemplating another stab if it goes much lower - incredible volume (see post 60).

Well done skinny.

Thanks mitzy - a bit rash in hindsight! Over 6 million shares traded now and back to 2003 levels.

150p next ..!

Quite a dramatic intraday chart.

MTC,s SP has been hit hard over recent years on bad home news despite the better news on their international numbers.. but of course they are in the dreaded retail sector. SP down 41% at the mo.

I'm not sure why the chart isn't showing the correct price, but it closed @179.72 -42.03% Assuming the dividend were to be maintained - that gives a 10.18% yield.

Peel Runt have a 150p target.

Cant see the dividend being held .

There are few retailers who demonstrate the desperate state of the industry more than Mothercare .

A good brand, in a market that should be guaranteed to steadily grow the birth rate in Britain in recent years has kept on climbing combined with an expanding overseas business should be a recipe for success. But Mothercare has suffered from a series of profit warnings, the most recent one resulting in the swift departure of chief executive Ben Gordon.

Mothercare has been under attack at the value end by supermarkets, which are able to undercut it, and at the top end by specialist online retailers who can offer either more attractive, or more fashionable baby equipment and clothes.

Shareholders will be keen to hear from the chairman Alan Parker, the man credited with turning Whitbread into such a successful hotels and restaurant business, about how he plans to arrest the decline and how the search for a new chief executive is going.

No analyst has forecast what the half-year profit will be, but consensus for full-year profit is 5.31m, down from 28.5m.

Interim Results.

Financial Results

Worldwide network sales(1) 623.9m, up 5.4% (2010: 592.0m)

Group sales 412.9m, up 4.0% (2010: 397.1m)

Group underlying loss(1) before tax 4.4m (2010: profit of 12.2m)

One-off exceptional charge of 78.5m (59.6m non cash, 18.9m cash). Includes write-down of UK goodwill and other intangibles (55.0m) and UK property restructure charge (19.8m)

Group loss before tax after exceptional charge and other non-underlying items 81.4m (2010: profit of 0.3m)

Net debt 24.6m (2010: 8.6m); total credit facility 90.0m

Underlying basic EPS 5.1p loss (2010: 10.3p profit)

Interim dividend 2.0p (2010: 6.4p)

Key Highlights

International performance:

Strong first half with International retail sales(1) 338.3m (2010: 292.5m), up 15.7%

81 new overseas stores taking total to 975 in 55 countries at H1. Opened 350th overseas Early Learning Centre

First stores opened in Latin America; new joint venture in Ukraine

UK performance:

Weak first half with total UK sales 281.1m, down 4.3%. Like-for-like sales(1) down 7.0% (down 6.0% inc. VAT). Direct in Home sales 42.6m, down 4.2%. Gross margin down 4.0%

New Mothercare website on target for launch in 2012; Wholesale sales 18.4m (2010: 8.3m), up 121.7%

UK property restructure announced in May 2011 on track to deliver significant benefits over next 18 months, targeting a reduced portfolio of 266 stores

Chart says 100p

Results grimmer than I expected so sold @ 149

best thing sante.

uk retailers have been a bad bet for the last 12 months, and bad results from mtc have been forecast for weeks if not months, with a sell recommendation from various sources

Difficult to see where UK_retail will pick-up. On-line is so much easier, althoug a Day-out shopping is what women want, I guess in these difficult times* a bargain on-line is just the ticket - - - and you don't get a Parking ticket, train-delays, mugged/jossled - and so on.

* IMHO, these times are likely to be for another few years, possibly with a good week during the Olympics...


Grr.

I hold a few M&S.

i wouldn't buy the likes of ASC either

Non-Ex. Director buys 30,000 shares. http://moneyam.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/20111122151041H5868.html

Take-over talk in todays papers 10% premium.