This share seems pretty unfashionable as nobody ever seems to mention it on any of the discussion boards I look at nor ever wants to if I try to start threads. Advice wanted though. i am in on this and have watched the share price rise almost 100% in a year. In this time trade volume has steadily increased but late Friday this was announced (attached below) and trade volume was huge on top of this particular massive trade. I am a pretty inexperienced investor and am kinding of learning as I go along. What does this announcement signify? Any ideas? May be obvious but not to me. Seems to have kicked in now the price has broken the 2 barrier. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers:

Big Yellow Group PLC

Secondary Placing

Big Yellow Group PLC ("Big Yellow" or the "Company") has been informed that Big
Yellow Investment (Bermuda) Limited and PGA Big Yellow Limited (together the "
Selling Shareholders") have today disposed of their entire holding of ordinary
shares in the Company by way of a placing. Big Yellow Investment (Bermuda)
Limited is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Prudential Financial, Inc. ("
Pramerica"), while PGA Big Yellow Limited is an investment owned by a fund
managed by a subsidiary of Pramerica.

Cazenove & Co. has placed 28,145,904 ordinary shares held by the Selling
Shareholders, representing approximately 28.1 per cent. of the issued share
capital of the Company, on their behalf with certain institutions at a price of
190 pence per ordinary share. Following the placing the Selling Shareholders do
not hold any ordinary shares in the Company.

Captain

this is a share that the investment club i am in holds from approx 85p. To me it has great potential to become a cash cow in the forseeable future. A large amount has been invested in acquiring sites and they now have a critical mass within the M25. They are currently looking for further sites to acquire, and finally appear to be breaking out into the rest of the country (they have just acquired a site in Leeds). The next few years is likely to see continued investment in new sites across the country (focussing on the big cities).

Their current valuation puts them on a hefty PE ratio, though this will come down significantly over the next few years as more of the recently acquired sites start contributing. The share price is currently at a premium to NAV, though a lot of the properties havent been revalued for a while.

As for yesterdays announcement, i think it is actually a positive. There has obviously been this large overhang for a while which has kept the price back. The fact that a number of institutions were prepared to pick the shares up at a minimal discount to mkt value is good news, the likelihood is the majority of these are going to be looking for long term growth. It wouldnt surprise me if the price spikes up early next week but all IMHO and DYOR

Thanks Fundamentalist.

Can you explain what yesterdays announcement was? Was it basically just two large institutions or funds selling their large stakes in the company or I am missing the point? As i say, I am quite new to all this.

I like this share because i agree it could become a cash cow but i also like the way they have branded the business and the fact they always look for very visible sites to strenthen that brand. I think initially they tried to move into the French market but bailed out at a loss but i think it will be something they may look to do again after they have conquered the rest of the UK first.

Cheers.

Captain

You are spot on, these are two large funds selling all their shares. From what i can gather they have been holding these shares for a long time (prob from when floated) and are realising their profit.

I agree with your views on branding, the big prob they are finding is finding sites on which they will be able to secure planning permission. It wouldnt surprise me that they start to look to acquire some of the smaller players or one off sites if this continues to be a problem - this may also be a good route for them to gain a broader geographical spread

Captain,

Can you add a chart into the header please?

Andy,

Not sure how to add chart in. Can you advise.

Cheers.

Andy


Go to the charts icon and type in BYG and click go - this will bring up the one year chart. Under the chart it will say copy chart to bulletin board. Click on this and it will bring up an address in string form. Copy this address. Go back to the investors room and open up this thread. Go to your original post and click on edit. Page down to the bottom of the post then paste. Then click on the update button

I have now added a 1 year chart. Cheers. Hopefully this thread can get going a little as i am keen to see what other people think of this share and their views on how the company progresses over the next year.

thanks for adding the chart - and what a lovely chart it is too!!!

Nice to see a non exec picked up 2m of the shares in the placing - price rising nicely again



Big Yellow Group PLC
07 February 2005



Big Yellow Group PLC

7 February 2005

Director's shareholding


Big Yellow Group plc (the 'Company') announces that it was informed today that
David Ross, a non-executive director of the Company, acquired 2,000,000 ordinary
shares at 190 pence per share on 4 February 2005. This increases his total
beneficial holding to 5,565,506 ordinary shares, representing 5.56% of the
issued share capital of the Company



Michael Cole
Company Secretary
01276 450701

Doesnt this mean shares are further watered down and lowers EPS even further or am I missing the point?

Plus, any ideas why many of the directors sold huge amounts of shares last week other than just locking in profits?

Big Yellow Group PLC
14 February 2005



Application has been made to The UK Listing Authority and the London Stock
Exchange for block listings totalling 500,000 Ordinary shares of 10p each to
trade on the London Stock Exchange and to be admitted to the Official List upon
issuance. The shares shall rank pari passu with the existing issued shares of
the Company.



The Block listings consist of 100,000 shares to be issued under the Approved
Option Scheme and 400,000 shares to be issued under the Unapproved Option
Scheme.




This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

Captain

yes you are correct though the dilution is only 0.5% and the mkt didnt blink so nothing to be too concerned about. these are for options, which analysts etc would have known about from the annual report so not a huge shock.

As long as they are not disproportionally large, then options in a growing company are a positive in the long term imho

Cheers Fundamentalist.

There seems to be a lot of activity surrounding this share now and sometimes it's hard for the inexperienced investor to decipher what a lot of these things mean. One worry i always had about this share is that it has surely been boosted by a boom in the housing market and thus any slowdown might affect it but I am starting to think I needn't worry about this as the company is mainly based in the south east where house price rises havent been as great over the last few years and the company has grown steadily. Plus Storage seems to be an extremely underdeveloped industry in the UK whereas it has been common for years in the US.

Very positive share price performance again today - cant find any reason behind it - anyone heard any news?

There is a rumour that there might be a bid for LokNStore from BYG:

Thanks ethel

Anyone in on this? I keep telling myself this lot are going to hit a rough patch soon. Surely a slowing housing market is got to hit them eventually. Any opinions on the manageability of their debt levels if they begin to feel the bite?

Captain

im still exposed to these

with regard to the debt i think the problem is far more exposed to interest rates than a slowing housing mkt. I am not convinced by the argument that if house prices are falling people are going to require less storage - surely there will be a volume of people selling up and renting in anticipation of falls and putting some of their belongings in storage. also, if the market starts to fall there is likely to be many buy to let investors selling and hence putting their furniture into storage. i accept that in a falling mkt a lot of people will just stay out and hence the number of transactions will fall and hence the use of storage will fall - but i am not sure this is that large an impact

with regards to the share price, i would expect in the short/medium term that the placing at 190p of 28% of the shares should provide a floor, though hopefully they wont go this low, though it wouldnt surprise me to see a phase of consolidation

You are probably right. I intend to stay in on this one long term anyway as that is initially why i got in in the first place. The brand and the scope for growth.

Any idea why the big drop in this today?

Anyone reckon this share is now on a downward spiral? I don't see it doing to well short term that's for sure in light of the current housing market although I am staying in for the long haul. Anyone still in/now out?