In the company's prospectus, they claim to be "currency hedging" against just this occurrence. And in their half-yearly financials, they show a $247K currency PROFIT on hedging. So what's the real story?
In their half-yearly report, they show again their propensity for "bleeding" cash, with cash on hand over halving from $4.8M to $1.9M. This is bad as much of the summer played out in this last quarter.
Liabilities DOUBLE the market cap of the company, with a huge number of unsold franchises showing how little trust this company has with the market.
Operationally, the company shows same store sales growth at 5% - negative actual growth considering the huge pricing increases implemented at Cookie Man and Baskin Robbins during this period. Customer numbers have crashed!
Note also "trade prepayments" have increased substantially - vendors already know that this company is in trouble, and are apparently demanding Cash In Advance for their services.
This is exactly the pattern shown during the 2004-2005 periods, when new investors needed to inject a massive new amount of cash to save the company. And this was in a strong and growing economy, not a weak and declining one as we have now.
COMPARE THIS DECLINING PERFORMANCE with that of the Retail Food Group (RFG), a company that is almost identical in franchise makeup to Allied Brands:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/retail-food-group-flags-20-profit-jump-20090303-8na4.html
Compare also ABQ's "announcements" to the market in the last couple years with their performance.
How about the "big announcement" in April 08 of Cookie Man expanding into international areas including the Middle East, UK, and India. NADA.
Or the "big new expansion" of Baskin Robins shops into Western Australia. Instead, we have only shops closing!
Questions continue to be raised about the competency of management at ABQ.
No comments:
Post a Comment