Ann: Results Announcement, page-6

"The Group's trading has been impacted in the first quarter of FY22 by further lock-downs and a cyber incident which resulted in Shriro'soperations being closed for three weeks" [my emphasis].

I guess that explains why they were so sketchy on the initial disclosure. If you wanted to be a pest I reckon you could quite easily pull them up on a continuous disclosure breach as neither of the initial updates were flagged as price sensitive, and they said they were continuing operations on a limited "off-line" basis (I suppose reading between the lines you could interpret "off-line" operations as no operations).

I would not be surprised at all if the loss of Blanco was caused by this. If you're a major international brand it is completely unaccepted for a local distributor to be out of action for three weeks. It's an instant sacking offence.

Looks like people are pleased with the nice headline PBT and NPAT comps. For me they are juiced quite a bit by lower depreciation and interest. Offsetting this was a somewhat alarming 32% increase in opex in the half which led to negative operating leverage despite a 20% increase in revenue. Revenue growth also slowed significantly from the +38% run-rate for Jan-Apr disclosed at the May AGM (which again was not flagged as price sensitive!).

Very nice growth in international BBQ exports. Looks like they're finally getting some traction with the EBH line. Still barely turning a profit though but better than a loss at least.

Unfortunately there seems to be things wrong with this business everywhere you look: shutdown for 3 weeks by hackers and not far away from lying to the market about it, loss of major distribution agreement again with terrible disclosure, massive Board turnover leaving barely a shell behind, opex inflation, no margin export business despite massive revenue growth.

Notwithstanding all of the above, the valuation remains extremely compelling, there continues to be strong industry tailwinds, and they're paying a chunky dividend. I just don't know what to make of it. Feels like a classic value trap but just can't get past the valuation.