David, thanks for sharing your thoughts while abroad. Hope you don't take it personal but your bull case outlined earlier appears to be a little weak.
Online retail is averaging a growth rate of 8% pa (look at NAB online retail index). Good thing is that homeware sector is doing better than others. SHP has been talking about organic growth but earnings data have been opaque at best. Do you know whether eg YHD is doing better revenue/margins most recent quarter under current mgmt than same quarter a year ago with ex owners? Or better conversion rate than before? Just banking on a growth rate is like saying that skiing video games on wifi/Xbox will out do ski fields anytime soon. Again why JB HiFi is a billion $ biz and SHP has a market cap of $8m.
You mentioned 'superior digital marketing' being a potential game changer. What do you know that SHP is doing that is more superior than its competitors, in other words how it is doing differently or doing in a better way? Dickinson's last claim to fame was back 10 years ago. Since then he's been presumably sipping piña coladas on a privately island (well deserved) and dabbled in the startup ecosystem. But reality is the tech space is a much different ballgame in the past years; Google, Tesla, Alibaba have come of age. Is Dickinson still relevant or up to date? Time will tell. In the meantime we're not hearing anything from SHP that could set itself apart from rest of market, eg home automation, Internet of things? Not saying these are sure-wins but otherwise SHP is just a commodity trader for a thin margin. And $2m cash is merely swapping entries on the asset column when profitability is yet to be proven, almost 2 years since Crean and Carosa stepped into their roles.
Sadly I see motherhood statements and empty promises being presented in PowerPoint decks everyday with little substance. Time is running out for this company to start performing.
HT8 Price at posting:
1.4¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
