On the face of it I tend to agree with Rebel re Board size - there are currently eight board members, but three of those are WPP International members and are not paid anything by WPP AUNZ - The CEO and COO also sit on the Board and don't receive fees, only their ordinary employee remuneration packages. So in reality only three Board members actually receive Board fees (the Chairman and 2 Independent Non Execs)
"The following WPP plc aligned Directors are not remunerated as a Board member of the Company and do not receive any other financial or non-financial benefit as a member of WPP AUNZ’s Board: Paul Richardson, Ranjana Singh and Geoffrey Wild"
According to the annual report overall board expenses were $465,000 in 2019 and 2018 - maybe a bit high, but not outrageous in my opinion.
I was also encouraged to see both Independent Non Execs as well as the new CEO buying shares on market in early March - at prices around the 60c level (ouch!!)
Bottom line is that while I was disappointed that the dividend was cancelled, with hindsight it was always possible given new CEO wanting to bring forward as much bad news as possible and set the business up for his tenure.
Looking at the stock today, yes they may well be staring into an earnings black hole for the remainder of the year - as many others are - but with a mkt cap of just $230m, average NPAT over the last few years around $60m, net operating cashflow around $90m and a much improved balance sheet post Kantar sale (as well as retention of DPS cash) this looks ridiculously cheap on any longer term view.
As one point of reference, last annual report identified that they had an unused franking balance of more than $150m that's about 19 cents per share just in franking credits!! (meaning that hypothetically they could pay a fully franked dividend of 44 cents per share) - and you can buy the stock today at 26 cents!!
I know I've been hurt recently by this stock (as with many others!!) but I'm definitely a buyer at these levels.
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