WOW Eucser, we must have been at the same meeting. It was well attended without a vacant seat. I took a few notes and thought I would share them with fellow shareholders. No Directors were present but Rob King siad that it was his decision as he didn't want the negative vibes that their attendance might generate, He wanted the opportunity for shareholders to meet the NEW management team that is heading up the restructure. NMS holds a positive outlook for the future for a number of reasons - The business units that are causing a drain on the bottom line as well as management time have been identified and will be sold. One of the Business units has made small profits for the last 3 years but it is marginal and doesn't fit into the new structure. All the remaining units that will be retained generate high margins a couple as high as 40% - Refocus on the business they are good at by downsizing and shifting management back to Australia with the exception of UK which will report to Australia. Throw out all the grandiose ideas about expansion and building a global conglomerate - Overheads have been reduced and new management systems introduced that provide management with a better handle on the management of contracts. Controls are in place that improve the flow of information to assist management in monitoring the success of the new plan. These controls were not in place under the previous CEO. - The board will be restructured - Q2 resulted in a small loss of $0.2m on a turnover of $41.2m. Q1 was disasterous but in total the revenue for H1 was $71.8m which is slighltly better than expected. - A few contracts have been lost in the recent weeks because things have dragged on for too long and the market in getting tired of all the negative press. This loss of contracts was a lot less than anticipated. - NMS is a service company with a heavy reliance on the quality of their employees. Morale is good at the moment and all key employees are anxious to make this work. A lot of the management roles of the vendors have been taken over by NMS mangement. The terms of remaining vendors is coming to an end and with a couple of exceptions it is expected that their contracts won't be renewed.
A lot more detail on the operations of the company was discussed by Rob King and he didn't refuse to answer any of the large number of questions that went on for over an hour.
He went into some detail when discussing the ships including the costs just to keep them in service. As many of you guys are aware they have been sitting idle chewing up the cash with little demand in an over-serviced market. NMS has been offered attractive deals for the use of other vessels as needed which makes more sense.
Will the CR raise the minimum amount from current shareholders? - the general opinion of many people who attended suggested that it is unlikely. NMS are currently talking to instutional investors and it will be the job of NMS/JLM/Directors to fill up any shortfall. Decision date on this is 1 March. In the event it is unsuccesful they still have a number of options to consider.
As mentioned by Eucser if Rob King is as he presented at this meeting then he is just the guy to tackle this difficult task. He is a no nonsense straight shooter and told things as he thought they were. He warned that there was no quick fix and it would be a long hard slog and for shareholders not to expect the share price to sky rocket because he didn't believe it would instead he thought there would be slow steady growth.
I suggest that if you have the chance then you should endeavour to attend the meeting to held in your capital city.
NMS Price at posting:
8.4¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
