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The Reigning Queen print offered for fractional ownership on Showpiece was in a set of 4 offered in Menzies Auctions in Australia but sold privately. My guess is that the print will be offered by Showpiece in the £400,000 area. The guide price for the sale was A$800,000 to $1,000,000.
https://www.menziesartbrands.com/catalogue-details/18759?page=1
Carp, I think you must be wrong. On the Showpiece site it does advise that this is One of only three pieces not intended for public sale.
The weblink you provide looks like a very similar item but is pretty clearly a set of four.....and if on sale via an auction was then sold in public.
Good effort though
Sorry if wrong, but they all look quite similar. I think Showpiece have decided that a few hundred thousand is the right kind of price point as the coin was sold out in a week but the expensive Magenta is still mostly unsold.
Sorry Pearls but I fear you are incorrect. FT article actually mentions Showpiece purchased the work for £315,000 from Tanya Baxter: https://www.ft.com/content/b8735abd-d67a-4eb5-b44f-06dae86094f8. Carpe seems spot on with £400,000.
Have been following this thread for a while and enjoy hearing what everyone else on here has to say, so thank you all. I agree with Pearls that SGI has possible significant upside. However, I also believe that the share price still has a long way to fall before eventually recovering:
1) The business is currently loss-making, and this full year will be the same. The RNS mentions that turnover will be about £12m. Although I assume this figure excludes sales of fractions via Showpiece, and although profitability on turnover has improved, £12m turnover is simply too small for the group to be trading profitably for the year, even discounting the loss of close to £1.5m for the first six months. Ultimately, it is the PE that counts.
2) You must remember that SGI is essentially going to go bankrupt unless Phoenix cancels the debt. This is certainly a possibility, but we simply don't know. Having watched a lot of interviews with Gary Channon, he makes a big deal about Phoenix always making sure it gets its money back in a worst-case scenario. Unless the company can get back to profitability, Gary and the team may well lose faith in the company and call it quits. The fact that they hold the debt means they can and will get their money back should the company fold, and everyone else will be left without anything.
We all know the business has been through a nightmare, was loss making, and critically depends on Phoenix for its banking / loan position.
But things are changing now, and I do not believe it is loss making any longer. This is partly due to the revenues from Showpiece rolling in, but also that trade / auctions etc are all picking up and 'normalising'. In addition a number of new catalogues are due to imminently hit the shelves updating a range of out of date material. Turnover appears to be growing nicely, helped as well by the growing internet offering.
As regards the debt, the better question might perhaps be: what level of funds has Phoenix sunk into SGI and could it get this back currently? We have discussed this at length on here, but initially they bought a 58% equity stake for £19.45m and then wiped off £7m of old RBS bank debt, replacing the old banking facility with a new Phoenix one on kinder terms. I think the current level of debt is around the £16m level, but there are other inter-company debts etc. The point is that suppose the total cost to Phoenix has been around £40m, then no, there is no way either that they can get the money back in the near term, or that there is any point at all in calling in the debt - it cannot be paid off and they will also obviously have to wipe off their large equity stake - completely pointless.
Therefore what has to happen here is that proof of the company's growth and stability has to emerge via oncoming trading updates - the next one is in early July / late June. Once the shares appreciate enough, I would guess they will hold a rights issue to pay down the debt. This won't happen until the shares properly recover somewhere into double figures, but if Phoenix were to waive some or all of the debt, it is the same position actually - the share price will rocket, meaning Phoenix's holding becomes a lot more valuable. Currently it is underwater - they bought in at 2.5p a few years ago. As Devon says, this is a bottom drawer situation that is not going to suddenly radically improve tomorrow, but will improve over time. It is time, most importantly, that Phoenix are now providing, allowing the business to effectively trade out of its past problems.
Eventually, when things are much rosier and the share price is unrecognisable compared to today's levels, I expect Gary Channon will sell the company to someone like Sotheby's or a big US auction site but that is some time off.
Just a question now of having patience and waiting it out.
Incidentally, stamps and coins are normally good assets to hold to counter inflationary risks - this again may be a positive period for the group as a result.
The other issue I forgot to mention is the aspect of the 1c magenta. Will this now appear as an asset on SGI's accounts? If so, this alone will make an enormous difference to their asset base and in turn should reflect onto the equity position.
We won't know where in the Phoenix operation they are putting the 1c until the oncoming results, but since the stamp is very much identified with SGI, I would expect it to be part of our accounts. That will make a material difference to things.
You should look at the ten year graph on this share to really see how it has had an unbelievably wild time on the stock market. Frankly, you will then realise that anything is possible going forward......
2 good posts again from you, Paerls. What is it else to say. I have amassed some reasonable amount of shares so unless it goes lower, much lover, probably I will not buy more; instead - funds permitted- I’ll be interested to buy some fractions in Showpiece. Both for the Shares and Showpiece investors I can see only the upside. But time will tell as in every kind of investment. But I can’t help thinking that the market is doing every effort to nail this share down to every next bottom. But if that’s really the case, it’ll end up in even more spectacular returns!