Dods share price too conservative?

News today that Mike Danson, who sold \Datamonitor a few years ago or more than £200m, has now sold his stake in Dods (formerly Huveaux), to the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative party, Michael Ashcroft.  Just last week the company acknowledged that it had been approached by several parties about a possible takeover.  The assumption was that Wilmington was the lead bidder.

If a deal gets done then the rumoured offer price was around 15p.  Last week the shares were at 11p.  With Danson having sold his 23% stake for 13.5p to Ashcroft the share price has drifted up to 13p - awful close to the likely bid price.  So what is Achcroft up to?  Hard to believe he is in for the quick buck of a 2p gain.  Either he will pressure the Board to hold out for more, or maybe he has plans of his own.  Hard to see how his political affiliations woudln't compromise the perceived editorial independence of the Dods brand though.  If I were him I wouldn't be expecting an invitation to join the Board anytime soon.

Just Rumours....

A couple of rumours heard. Ocean Media, the owner of Inside Housing magazine and recently the subject of a buy out led by AAC Capital, is making redundancies.

Also heard is that Mike Danson, founder of Datamonitor (sold to Informa), who recently swept up SPG has been kicking the tyres of troubled Huveaux.

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Sun shines on SPG

SPG which has a turnover of £17m and profit before tax of less than £0.5m has been acquired by Mike Danson's aggregation vehicle Progressive Media. SPG is a public company with shares valuing the business at just £7m. The Telegraph suggests that a deal may have been done at twice that. Wow! Merging with progressive will see duplicate costs coming out perhaps to the tune of £1m-£1.5m. If thats right then the underlying valuation is around 7 times earnings.

On of the largest shareholders is Kelvin Mckenzie. Allright matey.

This is a great escape from the public market which is still punishing all shares, with media stocks only ahead of bank stocks in traders minds of good places to put their money.

Danson, who founded and then sold Datamonitor sees opportunity in building a new b2b heap. Certainly there can be profit in it. Look at how well Metropolis have done.