MPG - Metro Glass

[winner69]

Good point Winner, however i think given the SP and disappointment amongst shareholders they'll try and keep the dividend at similar levels but we'll see.

....that's what they did last year Jeremy ....and used up a lot of their spare cash

F17 Operating Cash Flow $17.6m less Capex $10.1 (excluding acquisition) left $7.5m free cash and they paid out $14.1m in dividends ....hmm

Allow $15m for additional capex and and hope like hell that Operating Cash Flow is a lot stronger eh

But why send that signal in the first place?

[winner69]

Metro one of stars of the NZX today - up 2% and near top of leaderboard




up there with Blis and Evolve

[percy]

Metro one of stars of the NZX today - up 2% and near top of leaderboard




up there with Blis and Evolve

The feature race is on.The Laggards Trophy for Old Nags..
The runners are MVN in the slug colours, at $1.04 up 1 today,and MPG in the snail colours ,on the outside,at $1.03,also up 1 today.
Will be interesting watching to see if they both run in the same direction,and what that direction is.
All punters bets are on.

NB.The rendering plant's truck is standing by for the loser.

[BlackPeter]

.. not sure, whether they will be one of the losers - maybe they are just one of Ben Grahams "deep value" games: companies without glamour producing stuff everybody needs ... but anyway. I've been earlier this week in their Christchurch factory (as part of an NZSA organised site visit) - I'll put my impressions into the following post ...

[BlackPeter]

Had earlier this week as part of a NZSA organised site visit an opportunity to look at the Metro Glass Factory in Christchurch.

This is a quite impressive and representative glass building with a huge (and I mean huge) hall attached, containing their glass processing centre for the whole of the South Island. They don’t make the glass (NZ market too small), but buy the sheets from all over the world (depending on the required specifications) and cut them here to size and process as required.

Quite an impressive picture – with most of the glass processing fully automated. Interesting perspective in the factory with custom size cut glass sheets moving "magically" on large tables or (guided in tracks) along the walls to the next processing step and large glass sheets lifted by automated cranes across the hall.

Factory looked busy, but not hectic – most of the factory staff seemed to be employed to supervise and support the automated process steps. Imagine standing in a huge printer with paper from time to time jamming – and now replace the paper with glass sheets. You get the picture.

Ah yes, obviously they need as well people to load the trucks. This is a challenging and so far not automated task.

They make all sorts of windows including double glazing, printed glass (some of it looking quite arty), they harden glass and they process various glass for safety applications (showers, doors, but as well the thick safety glass used e.g. in banks or zoological parks). We have seen as well new interesting ideas like e.g. a kitchen with a glass front (my wife liked it …).

Some of the larger recent orders included the new Christchurch hospital.

Their advantage compared to oversees competition: They can deliver glass orders anywhere in the SI on any specification within one day (for processing) and one night (for delivery) given that they control as well the transport. This gives their customers a huge amount of flexibility. Try to order some glass in China and see how long it takes to arrive …

Form a visitor’s perspective a well managed factory and efficient staff. Obviously – we couldn’t check the order books or the profitability.

[percy]

Thanks for sharing BP.
Impressive.

[Fatboyj]

Yes good job on getting in and getting a guided tour of a company you own stock in. Always good to see what you own.
Did you get to speak to any of the staff on the factory floor, hows the morale there?
And was there anything you saw to make you think, hmmmm, that could be done better or that's a bit of a waste of money kind of thing(apart from the manual truck load)

[BlackPeter]

Yes good job on getting in and getting a guided tour of a company you own stock in. Always good to see what you own.
Did you get to speak to any of the staff on the factory floor, hows the morale there?
And was there anything you saw to make you think, hmmmm, that could be done better or that's a bit of a waste of money kind of thing(apart from the manual truck load)

Staff Morale: I guess a factory tour is probably not the best method to assess that .. staff looked friendly, no Zombies or similar, if that's what you mean. We talked about staff retention at Metro Glass - and it appears they understand that keeping the know how of their staff is one of their most important assets. I know however, that at least some parts of Metro Glass used to have problems (not sure, whether Christchurch was effected). Our guide acknowledged that not all areas of Metro Glass are ideal in that regard and indicated that they understand the problems and work on them.

Factory: I have seen a lot of manufacturing environments in my life - and for NZ this is one of the better ones I have seen. Is it perfect? Certainly not ... I noticed one of the tools had a sensor disabled and a manual instruction instead (but I don't know, whether this was just temporary - these things happen) and there was in one area some cut-off (some plastic - no glass!) on the floor. Again - might have been just the wrong point in time we passed by. It was not sterile, but looked overall very well organised.

No obvious waste I could see ... potentially still some more automation potential in the double glazing area (but I am not a glazing specialist ...).

[Beagle]

Thanks for the report BP. Makes me slightly less inclined to want to remove this shard of glass from my paw...
At least they are engaging with shareholders through the NZSA which has to be a positive sign.

[winner69]

If anybody gets the opportunity to go through the Auckland factory make the most of it. Well worth the time, even if not a Metro shareholder