Data Communications Management Corp T.DCM

Like watching history unroll before your eyes

[zalmonella]

It's nice to see such unbridled enthusiasm come form some of the new entries here on this thread. I just love the genuine expressions of disbelief  that tell the rest of the world "This company should be $5.  In my opinion...."

I've been in since it was a profitable income trust paying 8-10% (which is before Stephen Harper for some of you who may not know)and it earned some decent money for the wifes and my RRSPs as well as our long account, but I rode it down as they lost business and profitability and eventually the dividend too, which was paying 19% at the end. Just like a lot of printing companies such as TCL and St. Joes, they failed to reposition in time, held too many employees and too much capital stock and too many leases, by 2015 they were in the middle of their second restructruing to unwind and trying to remarket themselves; they fell behind the debt ball and got in with a devastating debt deal with I think it was KCL as a lender - that is "shark" - of truly last resort. 

As with all expensive debt, there was no way out except share issues which if I remember rightly went out at $0.05 and nearly a billion shares were issued to get rid of that debt, which immediately went on the market  for KCL to get its money out. Given how business was at the time, the share price went to $0.005 bid and stayed there for 2 years at least. Memory tells me we were originally in at about $4 and averaged down to about $1.50, so you can see we were just hopeless losers even after 3 or perhaps 4 years of decent dividends.

Just to demonstrate how stupid I can be in the face of logic by believing that good intentions will make a successful business, I averaged down a second time at $0.01 (because except on December 21st, nothing actually trades at $0.005 except what insiders and brokerages houses can get) ) and in aggregate we owned more than 5M shares, which ought to make you feel rich, but somehow doesn't when the value of your investment is still only about 5% of what you originally invested.  The 100:1 consolidation in 2016 restored some normalcy to the situation in terms of share count, but not share price, and it's been a long wait since then. 

not being so stupid in some of my other investments, I had some extra to add during the rights offering (I didn't participate fully, more like about 50%).  I've multiplied stupidity on stupidity, but if the good fairy smiles on me, my current underwater position in all three accounts may eventually turn postive one day.  Given how hard it is for traditional businesses to reinvent themselves and turn themselves around, I don't see this nonsense talk of $5 next year - which for my ACBs of $1.06-$2.31 would give me a compounded return of about 6-12% since 2009 - as being suitable recompense for what amounts to 8 years of worry and stress. And like others, I think $5 next year is a very long shot and in no way guaranteed.  Sometime in 2023, maybe.... 

Perhaps Knowledgeseekr8 has given you the best summary of what's happened since then.  There was another poster here besides Iscfa and vacario who also was very heads-up on the company in particular and the printing business in general, but I haven't seen that poster in a couple of years now, and can't even remember his name.  As everyone has said, the company has considerable skin in the game, and continues to show up each day and call on the business, but it's a lot of work transforming an industry to a whole new model, and there are bound to be more failures, so while I'm quite excited by this turn of events in the last week or so, it seems awfully premature. I can only imagine it's come about because of new money from the stock screeners chasing limited number sof shares.  A couple of quarters of the more usual losses will weed some of you out.

Let's see what the AGM brings.

[McStepsen]

Thank you for giving some backgroundinformation concerning the company history. This is very helpful.

[KnowledgeSeekr8]

I share some of your pain zalmonella. I first owned this back when it was a dividend stock. I luckily sold with a small loss back then. Got back in when during the volitile times of 2015 before the did that big debt conversion to shares and we had a billion + shares. I traded it up and down but got stuck with some shares when they annouced that and the price got crushed. It feels like I'

[snowtigerrr]

There is only $10m in debt to pay down. The company will do $45m EBITDA in 2020, currently trading

[KnowledgeSeekr8]

I think you are reading the financial statements incorrectly, or you aren't even looking at them. As of September 30th they owe around $64 million in current and long term debt and promissory notes. I think you should review their financial statements. ;)

[snowtigerrr]

Thanks for the heads up, I indeed only read the Q3 NR after this came up on my watchlist. Still looks like a $3-5 stock to me but we'll see.

[mariarose]

"There is only $10m in debt to pay down. The company will do $45m EBITDA in 2020, currently trading <1x ev/ebitda.".. you are right.. that is why i said 5 dollars share price is very reasonable .. 

[zalmonella]

There is only $10m in debt to pay down. I know, I know.  This company has a bad habit of getting bitten by surprises. I've seen a few.  On the flip side, they're only paying 3.8% now, so even that's not the big dent in the balance sheet that it used to be when KCL was charging 12%.

[zalmonella]

p.s. I think the othe investors that used to contribute were longroad and knicksman, but haven't seen them since 2019 Yes, you're right it was longroad I was thinking of who seemed to have a good handle on the industry.  Knicksman's contributiosn were valuaable as well as yours. It can get there eventually, but needs to pay down a lot of debt to get there. Yep, that'

[mariarose]

"I've multiplied stupidity on stupidity" you explained well your situation.  Timing is very important.  This time 5 dolars share price is very reasonable.

[zalmonella]

Timing is very important.  This time 5 dolars share price is very reasonable.

[zalmonella]

I admire your optimism and will do nothing to dent it except to recommend you take a screen shot of this post and post it on your desktop somewhere that you'll see it in 2023 or something. I bouth AC at 1.30 when they had their pension trobule, ECA at 4.36 when people overreacted to the bond re-rating, and DII.B at 1.90 when they had too much inventory. All companies with dominant positions