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The directors could not have been more welcoming to the handful of shareholders who were able to make the Sparkford-based AGM. They went out of their way to inform us about Haynes’ (LSE:HYNS) products, strategy and progress.
All, except one, of the Executive Managerial Team (I think there were 14) were present and each was more than willing to answer our questions.
Alex Kwarts and Peter van der Galien even took time to show us how the HaynesPro system works and the exciting new technology such as virtual reality or enhanced reality. Just to give you an idea: with the appropriate app loaded, you can point your iPad at a picture in a manual. Instead of a flat 2D image, you get a moving image in 3D on the iPad. So let’s say you are looking at a brake pad fitting. Instead of a boring drawing where you can’t quite see how one part meets another, you can see the components flying toward each other in the right order.
This technology obviously has applications beyond HaynesPro. I can imagine that consumers would like to see a bolt flying to the correct hole, or the order in which you should fit the component parts in the form of a video from a number of angles.
The team are very excited. In fact, more generally, there seems to be an air of optimism. But that is tinged with a realisation that much work still has to be done to cope (or reverse) the fall in manual sales; many costs have to be taken out; many improved, more efficient, systems and methods need to be introduced.
But they have time – the balance sheet is strong, with debt declining and numerous freehold property sites due to be sold. And the company remains profitable.
Question: Non-automotive titles sales fell 5%. Are there structural reasons for that, or merely slip ups, or temporary problems?
There are problems in book sales generally as people switch to digital (I’m not sure I buy this explanation because I note a rise in UK overall paper book sales in the last year – perhaps they are referring more to a specific problem that I don’t know about, e.g. relationship with Waterstones).
Non-profitable titles have been removed. This is a much more satisfactory explanation. We do not want the company to maintain revenue for appearances sake, we need good returns on capital for each product line. Occasional culling makes sense. At the same time I saw some terrific new titles, e.g. Baking for Men, or Dancing – smartly tapping into the zeitgeist.
Question: Can you report any progress on the sale of the Sparkford land?
(BTW: Simon Hedger, fellow shareholder, and I walked around the site in the morning. It will make a great set of plots for one of the major house builders with its planning permission for 48 homes. My very rough guess is that it is worth around £3m)
Answer: it will be marketed in January.
Question: Roughly one-third of automotive manuals have online versions. Is the intention to create more online versions for all the automotive….
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