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Correction regarding director deal
Mathew gregory did sell 117,839 shares on 27 07 20 but he exercised two options one for 162,187 and 87,650 meaning he increased his holding by 131,998 over the day.
Sorry Moonman probably a bad choice of words " fritter away",All-though I agree all staff would welcome a decent pay rise and I agree they deserve one and plenty of overtime. I am pretty sure that they themselves would be surprised at the moment to receive any pay rise with the on going problem.
I am also pretty sure that all staff would also be surprised for new buses to be purchased.
The Lack of income through passenger decline is the problem the solution is to increase passenger numbers and reduce running costs.
Ok so we cannot use government funds as we would real income.
My no 1 Clear debt
no 2 reduce operating costs,
What should be done.
Give key workers 50 % off during pandemic Pretty good P.R. with possibly long lasting effect.
Reduce service (saves fuel , maintenance and labour)
I do not think at the moment we should be operating a full service or requiring any overtime .
That is what I mean by getting real.
Thank's for the feed back.
Mike hope you are right and we look at today as a missed opportunity to invest.
I fear that no lessons have been learnt and that what ever money the current B.O.D. gets from either passengers or government will just fritter away. ( overtime pay rises fleet updates ect.
I worked for S.Y.P.T.E.engineer at Doncaster in the 70s 80s I think they received £52 000 000 a year to keep fares down.
They begged us every week to do overtime so as to spend the budget.
They had two men 24/7 doing bus change overs , one man topping up flywheels and another ( like and that sorry'private joke if you knew him he used to end every sentence with like and that) who cleaned the managers car every day and topped the cars and vans up with petrol yes petrol a 3 Litre Ford consul and petrol vans.
Sorry for the negative but they need to get real.
In heavy at an average of 125 and holding.
Regarding directors investing Mathew Gregory sold 117,839 on 27 7 20
large buy on 21 8 20 cost £208.66 K
I am keeping my eye on Jimmy Groombridge To my knowledge never sold.
No I don't think the rights issue is the answer. I think first will do fine with the current support in place. Our bus garage is still dishing out overtime just now and running a full fleet. So the funding is definitely there. As for the share price in a year or twos time we will look back at this and say we should have bought more and held on to them. As far as I am aware directors are still buying shares. The statement about going bust was to ensure government kept up their funding. I think this share will go up a lot in a year or two however if your doing a short term shot at things this share will jumping about a lot
Pyueck the UK govt support for UK buses and trains for the foreseeable future, reduces the going concern issues for these parts of the business, confirmation via a trading update, that these businesses are at least breakeven would be welcome. Re US assets progress on plan to disinvest these assets would be welcome. I do agree that the insurance claims make these businesses unprofitable currently and sure a potential buyer will reflect this in the offer price. That said it is a contract pricing issue that will need to be passed on to consumers in future, so any bidder will know current insurance issues short term so may not mark down bids that significantly, we just need to wait and see as usual!
Davde - I was more thinking that investors will have to be convinced that the business has a survival plan with more cash rather than investors being convinced that FGP could be fine without it! When you go through the risks that meant that the directors had uncertainty regarding whether the company could survive for the next 12 months, many of these would wipe out any proceeds from a couple of hundred million equity raise in a flash. It's good that the UK government is supporting buses, but the long term financial consequences of the train franchises and US businesses is still to me totally unknown. These businesses have seen their revenues dive, and as a low margin business, one division not getting enough support could wipe the whole thing out. That's before you start on the upcoming issue of refinancing debt and those pesky US insurance claims which have gone from a bit of a pain, to a material risk for the entire group.
They are certainly covering the bases re rights/placing issues. I agree getting support will require an update re current position and a clear rationale why any such fund raise is required. The sell off of the US assets should easily negate any raise you would think! Personal view, this is just in case, as they say no intention of exercising! Cannot see Coast agreeing or some of the other II's agreeing but you never know. Interesting times.
Daimler, equity raising was one of the options cited in the going concern mitigation actions. So a rights issue, or even more possibly an equity placing, is possible. However until the company is able to demonstrate that it has a business case for returning cash to shareholders than I suspect any equity raising will be hard. I think like most investors, we really don't know with this company just how much cash it is leaking in the current climate. We know there is some support from the US and UK governments, and some other operators seem to amazingly still be making profits, but with FGP honestly who knows.
What I do think is that whatever the future Matthew Gregory's time should be up once/if some normality returns to the company. Signed off some really duff rail franchises as CFO and never really understood why he was considered CEO material.
Not begging bowl out again surely not, do they not have any shame sack the lot of them. About as good as chocolate space craft landing on Mars.
Hi Just received A.G.M. instruction form, A.G.M. 15/09/2020.
Looks to me like another rights issue is on the way, Whats your opinion.
Weak buy because I think Re nationalisation will be the way forward the government wants to support trains/ busses but I do not think they will want to keep paying out to the current B.O.D.
Hi FanofFirstgroup
Always look on the bright side of life.
130 it could be worse.
20 year old car has non of this hi tech money pit gummings and will soon have classic status.
When kids leave college they can pay of there loans and they can look after you.
Keep smiling. LOL
Makes you pretty angry the millions paid to management since the last rights issue, including bonuses being paid. All the while shareholders have received nothing back for all the millions sunk into the rights issue. At that time a lot of investors bailed as correctly they didn't see how the rights issue did anything more than fill in a hole. We were promised margins would be improved and dividends re-started but both now seem just a pipe-dream and further away than ever.
When I see a bus or train at the moment they are either fully or mostly empty. I am sure this won't last forever but the growth rates in public transport usage probably now need to go in the bin. The number of people doing a daily commute is probably permanently impacted and long distance rail travel is seemingly increasing unnecessary with video conferencing. In fact the whole assumptions used to justify HS2 are now probably completely wrong, I suspect we may see a fall in passenger numbers on the route and the pressures on capacity easing.
What this probably means for FGP is that it is relying on government subsidies to run near empty buses and trains for at least the next 3-6 months and then it will probably need loads more subsidies longer term to keep services running longer term. Same pretty much applies in the US, although student should see better recoveries when schools resume.
im feeling your pain..... I'm heavily invested @1.30 a share......
currently losing faith that I will ever recoup lol
oh well, kids don't need a college fund and il just keep driving my 20year old car
My sentiments exactly Daimlerfleetline management an utter shower all in it for their own pockets.
Agree with that, almost none of the objectives of the previous rights issue were achieved. I would say impossible to ask investors to put in any more cash without a clear strategy of the road ahead. Otherwise investors could put in hundreds of millions more, only to see this vanish in a few months. For me the future of FGP almost completely rests on how much the US government and UK government decide to give it subsidies. With 5 divisions even then its so hard to really assess whether even if one division is sorted, the long term viability of the group. So many moving parts and unknowns, not sure anybody knows which way is up anymore.
Hi what is a 3 bagger ?
Rights issue been there done that. I have held shares in this company since day one (employee free issue) I think they were valued at around 500 then went to a peak of 808. Over the years they have had at least one rights issue maybe even three.
A rights issue in my opinion helps with cash flow but has a long lasting effect on the SP because all you have done is dilute the stock ( like the bank of England printing money).
On the other hand if you invest further you do get shares at a discount but do you want to trust this shower with any more of your hard earned cash.
I can not be bothered to work it out but just think how much would you have to invest to stay at the same capital level .
If shares are offered at say 20% discount,How much would you have to increase your holding by % ? to have your whole holding stay at the same value impossible to say but my opinion on the back of a rights issue with 20% discount SP would drop 20% within days. and how many would actually take part not me.
The company needs cash, would the banks lend ? and why is that.
I am not confident that this shower could manage if they had unlimited funds .
I have said before rough ride ahead tears along the way but there is a lot of dead wood.
Should have been in a better position pre- Covid no excuses too late for that.
That may be the answer, with the SP falling to half the new issue price. From there it
could be a 3 bagger.