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Just seen the info coming through RM channels of the full year
Its here I am just opening now.
https://www.investegate.co.uk/
Lots of detail to read through. But financials in line. Positive 2nd half for RM. QoS on an improving trajectory. USO message being repeated. Weekend reading to get full picture.
Crap
RM Loss £348 M
GLS profit £320 M
Interestingly (maybe) although letter volumes down over 9% revenue was up 4.4% because of price increases.
Competition law:
Royal Mail's appeal against the Competition Appeal Tribunal's judgment to uphold Ofcom's decision to fine it £50 million has now concluded. The fine and interest (c.£52 million) were paid to Ofcom on 10 August 2022.
The stay on Whistl's related damages claim has been lifted. There have been two case management conferences (in December 2023 and April 2024) at which a trial date has been set for November 2025, plus significant milestones leading to the trial. Royal Mail believes Whistl's claim is without merit and will defend it robustly.
Hurtsparrow, the £50m fine is small fry compared to Whistl's claim which I believe is around £600m. RM will have to defend the claim robustly as losing the case would be a disaster for all concerned.
Only highlighted it because it was the first mention of any trial date etc I've seen but yes a huge potential sum of money.
The financials look at lot better, especially on the revenue front. The Q of S results look dire again and will no doubt result in another fine. 74.5% next day for 1c and 92.4% by day D for 2c is very poor.
QoS isn't improving anytime soon.But saying that I think they are happy to pedal the same lines.They will blame local issues and then of course the government but as per last fine it still represents very good value for money.
And for a couple losing so much still ofcom not likely to hit them hard either.
Early days much not heard a sniffle from the new boss.
CEO MS did reply the select committee on her behalf over the fines for stamps and RM say the have made no profit on stamp fines.
I guess another big week coming just feels like this is going to drag on now re takeover.
Apologies for **** spelling useless on my phone...and in general.
Hurtsparrow, "Apologies for **** spelling useless on my phone...and in general."
No need for apologies your amongst friends. As long as we can decipher 😉
Ha! No worries.Here is one that is pretty easy to decipher:
OFCOM have today said surprise surprise that they will be opening an investigation into poor QoS figures.
So nailed on fine again. Pretty much any excuses that have been used in the past have gone .....although they still do blame industrial action still sometimes.
More recently I ordered some currency Special Delivery let's say a decent amount of money.....yep disappeared out of thin air.5 days for loss and upto 30 days for internal investigation.
Huntsparrow - "OFCOM have today said surprise surprise that they will be opening an investigation into poor QoS figures.
So nailed on fine again. Pretty much any excuses that have been used in the past have gone"
I can see the fine being much bigger than last year's £5.6 million. As you say, there are no excuses anymore. Seidenberg says Q of S is improving. Well, that's debatable. 2022/23 saw 1st Class figures of 73.7% but that included industrial action - there were 'adjusted figures' of 81.7% ignoring the strikes. 2023/24 has seen 74.5% - a tiny increase if you include industrial action, another decrease if you exclude it.
Having said that, in most postcode areas the figures were in the 80%+ mark for Q4 so, based on the past three months, yes they are going up.
Tracked figures don't have to be publicly reported but they're still 90%+ nationwide (Bloom & Wild report 91% but they're old figures covering November & December and I expect it'll be higher now) yet OFCOM deny there is evidence Tracked are prioritised. They just have to ask Bloom & Wild, Moonpig, Zara, HMPO etc what the numbers are and it'll become glaringly obvious.
New start times next week and an overtime ban yet we're told Tracked must still be prioritised. It's clear some area managers treat OFCOM and the USO with contempt. We're one of the worst performing areas in the country for USO mail excluding the Highlands & Islands yet our Tracked Q of S is consistently above 95% each week.
There's nothing for OFCOM to investigate - the figures are there. The managers' daily report figures say 89.29% of walks were completed each day last year, independent figures say 74.5% of 1st class mail was delivered on time. That 15% difference should raise a huge flag but OFCOM have never seemed to bother about this in the past.
Postman RG
Blair's OFCOM, acknowledges that the US has to change due to change of mail volumes, but doesn't want to do this anytime soon while not explaining why.
Meanwhile Ofcom fine Royal Mail for not being fit for purpose.
Does anyone know where monies from OFCOM fines end up?
Here.
The remaining revenue collected is passed to the UK Consolidated Fund at HM Treasury, the Department of Finance and Personnel - Northern Ireland (DFPNI) and to the Treasuries of the Isle of Man, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Bailiwick of Guernsey under Statutory Instrument 1991, Numbers 998, 1710 and 1709
"revenue collected is passed to the UK Consolidated Fund at HM Treasury"
No wonder they prefer to retain the USO 🤔
I have been continuously invested here since privatisation however, I'm tired of reading how many non investors fill their pockets from our coffers. I shall therefore close the book here as soon as I get a decent offer. I shall however make a small investment elsewhere and hope to keep in touch with previous IDS investors. Any suggestions?
What else is funny is that OFCOM are funded by companies they regulate!
Similar to Trade unions
The thing that makes me laugh about the USO is we only have to deliver parcels 5 days a week and letters 6 days a week but when I worked at RM if someone phoned in sick on the Saturday and the round wasn’t covered the manager would share the parcels out amongst the rest of the staff and leave the letters in the frame. Weather that still happens I don’t know but it just goes to show the management are not bothered about the USO
@Redceo - if and when this board gets closed down we can use anomaly boards that dont get used for chat you see them pop up all the time on the LHS '0QLN' etc etc, im also interested in some ideas for other stocks, currently holding GKP and OCADO, TW. is also a good call, depends on what sector and volatility\risk you want, TMS has probably got some good ideas, a lot of the stocks ive been watching myself and not invested in have already started making there big move recoveries so by the end of this year there wont be many good quality stocks at good prices, by the time the rates have actually started dropping the speculators will have already moved the market up, personally i think the rate drop is very soon and thats why the election is now July, someones given them the nod on the first drop all most certainly.
The wider cost to IDS for failing QofS targets at the recent scale are far more significant than any Ofcom penalties. Charging customers for a next day delivery that they don’t get on more than 1 in 4 items is nit far short of fraud. It accelerates volume decline, incentivises down trading, and encourages competitor growth.
It makes no sense at all to perform so badly on a service which isn’t subject to price controls, and which IDS needs to work properly to sustain its case for degrading the spec for 2c and Access letters.