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and so it begins... the north east and wales are just the start...pubs nationwide will now start imposing a curfew sooner rather than later, if not back to a full lockdown in the coming weeks... anyone that really thinks this is a 'strong buy' with this level of risk attached needs help..
The North East is set to get new lockdown measures enforced, including a 10pm curfew imposed on pubs and a ban on meeting anyone outside your household. The new lockdown restrictions are said to be coming into force just after midnight on Friday. This follows a dramatic spike in coronavirus cases across the region.
..Edwina, we have already had a full national lockdown, we don't need to wait for a specific death count for another, the government can and will impose this if they think its for the good of the nation long term. the facts are staring you in the face, below are real headlines from the last 24 hours, not fake news!... stop sticking your head in the sand you cannot do anything about it, another lockdown is coming, so start stocking up on loo rolls..
Infections have soared in the past fortnight after schools and workplaces began to return to normality
It comes as official data shows cases among people in their 40s and 50s have risen by 90% since August
Fears of a second wave are growing as number of daily cases has topped 3,000 for the first time since May
Britain has recorded nearly 4,000 new Covid-19 cases for the first time since the start of May and the number of people being admitted to hospital has risen once again, adding to mounting fears the outbreak is spiralling out of control again.
It came as government figures reveal Covid-19 cases are soaring among middle-aged people in England and have risen by upwards of 90 per cent in a fortnight as the outbreak continues to grow
Some very interesting exchanges today . I understand caustious optimism is where our vaccine is at, currently.
Where Russia is concerned one wonders why they are exporting vaccine rather than using on it's own population where there is a huge problem. Maybe India is being used for trials...as a guinea pig! Would anyone here volunteer for a dose of Russian Vaccine???
It is widely rumoured our "friends" across the pond are trying to corner first supplies from the UK
In so far as Income Loss Insurance, the FCA asked to High COurt to determine the Contractual Liabilty of Insurers. The High Court determined, on the basis of the FCA's Claim that insurers did have an obligation.
It was not within the remit of the case that Judges take into account other fundamental facts....the Claims made by Landlords/Tenants in regards Central Government Grants, Furlough Money etc. One can be very certain Insurers will Appeal the High Court ruling and use the Government's Funding contributions . It could be fundamental to the Appeal, the loss of income is not an Act of God, pestulence , plague of locusts etc but the Act of a 3rd Party who should be joined in any liability.
You can see where this will go? If for argument sake, the High Court ruling is upheld, insurers are bound to discount any proven loss by the Excess applied to individual Policies. This could be on an individual claim little or huge. Remember an agrieved Claimant would need to prove a loss, many pubs handle cash, so not easy to establish even with comparitors from previous periods.
This case may have a long way to go as Insurers will not want a presidence setting.
In respect of release of Corporate Information, Fiona has very eloquently addressed the continuing submissions. Anyone with Professional knowledge who acquires information NOT within the Public Domain would be guilty of Insider Trading, a very serious offence.
The whole Hospitality sector is almost in crisis and unless something dramatic happens it is highly likely many Pubs will close. Take note of Tim Martin and the Pub and Beer associations concerns. Weatherspoons, to correct the record ,do have premises in Provincial areas and not just major cities. If you do not believe Tim Martin read the Pub and Beer Association's reports. Sale of products outside of Bars and Pubs, may bring in cash flow but margins are skinned to the bone, leaving minuscule profits.
The JV with Carlsberg should be read thoroughly. it is a combining of Marstons breweries and Carlsberg's (CMBC) , the distribution forms part of the New Company. In the Agreement , Carlsbrg require Marstons to retain at Least 50% of it's Pub/Bar outlets . Marstons will recieve a tranche of funds which will be used to reduce debt.
The whole idea from the start was to supress the virus and get herd immunity. You can't eradicate it. You have a big first wave, then smaller successive waves. A full national lockdown is out of the question unless deaths start getting towards 500+ a day. I'm guessing they'd accept a steady 100+ a day. Check Brazil, no lockdown at all and deaths now trending down. People will just have to live with this for another 8 months or so, whatever the fanatical media idolises. No point completely suppressing it as it only prolongs the inevitable. I'm guessing the majority of people in the UK wouldn't take (or even be offered) the Vaccine anyway. They will take step by step. And give each step a month to work through the numbers. The government need to keep social places open for sanity reasons, maybe 10pm curfew but I doubt full closures, there will be uproar. Excess deaths is what you want to look at, another lockdown would mean twice the amount of people dieing from operable ailments than covid.
In FINAL stage 3 Russian trials. Bloomberg commented 3 million doses are released not just for India but a benefit for the Whole World. The Vaccine race is now here - whether the so called Market shorters like it or not.
Official Sales figure if released by MARSTONS are not in breach of any confidentiality agreement. An agreement such as this only applies to the "due diligence undertaken" and in fact if the figures are withheld from the Market or disguised in any way the Company itself will be in far more trouble from shareholder and LSE rules of reporting. The is no take over of the whole Company here anyway just a merger to the distribution arm to form a new partnership with Carlsberg for distribution.
Believe what you like Marstons press office will tell you if you enquire to keep watching their "official site for a release soon" -maybe you should all look next year!! Also I understand hundreds of thousands of a vaccine is already processed and ready and waiting for clearance to be shipped to the states. "The Lancet" also recently said that after studying the Russian vaccine test results it could work as well as they have said. So continue in your own World but this thing will soon be done as quick as it came!
@Fiona
A very informative & helpful post, as usual, totally agree, especially your last paragraph.
Thanks for raising the level of discourse on this board.
Away from the current noise on this board (Change of subject)
The link below, we are following very closely to see which institutes are surging forward with the vaccine program. Download the pdf on the site and it will show the different organisations and how far they are. It's very interesting to see that the UK are already in the latter stages of Phase 3 (albeit a small pause due to a patient having a reaction with another administered drug).
Covid trials and progress per company/triel:
https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
With an estimated date of Dec 02 2020 for completion of all participants under the AstraZeneca:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04516746?term=astrazeneca&cond=covid-19&draw=2
So with all that being said I very much doubt having read each of the links within the document on Link 1 if there is a vaccine within 4 weeks I will be extremely surprised.
My thoughts on MARS are still on a long term goal (2021 min Q3-Q4) and as for figures being released soon that's utter tosh. Nothing will be disclosed to "contacts" etc not only is it against all ethics of an organisations confidentiality statements but illegal with dire consequences.
Ok I will deny I live in Sleepy Suffolk, if I was to buy property I would prefer somewhere even more sleepy such as Norfolk.
I will touch base in four weeks regarding a new Beer for Marstons however as I am already talking with them!! ha.ha.
Good luck with your shorting - it only encourages me to buy some more!!
i'm sticking with sleepy suffolk, you didnt say i called it wrong. good luck with your thoughts here too, on the plus side one of us will be right. lets talk in 4 weeks about that vaccine roll out!
Who said I even live in the Uk all of the time?
Anyway back to Marstons I thought a new beer could be called "Captain Tom" and a small donation could be made to his NHS charities with each pint/bottle sold. In this way we support the govt. funded NHS, as they have supported Pubs keeping them stay open. if not "supermarket sales will go wild" - however in my local sleepy store most Marstons owned beers are sold out anyway! Sometimes in life it pays to work together to get things done rather than against each other. As I was told once the rules of the Country are "do not complain about your neighbour as one day you may need your neighbour" - good luck with your own views.
i'm guess you live in a sleepy village in suffolk and dont get out much? .. clearly you don't live in leicester, bolton, blackburn ... etc... most people are 'careful and sensible', really, in the real world they are most definitely neither. raves, house parties, street parties, beaches, pubs, religious gatherings, a lack of social distancing generally, some people just do not seem to care and carry on as normal and this is why this is going nowhere for some time. you can keep your russian drugs and trump as we all know by now will tell people what they want to hear usually with no substantial facts to back it up. if you want to have a £1000 bet with me now that there will be a covid vaccine available in 4 weeks time i'll snap your hand off. . 911 was a terrorist attack that killed 2977 people its not really a comparison to a pandemic thats infected 30 million and killed nearly 1 million globally thus far.
My observation today is Trump and the Chinese have both announced a Vaccine is to becoming available in four weeks worldwide. The Chinese are reportedly already using one. The Russians do too. We will end up now with more vaccines than we know what to do with.
We always come out of a stock market fall faster, stronger, wiser. I remember after 911 the market was back in two weeks. The number of deaths in the Uk is now down to single figs, despite over 60 million people living here. Too much doomsville in my opinion -as most people are careful and sensible - let's be honest hence the low death numbers.
thanks for clarity re B.I.I, obviously our opinions vary wildly - but mainly as you haven't factored in my main point regarding an inevitable lock down which will see the SP tumble again. if boris chooses to send kids home for parents to try to work from home alongside trying to home school kids of various ages again - yet keep pubs open, there will be a national outcry, so its more likely than not pubs will close if more schools continue to close. i see little point even mentioning the sp was over 100p last year, its completely irrelevant now as we are in very different and difficult times so getting back to 100p will take years for mars not months, and i think you know this deep down.
In fact Business interruption insurance does pay for loss of profits -as well as costs towards getting the business up and running. There is a set calculation used for this based on the performance of the Company. So they may actually be able to claim for more than the man in the street anticipates.
However everyone is free to make their own choices for share ownership but I will say that before when the Carlsberg deal was announced this share bounced almost overnight back up to 70p etc. and last year was well over £1 a share and so if the good news comes many here hoping to come back in will be too late! In my own opinion -obviously.
although the business insurance discussion is something to grasp onto its a drop in the ocean vs. actual revenue lost over the peak spring/summer trading seasons. they cannot cover themselves for lost turnover and profits, only costs and then it would be limited as staffing costs have already been covered via furloughing. i cannot see this leading to much if any increase of the sp, once they have fought it out and that's if they are fully insured against such costs anyhow. my major concern - is this share is far too high risk at present. reason being, is they have no control of their own destiny, its in boris' hands and he can choose to pull the rug at any time he chooses to do so. yes supermarket sales of bottled beers will continue but if and i presume when pubs close again either nationwide or locally due to lockdown this sp will slide back to the low 30's dependent on the time they are closed for. this will and should happen soon. the schools experiment of sending all kids back two weeks ago has spectacularly backfired, with schools now closing on a daily basis due to covid cases, 4 in my local area have closed in the last 48 hours for a minimum of 14 days, and nationwide its 100+ now with similar issues with total or partial closures. how long can this go on for, i'd say not long at all. there is no way schools will be told to close and pubs, bars and restaurants will be allowed to continue to remain open to spread covid to the masses that cannot go without a draught pint. its just logical another lock down will follow, even before we get to winter and discuss second waves or how covid will react with flu. sorry to be so pessimistic but there is a lot of talk on here which could be classed as ramping, so i thought it needed countering. saying this i like the business model, i like the JV and it should recover in time, so if in for the long game and holding for years it makes little difference if it drops 10p over the next few weeks. but if you are not in as yet, i'd say hold fire and see where boris goes with this first and like last time back in march, there will be an option to get in a lot lower than this at mid to low 30's i reckon or even less, it went down to 18p at one stage.
Should keep CAMRA happy for a week! Until the merger is announced -still as Mars have said they want more beers not less
https://www.marstons.co.uk/news/local-legend.aspx
Daave -The release from Marstons expected to come very soon will i am sure be very enlightening. They notified before that for the last two weeks of March for the start of the lockdown they suffered a 40M sales loss. For any business interruption loss one would need to know the period/s involved and the loss amount suffered -so this could well be why they identified so quickly the time x amounts lost - you could be on to something here they have Business Interruption Insurance. Whilst also underlining when the new sales figures come out post lock down what an improvement they will show.
Daave - Yes it is very good news for Marstons and its Pub Landlords. I am a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute and whilst there are different types of Business interruption insurance over 900 Million was reported already to have been paid out to Insureds -yesterday to those who already have disease as a peril stated as covered. So Yes if Marstons and/or any of their or their independent landlords have that cover then they will receive large sums due for loss suffered. If not then no doubt if not further actions could follow against their brokers? Perhaps Insurers will not be the only people to contribute. There is also a large Pool for Calamity sponsored by Insurers and Reinsurers so the ability to claim is not yet over for those who have submitted claims for determination.
Barchid,
An Appeal to a Higher Court is a given. Insurance providers don't give in easy. If nothing else they are happy to spend millions defending if only to kick the can down the road and kill time. How many Tenants/Landlords have that luxury??
Supercharger
In this matter I agree with you, it is by no means cut & dried as to who will receive payment nor when.
The fact that the judgement was 162 pages long means that there is plenty left for insurers to argue about, odds on that it goes to appeal, then I suppose possibly Supreme Court ?
Some people will certainly benefit but when & by how much is the moot point
We hope about the brewing deal.
There’s a whole load of tenants across the sector who are likely to be able to claim, not necessarily marstons themselves, but Marstons would benefit as the tenants would then have the cash to pay bills and rent up to date and mss as me them more secure as individual businesses.
There’s hundreds of pubs on repayment plans for their missed rent, it might not show on any reports but if it was as ll paid off there would be more cash in marstons account!
Most policies were if the policyholders were honest enough placed for loss of business caused by a peril which will have been listed. i.e. either mechanical breakdown and loss of earnings for say a wind turbine, or I suppose in the event of an unknown cause. Those policies that covered any disease will have no doubt paid out so those policies in dispute will be for wordings that are not clear. I would always look at the premiums paid and see if they were rated for a disease such as Covid 19? Even if the Policies in dispute do pay out you can be sure of one thing all premiums for B.I. will increase in the future. If Insureds finally win their cases and all will not be the same then yes those business could benefit up to the individual policy limits purchased - each Company will be different - but yes Marstons could benefit if they have B.I for a very high S.I.
Anyone invested? - look for the high court case that just went through court.. Musings across the internet that business interruption insurance is likely to be paid out for many businesses in the hospitality sector... could this change this SP? Are you invested anywhere else that might be affected?
I’m tied out elsewhere waiting for a raise, wishing I had the balls to move it all back here ASAP tho!
Just made another 4%.when I see negativity I will buy in for my short term fund on the lows -leaving my long term 59,000 odd shares for the longer term.
This share has recently gained support in late afternoon and so I hear our Western friends over the other side of the pond may be looking in here too. We await the overdue next release soon -should be interesting, and you are right it is no good looking at London pubs when most who live outside of the smoke are working from home and will go for a local pint or two. So to compare the Cities with the Country pubs such as Marstons have is a big mistake. I also see lots to be gained here from home drinking and Amazon/ Supermarket sales. Good luck to those willing to buy in to risk as no risk means no profit in this market. No one will keep their money in a bank which pays no interest -although loans are cheap now for businesses to expand (which might explain why so many takeovers are envisaged!!).