Ben Richardson, CEO at SulNOx, confident they can cost-effectively decarbonise commercial shipping. Watch the video here.
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Thanks Alnwick. I hope your positivity bears fruit soon. Some large buys today might suggest some good news is near.
Hi Accipiter, I share your view on SAGA being a sitting duck and it will be on the Radar of PE too.
The interest from the Prospective buyer at around 265P was before RDH invested.
I think it's more likely that AGEAS will acquire the Insurance business and SAGA will then concentrate on Cruise and Travel to become the over 60's luxury brand in Europe.
They already have another 3 River ships in construction and are expanding the travel business with Private Jet Tours and Longer escorted tours which are very profitable and selling well.
The days of SAGA Insurance making 100M+ appear to be Gone !
Hi Rogue
The highly conditional offer was at 33p in old money. This was before the rights issue and consolidation. So the offer price would have been 265 based on the number of shares now in issue .
And to be fair anyone wanting to cut their losses at 220 could have then exited at anywhere between 300 and 440 over a good few weeks no? We're here, or back here, because it will happen again at some point by some means ...
He had an indicative offer of about 220, but that wasn't a firm offer. It was an invite to open the books. It wouldn't have ended up as 220 if the prospective buyer had anything about him IMHO.
"I believe saga is a sitting duck. A ready made brand for Carnival"
Only if Uncle Roger can be parted from his baby. He had a chance once before but chose to block it and to deny shareholders their chance to recoup some of their lost £s. Someone on here will remember the offer price he rejected about 3 years ago?
Goodwill can only be written off but not reinstated under IFRS, for internally generated goodwill. What about goodwill on their home and pmi business?
I think worth looking at the history here....
After it went public 2014 the goodwill was sat on the sheet at a whopping 1.6bn. The piggy had truly been fattened for market huh? It then dropped to 1.47 the following year and then stabilised around there until 2019. It dropped then to 1.17resulting in an overall loss, and has continued dropping ever since (save 2022) with the same result. The goodwill allocated to cruise was zeroed in COVID 2021, so what's left (344m) is now only insurance. Insurance's numbers have obviously dropped but not by that %age. Presumably on that basis, they will shed some more this year.
Totally agree I believe saga is a sitting duck. A ready made brand for Carnival at a bargain price.
If one of the big operators buys saga they will be able to increase Ebitda by at least 20mn due to operational leverage. Saga's cost base is far too high given their lack of scale. Plus they will be able to add additional ships to the fleet.
Maybe toppy for the UK, but not so for the US. Look at how much CCL, RCL and NCL are valued at. CCL is $4.5bn over an enterprise value of $48bn.
9x sounds a bit toppy...but that would value cruise at over 4x todays MCap.
The offer they had for AICL last year, I have a feeling that might have come from Ageas.
I've just watched the SAGA presentation at www.investormeetcompany.com
It's worth watching and the new CEO comes across very well.
Good insight into Cruise & Travel current trading and the future prospects.
What I found particulary interesting was SAGA 's partnership on Motor and Home Insurance is with AGEAS.
AGEAS are the Belgian based Insurance company who recently bid 3.1Billion for DIRECT LINE !
This partnership could develop into an Offer !!
Interesting options
Happy Weekend
Viking want to IPO for 10bn and they have EBITDA of 1.1bn.
Saga cruise have an EBITDA of GBP 80m, how much should they be valued at?
Cheers Alnwick,
so they reduce it from 220p to 175, which is probably why there was an initial sell on results day.
Really Saga needs to do a deal to shed debt. I am hoping for an AICL sell or a sale and leasback on the cruise ships
The shareholder Equity has dropped from £651.4m to £223.5m inside of 2 years which is pretty horrendous
.... so you definitely have to want to think it has to get better ..... but... with the net insurance liabilities and lower cash once the 10% Haan loan kicks in , plus having to ask for consent before paying any further Corporate Debt off ..they are still sailing through delicate financial waters ..dividends look a long way off yet...
Given the Insurance liabilities and the impairments on Insurance it suggests they have come to realise the business isn't worth quite as much as they may have hoped for... looks like they are though being somewhat realistic to that fact
Current MCAP is below the book Equity so the market isnt being kind to the share at all
Hi Rupans.
The update was from Numis.
Happy Weekend
Interesting development considering encouraging outlook after FY results, I'm wondering if given the trajectory predicted by the CFO the debt problem is now not as big an issue and shorters might get burnt
Alnwick,
Thank you for the broker update. By the way do you know which broker this was and what their previous target price was please?
Bilzo……..Clown you say, it actually fell to 99p on Wednesday but only on the sells. Hopefully you picked some up at your magical £. I missed the boat slightly and topped up at 102p but long term very happy with that.
All very good points Alnwick. I topped up another £10K on Wednesday and expect good returns along with all my other travel stocks over the next 2 years. Now holding over £140k between this, CCL, IAG, EZJ, TUI and JET2 . Despite a so called recession most are doing very nicely thankyou.
Great post Alnwick. I started investing in Saga at about the same time as you and then kept topping up for years. I sold many other good shares to buy these as I always believed the recovery was coming. I was up by a fortune when the sp reached 456 but I am now down by a fortune. I hope you are right that this turning around.
I Believe the Saga Ship is finally turning Starboard !
As I've said a number of times on this site I have been a shareholder in SAGA since June 2019.
I initially bought in when the shares tanked after Lance Batchelor issued a profits warning !
The investment case appeared to be solid as SAGA had a very profitable insurance business making 100M+Net Profit ,
New Cruise Ships arriving soon and a 8,500,000 Database of "Grey Tops!" who have most of the UK's wealth.
SAGA share price on 20th June 2019 was 452p !
Well that solid investment case didn't consider;
1. A Pandemic which started in China in late 2019 arriving in the UK early 2020 and BOJO locking down the whole country on 23rd March 2020.
2. Interest rates starting to rise in December 2021 and rising 500% !
3. Russia invading Ukraine in February 2022
4. Inflation hitting 11%
5. Second Hand Cars and Car Parts rocketing in value.
SAGA's business was crippled !
To make matters even worse SAGA had appointed a new CEO Euan Sutherland who proved to be a liability.
I believe the only good thing he did was bring back RDH as a major investor and Chairman as part of a 15-1 share split and rights issue that effectively saved the Company.
The last 5 years has been wealth destruction for most of SAGA's shareholders.
I have been buying the substantial dips and actually broke into profit in June 2021 ( No I didn't sell !)
I continued to buy the substantial dips as Covid ended and War broke out and inflation raged.
I actually bought more yesterday... Why you ask ?
SAGA have a new CEO who is already making positive changes to the businesses.
The Cruise and River Cruise business have just posted Good profits and 2024/25 bookings are very good.
Travel is finally making a profit and the new tours and packages are selling well.
The Motor Insurance market is slowly returning to normality and we will see more A&M activity which should result in the disposal of SAGA Motor Insurance.
SAGA are generating CASH. 74.5M was paid off debt last year.
Cash at Jan 31st was 169.8M with an undrawn RCF of 50M and an undrawn 85M facility from RDH
The 150M bond will be repaid in May.
Current trading and revised forecasts suggest the company will generate 85M+ Free cash flow in 2024
The Debt is now manageable and interest rates will start to fall later this year.
The Tide is finally turning !!!!!
Best Wishes
I saw it to seel Billzo, I was waiting also. Had some at 103 in the end....
Aspers.
Maybe tell us your thoughts on the remaining value of goodwill on the balance sheet against insurance. Bearing in mind insurances current position. DO you think its justified and do you see it being reduced further again next time around...
Or just carry on the cheap insults if you prefer obvs....