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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?
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.
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
Hi Rupans.
The update was from Numis.
Happy Weekend
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.
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....
It went to a £1 you clown
Bilzo…….please tell me what you are smoking. If you are waiting for a £1 entry you will be waiting for a long time. Just keep smoking the weed though, you will be fine.
Their travel business is a joke, 1.5m profit on 150m of revenues in a good year. In a bad year like COVID they were be losing 20-40m a year. Someone explain to the BoD the concept of risk adjusted returns. Their cost base is disproportionately high for such a tiny business.
I suppose the numbers aren’t too bad although it does appear that Uncle Roger must dip again into his very large pockets.
The last I heard was that Saga had set an April deadline for their “strategic initiatives broadened to include potential partnerships that could support growth”, another woolly and unsubstantiated promise of jam tomorrow. Meanwhile the man from the Middle East may have jumped overboard and swum to more welcoming waters. Who could blame him?
The market is not impressed and neither am I.
Gotta love a Switch Billzo!?:)
It’s taken a while but nearly at the £1 entry point
I suppose the house broker is going to be positive. The corollary of crystalising assets and reducing debt is to replace interest payments with rental costs for those big shiny ships. I can’t imagine Saga getting back to declaring a dividend. That’s got to be a drag on the sp. Meanwhile the company wastes money on something called Cruise Radio and the likes of Mr Motivator and his associates. All rather Pontins, and unnecessary for what is a respected brand. I don’t know anyone who wouid choose a cruise company because it has a radio station that reads out requests and dedications, or a celebrity keep fit class.
house broker update
saga (buy, tp: 175p) material cash beat. strategic focus on partnerships.
underlying pbt of £38m is slightly ahead of consensus of £37m, with no significant surprises within the components given key operating metrics were pre-announced in january. that said, cash of £170m has come in materially better than guidance of £135-145m due to a £10m one-off release from travel and favourable cash flow timing and working capital movements. consequently, net debt of £637m is less than consensus of £660m, with nd/ebitda leverage of 5.4x versus consensus of 5.8x. guidance for the current year is for underlying pbt to be broadly consistent with £38m just reported, which is below previous consensus of £46m due to investment in price and acquisition costs to stabilise insurance broking policy volumes (previously ***ged but now indirectly quantified). saga says early signs indicate the remedial insurance strategy is delivering the expected benefits. the travel businesses continue to perform very well, with strong bookings data for the year ahead. strategic initiatives have been broadened to include potential partnerships that could support growth in both ocean cruise and insurance, in addition to achieving the previously announced objective of reducing debt by crystalising value.
consensus. buy tp £175p
60.5% upside