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Regarding my message about private equity and the appointment of Cheryl Potter
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1041238/currys-bid-battle-highlights-m-a-potential-for-dr-martens-m-s-dfs-and-halfords-1041238.html?rel=scroll
Regarding private equity, this is what I posted 2 Feb 2024 13:16:
One thing that attracted me to M&S was news a couple of years ago about interest from the private equity company Apollo Global Management. When M&S appointed Cheryl Potter to the board last year this made my ears prick up. On her appointment, Archie Norman described her as "a superstar of the private equity world". I was already invested in M&S but I couldn't help thinking that maybe appointing a PE insider could help them get the best deal in the future.
So I've decided to dip my toe in again at 243 now that some of the macro negativity is behind us and the markets start looking forward again. Hopefully this will be the start of a new run upwards. My only doubts now are the views of the analysts covering retail. Some companies have gone down quite a bit lately so hopefully this might bring some oversold views. One thing that attracted me to M&S was news a couple of years ago about interest from the private equity company Apollo Global Management. When M&S appointed Cheryl Potter to the board last year this made my ears prick up. On her appointment, Archie Norman described her as "a superstar of the private equity world". I was already invested in M&S but I couldn't help thinking that maybe appointing a PE insider could help them get the best deal in the future. I'm probably totally wrong here but has anyone else thought about this?
Carrington, all good points to which I agree with. I just feel the SP is in a state of flux at the moment. I think there will be some weakness short term and it will be driven by the macro rhetoric around inflation and interest rates. I will be 100% jumping back in when I feel the herd mentality comes roaring back. I put 50% of the M&S sales in Microsoft which I think will smash it again this year. The Copilot for 365, which was launched only in November, is going to be a massive game changer and MCST is ahead of the game. It will be interesting to see how that impacts the results tomorrow. The other 50% is just there floating in the water waiting for a bite from a lower M&S SP ;-)
Whilst I've done well with M&S shares I decided to bail out selling 80% Jan 11th & the balance the 16th. I still believe in M&S but I think last year was full of positive sentiment (results, return to FTSE 100, inflation dropping, talk of rate cuts, Xmas where M&S normally outperforms etc) which I don't think will all flow through into this one, at least not until the FY results come out. International, although small, made a loss in the Xmas trading update, citing India as problematic. They have been investing heavily there recently and it's worth noting that the MD resigned after less than 2 years in the role. I hope I'm wrong but I think there will be more negative sentiment in the markets after the Fed & BoE meetings this week with inflation still sticky whilst pushing back any talk of rate cuts. Therefore I'm a watcher at the moment but keen to jump back in at the right time (which I'll probably get wrong ;-)