Member Info for AceofClubs

Oh dear, oh dear, not abusive, sense of humour deficit in somebody who labels themselves "drunkensod"!
AceOfClubs

Our fellow shareholder and penitent "drunkensod" (probably teetotal and celibate) informs us that the Aviva board has spent £630M of our money on buying shares in at £4 each; available today a tad cheaper. Spent £630M to what purpose? It has enabled sellers of Aviva shares to exit at a higher price than would otherwise have been achieved. Is this a good use of our money?
LV members have recently rejected, by a small margin, an offer by the American private equity company Bain Capital, for a £530M takeover and de-mutualisation.
I am thinking a slightly higher offer by the much better known, British, Aviva would have suceeded. LV's business looks very, very, complimentary to Aviva's.
Making it work for us shareholders would have involved the Aviva board rolling their sleeves up and coming up with a plan, preferably a cunning plan.
Very short of elbow grease and short of ideas this Aviva management, which is why I remain a seller at £4.50.
AceOfClubs

DraftKings: after hitting a multi-month high in early September above $63.60, shares have suffered a steady retreat for most of the last three months. Shares are down about 50% over that time, compared to a 3% advance for the S&P 500.
DrafKings has now got the shorters after it questioning if it will ever turn a profit. - they will not be back here anytime soon.
AceofClubs

AllAtSea: boring you? Please feel free not to read anything I post - your problem solved.
AceofClubs

You will like this from exactly 4 years ago - 30 November 2017:
"Morgan Stanley analyst Jon Hocking reiterated his 'overweight' rating on the stock in a note to clients. "Taken as a package, we think this is a bullish set of goals from Aviva and, if achieved, the current multiple on the shares looks too low," he said, giving the shares a 649p price target."

But probably not a lot.
AceofClubs

Hello AllAtSea,
Probably not going to change anybody's view on Aviva, as I have said previously it has its fans and detractors. I regret ever getting involved but blame only myself. Basket case is not an expression I have used but I think the situation is a lot less rosy than management would have us believe. The market remains sceptical - as do I.
If you pay credence to "management spin" ok. Insurance company accounts are opaque at the best of times but the reality of the audited IFRS numbers tells me that this business lost money in the six months ended 30 June 2021: Amanda Blanc chooses to ignore that reality and talk only of the unaudited "Alternative Performance Measures" numbers - but she would wouldn't she?
I remember when this came out reading " In light of our confidence in the strength of the business and underlying cash flows, the Board has declared a 5% increase in the interim dividend" - 5%, really? - 5% increase is reality the rest bluff and bluster. The return of capital to shareholders is entirely funded by sale of businesses, none by business profitability.
Just have a look at the rates of interest this company is paying on subordinated debt - even debt denominated in euros. I was shocked at the rates the market demands from what is meant to be a blue-chip member of the FTSE100.
There are those who believe and those who desperately want to believe - the unadulterated numbers make me a non-believer.
AceofClubs

It is indeed a funny old world - Porsche1946 is not at all polite with his language - but on his facts is he wrong?
Anybody buying, at whatever price, is buying into a business that actually lost money in the six months ended 30 June.
Businesses that contributed nearly half the "adjusted" (ahem) earnings per share have now been sold.
I do hope Ms Blanc knows what she is doing - but I fear not.
I still hold on the "bigger fool" theory and the words "Special Dividend" blinding PI's to the much more important bigger picture - but I could be wrong.
AceofClubs

Morning fellow Aviva shareholders - I am still holding out for £4.50 but not holding my breath.
Too much hot air and opinion here with no reference to facts or fantasy so I spent a little while looking at thge 106 page Interim Accounts Statement for 6 months ended 30 June 2021 issued on 12 August. Came to the conclusion it is probably 25% fact and 75% wishful thinking. Company accounts can be desperately boring but if you want to understand what is going on you have to get bored sometimes. You can read them for yourselves if you can be bothered but below just a couple of snipetts that caught my eye:
Page 56: Adjusted profit from continuing operations - 35.7p per share
Adjusted profit from discontinued operations - 34.5p per share
Conclusion: Half the profitable operations of Aviva have been discontinued (i.e. sold) ?
Page 95: It is simple to calculate that 36% of adjusted operating was from discontinued operations but how does that relate to information on page 56?

International Financial Reporting Standard Loss for the Period: £198 million (Fact)
Group Adjusted Operating Profit £825 million (Wishful Thinking)

Chins up and keep smiling through.
AceofClubs

34.

"Not sure why you think this is a dog, or indeed why you believe there is a lack of growth." Not sure?
I repeat: in 1990 Aviva shares traded at £4.60 - today £4.00 on a good day. I first bought in seven years ago, added more at £3.50 and am now up a grand 5.75%!! I looked at Amazon at the same time trading around $300 and decided Aviva offered "better value": Amazon now trades at $3,600. Go figure, it really isn't rocket science.
AceofClubs

Possibly so - but there is a need to look beyond 4.30pm Friday.
AceofClubs

Aviva has its fans and detractors; I write as a disillusioned long-term holder looking to sell. Please bear in mind that Aviva had a share price of £4.60 in June 1990 when £4.60 bought a great deal more than today. It has been badly managed for decades and the share price reflects that reality. It has only one institutional investor with a declarable interest; which tells us what professional fund managers think of it. Having sold a lot of businesses it is now a different animal, not necessarily better, just different. Can it compete profitably in its restricted chosen markets? A long history of mediocraty says not.
It's cheap for a reason, but it's always cheaper next year.
Have a look at (ICP) Intermediate Capital Group - compare and contrast. Look at long -term share price charts: they are a very good indicator of well managed and poorly managed companies.
As always DYOR.
AceofClubs

Why do I hold Aviva? It always looks too cheap to sell! Or it might be stubborness, stupidity, procrastination, unfulfilled expectations, complacency - or even all of those. The only thing I know is that I would have been a lot better off selling out years ago. I even added at 350p during the Covid crash! Every other addition during that period has outperformed by a significant factor.
It's safe all right, safe enough to guarantee no fireworks, just a slow gentle decline.
My current price to sell is £4.50 - will it ever arrive or will I wise up and get out sooner?
AceofClubs

Sorry oldbutnowisa, I know the mind set and it has trapped me in so-called "value holds" like Aviva, Vodafone, National Grid, Barclays, Crest Nicholson.......... for far too long. Fortunately I made other more unsafe decisions along side the "safe and rewarding". I bought Skyworks at the same time as my original purchase in Aviva and in 2021 both will pay me 7%+ in dividends on cost. My total Aviva investment is showing 7.5% capital appreciation on cost, Skyworks 467% over the same period. When I look back to 2012/2013 when I invested a lot of cash; the safe has been very, very unrewarding compared to the unsafe.
Good, ambitious, confident management has been absolutly key. The Aviva management shows no ambition other than to retreat to a more "secure" position; because they have no confidence.
Share buy-backs using cash generated from profits are in a completely different league to using cash generated by asset sales. Why oh why am I still holding Aviva!

All of these posts about the benefit or otherwise of share-buybacks ignore the obvious. The one loud and clear message is the current management have no better idea of what to do with the cash. They have possibly recognised that Aviva had a lot of money invested in businesses that wern't making any real return and they couldn't see a way of changing that: they did the right thing by selling them.
So we are left with a smaller business that will chug along; don't expect any fireworks. The business is unloved and on the surface looks too cheap to sell: but I have been telling myself that for the past seven years and it has always ended up even cheaper.
My long-term holdings in Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, Entain and PayPal have made me rich. Why do I hold Aviva? Why do you hold Aviva?
AceofClubs

In-line update - no new news. Market is underwhelmed and like me dubious that the mature and competitive markets of the UK, Canada and Ireland? are the growth opportunities leading to the sunlit uplands.
AceOfClubs

Draft Kings came to the same conclusion as MGM Resorts: any price likely to succeed was too much for their size of company.
It will take a bigger fish, twice the market capitalisation of Draft Kings to swallow Entain.

Entain is my largest portfolio holding (7.8%) started in 2010. I have always held the management in high regard until now: the old sure footedness has gone, along with the old management. DraftKings has an unsavoury reputation in what has historically been a very unsavoury "business" - US gambling in all its forms - legal and illegal. See: https://www.vegasslotsonline.com/news/2021/10/13/new-lawsuit-pointing-to-alleged-sbtech-illegal-activity-targets-draftkings-executives/
I sumise DraftKings strategy if they suceed in taking Entain, is to sell the BetMGM stake to MGM Resorts, the European operations (probably keep Australia & Asia) at prices which mean the technology comes free. £28 is a joke price given the stated potential and the Entain directors should have said so on day one. This whole drawn out exercise is making Entain look an unreliable partner in the eyes of MGM Resorts - there will be long term consequences which will cost Entain shareholders even if there is no deal.
DraftKings is a consistently loss making and cash burning business and the directors have little credibility in the US market.
I don't think the DraftKings offer will suceed but Entain may end up with a substantial shareholder it would rather not have.
The sad part of all this will be the damage to the relationship with MGM Resorts; it's BetMGM we all want to suceed.
AceofClubs

"Clearly the market is not in the mood for a further up rating without evidence of profitable growth and capital generation."
Why should it be? There are plenty of shares trading at well below NAV - Ageon NV trading at 36% of NAV makes a profit and pays a good dividend!