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It's been interesting reading this forum of late. A lot of good discussion and dare I say, I've learned a fair bit (we're always learning).
Unhooked - some good advice from Ports on the AIM. All would do well to heed it. The voice of experience. DX has been a good investment for me. I bought in at 9p and I'm up 300% having cashed out 86% of my holding at around 30p in December. BUT....here's the thing. I only invest in companies I know - intimately. I do not gamble. I do not read the investment press, I go on who and what I know, personally, within a company. My view on DX at this point is it is a very different beast to two years ago. It will be steady as she goes. The days of 300% increase on holding are long gone unless you are prepared to stick around for a very long time (or bought in at 9p). BUT, that said, steady as she goes is not a bad thing, so long as the dividends flow.
As for Tuffnells being cheaper!! I'm not surprised! They're buying business for vehicle utilisation. Compared to DX their service is poor.. Internally I hear they are in a bit of a mess. As the old adage goes "you pays for what you get". If you're a business that see's the delivery/collection of your goods as an extension to your overall service offering to your customers, avoiding delivery failure is a must and you will pay a little extra to ensure that. The cream of what were Tuffnells hey day prior to the sale to Connect plc (Smiths News plc) has either gone their own way or they're at DX, but they're no longer at Tuffnells. MrGamble, you offer nothing credible to the investors on this chat forum with your post.
As for me, I'm out. It's been a ...... ride. I will not say fun ride with what happened last year, but, all's well that ends well and for now, the AIM is not for me. All the best everyone, I sincerely wish you success.
I agree Ports, markets do seem relatively unconcerned. With good reason in my view. If you have an apple with a small amount of rot, you cut the rot out and carry on eating the apple. DX have done that in my view with the exit of LD and his close allies. When LD was at Tuffnells, whilst he took all the glory, it was actually his very accomplished board that built that business to it's peak and sale to Connect plc. LD was often absent. Some of that board are now steering DX, without LD. A winning combination in my view. DX have acted to address the rot. The markets seem to recognise that. The fall out from the litigation will already have been accounted for.
Last year I made the point that DX was involved in bribery litigation. On the front page of the Sunday Times Business Section today a story about bribery involving Tuffnells Parcels Express. Worth a read.
Not really surprising that RNS. All the new appointments are ex Tuffnells people from the time PI worked there. In fairness, they are all good operators. In my view it is positive news for DX and a welcomed return to some sense post the LD era.
NeverEverGiveUp : I'm not sure where investors could have cashed out at 30p months ago given the shares were suspended for the best part of 9.5 months. If any investor were able to find an outlet for their shares I'd be surprised if anyone would have paid 30pps given the uncertainty around them. The directors will currently be in a closed period I guess prior to releasing results preventing them from share transactions. Personally, I think the share price has corrected itself given the turmoil of the last 10 months (we're not out of the woods just yet) and in doing so my personal view is we've come off relatively unscathed. Trust needs to be built again now and a new history with this BOD. Only then will we see steady growth in my view.
I think we are all the better for Ports posts, and everybody else's for that matter. It's great to get a cross section of opinion, some you will agree with and others not. I for one always find Ports post thought provoking.
Totally agree with your view Ports. It wonder if any of Finncaps blurb about DX of 2 years ago mentioned the share suspension and corporate governance issue? It's a nice place to be, living in Utopia.
I too would agree Meidar feels his work is done. On being appointed to the board he said his focus was seeing the company through "the current situation" and more transparency. With next weeks meeting looming we might assume some announcements may be made. It does look as though we may be through the " current situation" and with LD out of the picture we have had more transparency in the last few weeks than we have had all year. I would say job well done...hopefully ;-)
I think on the whole it all looks pretty positive with DX. We just need to get the shares trading again and the 2021/2022 accounts signed off. Then, hopefully, we can get back to situation normal. That can't come soon enough after this rollercoaster ride this year. All the guessing and second guessing this year has taken a toll on us all, when it shouldn't have. I for one will be glad to have a bit of "boring" for a while.
I agree Sister - the EV PR is PC. The drivers in London are maniacs. That's not just the van drivers though. I know when I go to London and drive (rarely thankfully now), trying to get anywhere is nigh on impossible. It's worth noting that many carriers have internal funds (i.e. they budget) for damage and traffic/parking offence fixed penalty notices now, particularly in London. The reason being it has become so difficult to actually stop and deliver to locations now in central London without being hit with some fine/penalty, the organisations just plan for it, take the hit, see it as part of doing business and tell their drivers to just get on with it. Also, where the average number of drops for IDW freight was typically around 45 per round (unlike parcels that run in the to hundreds), doing 45 drops around say Leicestershire does not come with the hurdles and barriers of driving around an inner city like London - it is so much more difficult, hence the increase in damage to vehicles and fines/penalties as the drivers rush to attempt to meet the deliveries.
An interesting bit of PR yesterday. My guess is it was driven by Ikea but pushed out by DX as something to tick a box. In reality EV vans are not really there yet for the heavy and bulky work DX do. Plus the infrastructure and operating requirements of EV's (ie time and where to charge out on the road, battery charge retention in Winter and with two men on board and some pretty heavy loads married to distance expected to travel on their rounds). My guess is this is something DX have done to satify the customer, but it will not be rolled out to Freight as there is no EV 7.5 tonne truck capable of the workload expected on an IDW round without severely compromising the operation, thus vastly increasing cost. The technology isn't there yet, particularly for freight. It will arrive in Express long before it reaches freight. I know of many trials as such and with testing other technologies to boot in the IDW sector. All came to nothing, promising the earth ( excuse the green pun! ;-) delivering little but utopian dreams. It will happen, it's just not there yet and my guess is unlikely to be this decade.
Loving the "horseplay" Ports and FJ :-) Interestingly Connect plc that acquired Tuffnells was also in a declining market (newspapers). Their published strategy to counteract this effect on the organisation was one of diversify by acquisition. They acquired book organisations ( interestingly also in decline BUT they developed an online platform), coffee machine business, parcels business (Tuffnells). The idea being these businesses had loose synergies to things they were already doing. It would not surprise me to see DX go on the acquisition path and pick up Tuffnells. Where the documents are concerned, there are online platforms that may lend itself (who knows!). Either way diversification and possibly acquisition might be on the horizon. I think that plays to Port's idea of planning to arrest the decline in some way. Equally FJ your point is completely valid, the decline is through circumstance and external factors. Exciting times ahead hopefully if we can all brace the emerging head winds building.
I reckon you're right Ports. It wouldn't surprise me to see them appoint Paul Ibbetson the current MD of Freight. He's been in the game long enough. I know of him from the past and he has the right experience, attitude and foresight. IF, and I know it's a big if, that were to happen, things may move a little quicker.
It's also heartening to see the 2020/2021 accounts materialise some two weeks before expected. In essence it took the new auditors 2.5 months to present. If the same were to happen with the 2021/2022 accounts in theory they could be presented by the end of November and signed off in December ahead of a further suspension were they not to sign them off before January. Personally, I am quite optimistic about DX, and that's the first time I have been able to say that this year. I looks as though they are getting their ducks in a row, bit by bit following a pretty chaotic period.
FJ - Freight also has a 9am service. Given that some express will need signing for, pre 9am will be fraught with brought backs/redeliveries, if there is no one there to sign for it. Running more than one trunk to a depot is common place in most networks due to volumes anyway so leaving times from a hub are staggered to put early freight on the first and so on. My point FJ was not about running more than one trunk, it was about separating express and freight traffic which adds a whole different dimension to trunking. It may happen (the reality is, I don't know) but from and efficiency point of view, to ignore the fact a trunk is going in a particular direction and to not use it, even if it is only half full, IS bad management.
Ports - You're not wrong. I think the point I was trying to make is that in my view, the future looks bright for the IDW sector, of which DX are a major player, if not THE major player in the UK. Therefore, if volumes are to increase (which I believe they will), expansion of the network is not simply desired, it is wholly necessary to keep pace with demand and to ease pressure on existing sites as well as reducing costs once a new depot is bedded in. But I do take your point and agree, things have changed (particularly internally for DX) and it's anyone's guess, as an outsider, as to the future direction.
FJ - I'd be surprised if there wasn't some form of sharing in place on the trunking network. Co-located or not, traffic going from North to South and South to North, whether freight or documents is heading in the same direction. So even if the express and freight depots in say, Plymouth were in different locations of the city, you're hardly going to run separate trunks from West Midlands to Plymouth just to separate the freight/express if it can be shared. To not do so would be surely be poor management - unless there is something I'm missing and am unaware of!! The whole point behind hub and spoke networks (or LTL Less then Truck Load as the yanks call it) is to consolidate freight to a given area so as to move it most efficiently by filling the trucks.
FJ - Maybe I didn't explain myself. When I say piggy back what I mean is the same trunking (not necessarily talking about collection/delivery), hub and spoke network can be used to shift documents, along with parcels, around the country since it's already there - unless, same day is required. As far as the last mile is concerned I don't know how DX achieve that with exchange.
I would agree the exchange business will shrink. However if, whilst that is happening it can piggy back on the back of the freight network I don't see it as an issue so long as it is making not costing money. Smiths News (Connect plc) who bought Tuffnells had the same issue with newspapers but still made money even though the market was shrinking year on year.
It is a different climate today but I think that plays more into DX's hands not against it. Carriers seek to mechanise their hubs and depots in a bid to maks them less labour intensive which forces out IDW freight as it is more costly to handle. Carriers therefore seek partners to manage that for them. Given there are only two specialist IDW carriers in the country and from what I hear one of those is struggling (Tuffnells), I would say this leaves DX in a strong position focussing on what it does best.
Opening of depots with increasing volumes is the right strategy so long as it is targeted in the right area. It reduces trunking stem mileage, it increases overall capacity and reduces delivery/collection round mileage whilst allowing the number of drops per round to remain manageable. I have confidence the BOD are following the right strategy and would argue yes times have changed, but to their favour.
Interesting RNS today. I did point out what the CG was back on the 24th March (12:16 thread "RE : Audit Letter") where I stated the following;
"I understand the "corporate governance " issue actually relates to a board member trying to extract commercial information from a competitors employee and that this may have lead to legal action."
and again on the 10th May (08:55 thread "RNS") where I stated;
"The issue, I believe, in question, relates to a member of the board attempting to extract commercially sensitive information from a competitor for which the competitor then discovered and took legal action against DX/said person. It is the detail behind this that I believe DX have withheld from GT and, obviously, they will withhold from any new auditor (hence why they cannot appoint one as all would want to know the detail but, this also plays to the BOD's strategy to delist the company in an attempt to take it private)."
It is no coincidence LD has "resigned" - read into that what you may. It is my belief LD fully intended to take the company private by forcing a delist thereby achieving two personal objectives; 1) Avoid the controversy of the CG issue being made public. 2) Take more control of the business with the added bonus of a lack of transparency no longer being a plc.
I think there was a coup in the boardroom. LD had too much control and things were dancing to his tune which was not in the best interest of shareholders, but it was in his personal best interest. With Gatemore now being present on the BOD and possibly some other board members they clearly felt enough is enough and it was good bye to LD. Not before time in my view.
Todays announcements are good news. Things are moving in the right direction and I for one believe there is more balance in the board room. Onwards and upwards :-)
Hi FJ :-) I can guarantee my information is 100% accurate on the history surrounding Tuffnells. What I cannot guarantee is the future of DX's fortunes. That is very much history in the making and in the hands of the management. However, from where I am sitting, LD's exit was long over due. He took DX and it's shareholders to the edge. We don't know why things turned around so late in the day but I suspect it was not wholly something LD was onboard with. Good CEO's come and go. Credit where credits due, LD is an excellent turnaround CEO. But, once a company is on a level footing, he is an awful peace time CEO and can cause as much damage as the good he brought about. The timing is right and I for one feel more positive about DX as a result.