Member Info for badjob

Difficult to second guess their strategy but they will game most scenarios and may have hedging as well. Without more though, if the share price keeps rising they will be incurring an ever increasing loss. For most of the year I wish I'd been shorting rather than long so nice to see it moving in a positive direction at last.

Morningstar gives it a 5 star rating with a fair value price of £6.75 - that was pre-the takeover chatter. I think if the holiday business can regain momentum when the Iran stuff is hopefully settled, that is a realistic target over a 12 - 18 month time frame and I certainly don't think a low ball offer below £6 is likely to get far. A more dynamic CEO wouldn't hurt either.

Certainly the current value is well over the share price. The share price has been relatively muted probably because of scepticism that castlelake could execute. I'm a bit more optimistic on that. Clearly the planes already owned and planes on order are a massive attraction for castlelake. If they can get an EU entity like wizz air, which was previously interested and could combine its east european coverage with easyjets western european strengths, to take control of the running of the airline itself with appropriate profit sharing arrangements (or even leverage Stelios's 15% holding towards EU ownership requirements) there are certainly ways through the difficulties which don't sap value. Add to that a possible IPO of the holiday business and it looks potentially doable. Whether that happens or not, hopefully the interest, and lets hope a resolution in Iran, will move the price sharply higher.

MikeSO2 you may well be right. It's always hard to second guess what will happen. I'm slightly more optimistic and think £4.75ish might be achieved but certainly well short of highs. I think a bit of support may come from the fact that this is relatively cheap on most metrics.

If it is possible to look through the current turmoil in the middle east this is beginning to feel like a very attractive entry point. The company is targeting £1bn pre-tax profits in the medium term which may be fantasy at the moment but if the political climate changes, this will surely re-rate quite quickly. The Hormuz strait has to open at some point given China's economic interest in that happening. The market tends to overreact and it may go lower before recovery but I think on a medium term horizon, this is likely to be a good entry point. I certainly hope so given that I own quite a few of these at a much higher price.

I certainly hope she leaves off with the tax notdead. I think the share price is already pricing it in to some extent as the current market cap is very low relative to profits. I would increase my holding here if I felt more confident about it as I think the business case looks really strong and its a good entry point.

Good report but I think banks share prices held back by tax fears. British companies making profits, whether banks, oil companies or supermarkets are seen as targets and liable to windfall taxes. The government sees profits as a bit grubby and its an easy message to sell to most of the population. The clamour will only grow and it makes it harder to invest just on fundamentals which are very strong here. An advantage of HSBC and Barclays to a lesser extent, is that they have an international footprint which Natwest and Lloyds lack.

Sadly the authorities seem determined to take the company down which makes the fund raising difficult. I can't imagine Zhivago will be looking to invest or that his money would be wanted, so the $100m they want needs to come from 50% of the shareholder base. Whilst I think the business case for the company and its mining operations are compelling ,it is impossible to have confidence if the government are determined to destroy what is otherwise a good business. The VAT and insolvency proceedings are extraordinary attacks and un-survivable if nothing changes. I look at this share with interest having sold out at 47p at a significant loss after a long holding period. If the shares aren't suspended, I may reinvest at a low level on the basis that a lot can happen in 12 months but I don't have the confidence to invest before that.

Would be most odd if Barclays did not have a prior ranking security here so loss should be considerably less than the headline notwithstanding the questions raised over some of the collateral. Banks don't generally lend lower unsecured tranches of debt which is more akin to equity.

I think that is quite an optimistic take given that the company could find itself in an insolvency procedure and therefore lose control of its assets even allowing for the relative sizes of the claims. Legal claims and processes have a habit of taking unfortunate turns with this company. From the VAT to the illegal mining claims, the underlying cause is no doubt the state's intense frustration that it hasn't been able to wipe out the stake of the main shareholder in Ferrexpo and I don't think it will stop until it gets what it wants. Unfortunately, as the shareholder won't play ball and as the company is Swiss registered, the Ukrainians are in a bind but I don't see them giving up. They can only attack the subsidiaries in Ukraine and I fear they will continue to do so until they get what they want. The hope is that whatever arrangements are reached leave a viable company at the end of it. I still think there is a good chance of that but it will be a rocky road and they will continue to escalate the pressure.

Possibly, but assuming the business is not on a path to failure and actually performs in line with guidance, the price falls are just adding more juice to the buy-back which still has £24m to run and feels like a great value play at these prices. At the moment, it feels sentiment and uncertainty driven rather than anything more drastic. That could lead to a stronger rebound if sentiment changes and I think it will if trading is in line. I am not aware of any analysts that think the current price is reflective of underlying value.

Pay outs to shareholders are pretty pathetic, particularly in the absence of any buy-back, and the use of all the cash they are generating in the business is not really creating much additional profit yet so nothing to really attract new investors. Something will have to change. Either an activist will start kicking up or ultimately, Jarvis will want a big pay day for himself so will perhaps announce some generous pay-outs to shareholders to try and engineer it. There is a very good company in there somewhere.

Strong sells seem to be winning at the moment unfortunately. I think there's a good business here and a good brand but I'm not sure the current CEO is really the person to exploit it and drive it forward. Chartered accountants may be good for adding up the numbers but not sure whether he provides the flair or entrepreneurship a business like this needs. Although not a great fan, O' Leary clearly has this in spades.

Legal changes and new regulations, despite governments claims to reduce red tape and complexity, come thick and fast. Lexis Nexis, in providing expert analysis and fast updates on changes is not likely to fall out of favour any time soon. Legal services are also one part of the economy that is thriving.

Political risk has clearly increased. If labour lurch to the left, clearly a windful tax, increase in bank surcharge, cut in interest on bank reserves etc all move up the agenda. Absent that knock to sentiment and a reduction in forecast buy-backs, seems cheap.

Thanks Neon. I think I agree with you but the general sense of fear hanging over, what I think are very good companies, may be around for a while. I do think, unlike say RELX which is still on quite a high PE, this is so cheap that it should be able to really reduce the number of shares in issue if things stay like this for much longer and I hope they do that if there isn't a recovery in price soon.

Tempted to get back in here as looking very cheap but it is tricky given the amount of negative sentiment. The amount of cashflow - supporting £100m payouts last year to shareholders including buy-back- will at some point lead to a re-rating if it continues and must surely limit any further downside. Recently took out a new policy via Go compare - there doesn't seem to be a great AI offering on that right now and I'm not currently sure why it would be better or easier to navigate.

Thinking of buying as it seem s crazy cheap at these levels but will see what AGM offers. Certainly think that AI risk is a bit over stated. A product like car insurance requires personalised quotes and so a lot of input required anyway by the buyer which I would have thought more naturally favours a purpose built site like go compare.

It's worrying that with everything going on in the world, this is the sort of thing they think is important. It's a pretty competitive market with some great deals if you look for them - ie a market that is working well - and they still can't resist interfering.

I personally find the loading information interesting/useful. I think seeing decent performance in a small area - a bit like seeing how my local M&S seems to be doing - is quite a a good way of getting a feel for an investment. Of course, it guarantees nothing but it never hurts to have more info. I'm convinced the share is somewhat undervalued with the markets not appropriately pricing in the holiday business potential in particular but I appreciate as well that management is a bit lacklustre and other airline plays seem a little more exciting and growth orientated. Time will tell as always.