Member Info for Banburyboy

Seav the concensus seems to be don't proceed with the North Sea transaction. I cannot think why they would.

Dofus welcome back .. you have been a way a while. Any news on river cruising ?

Beach - i think they should give some serious thought to changing the South America cruise and here's why

1st Jan - 30th June 81% of cabins / capacity sold - confirmed by Euan. This is based on each sailing irrespective of the number of days. So 83 day South America has the same weighting a 5 day cruise to the low country.
If we instead use cabin days available the capacity falls to 78% sold reflecting the longer South America Tour being the laggard.
At 21st Sept 35,401 days were unsold (cruises 1st Jan to 30th June) and nearly half of those (17,181) were on the SA tour.
Remove SA altogether and all other cruises based on days availibility are at 85% capacity in line with the target operating model, way before they sail.
What they do with South America will be really interesting against this context

AA2020 thanks for post it crossed with mine part answering. Does feel mad to proceed . My crude maths based on 17-19 k barrels per day $24 cost all figures from interims and $75 oil make not shy of €1m a day to bottom line. Consensus must be we don't proceed ?

Can cairn get out of the North Sea transaction ? If so any penalty clauses. Whens the vote.
Sorry for queries but posters seem very knowledgeable

Value - wise welcome back. I had a few questions and you know your insurance from previous posts .

My observation is 10% seems a lot but its only £4m. Within that motor is flat £16.6m, household down by £1.4m. I dont understand that as other insurers are reporting huge profits on household due to benign weather. Other is down £2.9m which is the mainstay of reduction and 25%. This is travel and Bennetts disposal.
So devil in detail and in a competative market static margins doesn't feel too bad on retail.

I would appreciate you view on
1. household why others are benefit is it to do with underwriting so we purely take premiums and re-insure ?
2 Other insurers having PBT increases of 40% when we are flat. ? Is this in the main we are low risk and dont underwrite ?

I share your view i'm hopefull of £5 / £6 but cant see much beyond that for now

Or the racing ! He's still got that barbed humour though

Fingers crossed Rogue. You are right on patience I had a little two much expectation on insurance. I can only think we didn't mirror peers as we don't carry risk/ reward of underwriting to a significant degree. Cruise is looking very promising though

Quite a lot of positivity which is good to see.
Iceland on 19th June now sold out whcih joins Carrabean, Fjords Artic and Corsica so five out of eighteen cruises 1st Jan to 30th June sold out. Next two are in April Fjords 20th April 20 cabins left (31 a week ago) and St James 13th April 29 cabins left (34 a week ago)
In the interests of balance only down side is the 83 night South America availibility is 207 cabins which has barely moved in two months, it's actually risen slightly and is unique in that. Its a shame as they could fully book out the Artic / Fjord's , Caneries IMO and fit in five sailings. Dont suppose once annouced they can pull a sailing ? I doubt it but interested in views of others. Banbury

In my time on this Board we have been round the issue of consolidation at least twice. There are a few different answers all right in theory but dependent on if you factor in the extra capital raise £140m after charges. That £10m charge still makes me weep.

Thanks Sheltie I have wondered why we were low on the insurance despite margins up and reverse releases. Some is obviously travel insurance but I suspect something more fundamental. My suspicion is we underwrite less than others so most of our income comes with little risk as claims go up and down. There was once a poster on here called value wise who was clued up on this. He has not posted for a while. Calling value wise...

Thanks Sheltie. One really interesting part in the IC that enthuses an old saddo like me. Euan sad in a webner cruise load was 80% for the first half of next year which is identical to what I picked up through research. This implies the full year difference is because I have a calander year and they have a financial year which includes Jan 23 with no bookings. Means I can track future bookings with confidence.

For those new to the Board

For Tour Operations customer deposits were NOT ring fenced until recently. When the pandemic hit they were forced to repay money they had allready spent. This caused the call for cash and rights issue at up until the finals in January £100m had to be repaid.

This sorry story unfortunately continues into the interims and the key statement is below

"For Tour Operations, which now operates as a ring-fenced fund, the Group provided an additional £19.9m of cash to the business to cover trading cash flows in the first half of the current year. This is a reduction of £26.1m when compared to the prior period, which is mainly due to the fact that the business now operates as a fully ring-fenced business. As at 31 July 2021, the Tour Operations ring-fenced business held cash of £26.3m, of which £23.6m is held in trust."

So cash burn on Tour is £5.9m a month = £35.4m of which £19.9m is legacy issues re spent deposits. Business as usual cash burn is £15.5m = £2.5m a month.
Key to understanding the future prospects of this company is what is the outstanding legacy liability to Tour now ? The company have been incredibly quiet on this.

Millionaire perhaps your missing Tour £5.9m a month cash burn and Insurance profits flat when peers are up 40%. No secret not quite the get rich scheme you and I thought. I have warned on Tour for a long while but insurance surprised me. For instance on home claims at peers are well down and profits well up due to benign weather .. no similer gain for Saga.
I'm disappointed but these were not great results

Insurance PBT £69m £1m less than comparative last year !! The rest of the industry on average is seeing a 40% rise
Burn on tour £5.9m a month (Cruise positive ) - this is horrible with no end in sight.
Cash broadly as expected £175.3m i said £180m.
Cruise bookings no great fanfare from company and less than we are seeing in analysis - partially as they cover different period and i suspect they are holding back cabins which devalues the analysis.
Be interested to see how market reacts but i am pretty underwhelmed.

The excitement of tomorrow has got to me.
Just looked at bookings on 18 cruises between Jan and June 22, and movement in the three days from when i last updated. A further 48 cabins have been sold in three days pushing the capacity up by 0.5% from 80% to 80.5% for those six months.
Stretching it but if three days generates half a percent a month generates 5%. So fully booked by Xmas.
Exciting times and see some of you at 7.00 to chew the cud !!

Rogue - I'm from down South. The Mrs who is "toon" born and bred and family use it to describe something extraordinary large and usually good. So I'm expecting a " waxer' tommorrow and great things.
If I'm wrong I'm not expecting much move in the SP for quite sometime. Everything crossed with me for tommorrow.

Corsica 2nd June 2022 - now sold out. So four from 42 cruises in 2022 fully sold out.
I am really hopeful as they say up here in the North east of a "waxer" set of Interims and post interim trading.
Banbury

Expecting a very positive update. I cant see any down side :
- no write off's as travel goodwill is nil and huge headroom on carrying value of insurance goodwill.
- review of sharp practices in insurance by regulator we seem to have covered
- Tour readers of the board know my views ad nauseam - it should be closed at any cost but legacy issues re spending deposits must begin to clear soon - surely and day job cash burn might be managible .
The issue is how the SP reacts to the update. I will set up a book for close Wednesday and start the bidding i am going for a 15% rise from current levels so £4.05

At 31st May they had £78m (excluding ring fencing). They benefited from drawing down June and July’s cruise which meant Cruise was broadly neutral in cash terms .
At August they will report August – October cruise income as cash. Based on no ship repayments (just financing) I’m expecting £15m positive cash contribution (based on their ship financing presentation). Tour will bleed as ever but can’t believe won’t be covered by Insurance with perhaps £10m left over.
So 31st August business as usual cash £103m add £80m from bond issue for corporate purposes and expecting cash as circa £180m. No term loan as that is paid and Bonds previously £250m due in 2024 now £150m due in 2024 and £250m due in 2026.