Member Info for barchid

Jon
I am confused, yesterday you were a "strong buy", today you are a "strong sell", yesterday Mars were going to benefit from staycations & today, with the market up 2% you are now predicting a 15% fall, or "nose dive".
Or am I missing something ?

Scharnhorst
Classic timing of yours to give us the Das Boot clip, must resemble the cabinet room at number 10 tonight eh ?
I agree with you re the numbers, most encouraging, as for you being in for a significant capital gain I wish I was, I must have bought too many in the low 30's as I'm still under water & needing the snorkel tube at present.
Still, onwards & upwards...

Jon
I admire your bullishness but I am intrigued to know why you think that their debt mountain can be cleared in about 3 years ?

Trent
That is a perfect example of the stupidity which is over running us these days.
A few years ago I'd have assumed that you were just joking but sadly these days the jokes all seem to be on us !

Andy
You are absolutely right, well said

A decent set of figures from MERC, pleased I kept picking some up on the dips (of which there were far too many!), but the discount to NAV still looks too high to me so hopefully there is a fair bit further for these to run up.
At the end of the day though it is all about sentiment in a stock like MERC & that is less than helpful at present.

I see that 2 directors have today between them been granted options on MARS shares for almost 82,000 at only 44p.
Not setting the bar very high is it ?

FD
As the Yanks say, hindsight is 20/20

Trek
You and I are on the same hymn sheet, looks like a seller(s) have been finished off and hopefully we can start partying again.

macq
Just so that you are aware, Carlsberg first announced their intention to "merge" with Marstons breweries was on 22 May 2020, and was cleared by the CMA on 9 Oct 2020.
Marstons announced a proposal by Platinum had been received on 29 Jan 2021 which Marstons rejected (following 2 earlier proposals) & on 11 Feb Platinum announced that they had decidied not to proceed, this offer was at 105p according to a magazine called "big hospitality", so Carlsberg very much were around at the time Platinum made their proposal & our previous esteemed leader, RF, turned down 105p only to see the stock at 54p today.
Clever that, wasn't it ?

FD
Many thanks for such a detailed insight, you have covered all the bases and it tends to show that yet again "Mr Market" knows how to price a stock !

giantsquid
Don't forget their debt though.
Could be significant...

Bootsox
I am also cautious, firstly the margins on supermarket sales are way less than from pub sales, secondly Marstons is strong in some locations (Midlands especially & "thanks" to the Brains deal, now Wales) in some other areas (eg SE England) they are about as rare as rocking horse manure.
I live in London where in general pubs are not seemingly as busy as one would expect in this weather, people work often just the **** days (Tuesday Wednesday & Thursdays) which seriously cuts down on after work socialising so from where I am sitting I don't see a bonanza. Staying home watching Netflix with a few ales from Tesco or wherever is nothing like as good for a brewer like Marstons as full on booze ups in the pub garden. My friends who live on the Welsh border tell me that the local pubs they use are not as busy as pre covid times. FairDealer normally has a good handle on how busy the on & off trade is, hopefully he might be able to update us.

Amir
Of course lending out shares creates an income for the lender, but the fee for an easy borrow such as Marstons is would be exceedingly cheap, worthwhile if you are a bona fide holder but surely not worth buying for cash & then receiving a miniscule fee for the trouble of doing that. Furthermore there is no indication of there being any sizeable shorting of MARS, either by the FT which is usually good for this nor from short tracker web site.
As the FT shows that less than 29% of Mars is held by holders of a significant amount (1.8% & up) I respectfully suggest that with so many smaller shareholders sitting with a stock which has gone from being a high yielder to a zero dividend paying stock over covid period that the buyers have probably had no difficulty in accumulating their positions just by sitting in the market with a bid price, mopping it up from small sellers.

Sorry but I'm not sure I understand you, are you saying that they will buy shares to lend to a short seller so that the value of the share they own will go down & they then lose money ?
How was the Pedigree this afternoon, any good ?

Well as I posted on Wednesday it would be interesting to see if any other nominees pop up as holders, lo& behold there is a Fort Lauderde office of a NYC company in todays rns as holders of 5.07%, Clearbridge who claim 190billion $ under management. I think they have something to do with Franklin Templeton who are tax haven based in Cayman & Bahamas with a large office in Fort Lauderdale.
Who will be the next to declare I wonder ?
Perhaps the SP might finally start to rise ?

Trek
Agreed

FD/Trent
Yes we do seem to still be suffering from the highly questionable leadership of RF and it is nice to see the SP is now above yesterdays close, if only by a whisker.
Coltrane has certainly thrown curve ball into the mix though.

GreyMonk
Sorry I thought I made it clear in my post that they were a purchase by Coltrane because I described it as a "holding".
Coltrane most certainly do have many long holdings, C(r)apita has been one & they were one of the shorters of Carrillion on the other side of the coin.
The point I was trying to make is that they are no mugs & they clearly have a reason to buy in.
Interesting to see if they take it over 5% (or indeed if any other nominees in similar tax havens as thr Cayman's show holdings as well).

Anyone seen the rns today re the Coltrane asset managers holding ?
They are a hedge fund based in NYC that have caused issues with other companies in the past, run by an ex trader from Deutsche Bank.
Oddly the share price is virtually unchanged.