Member Info for barchid

Trent
I can only agree with you re the pubs, I note that some posters are whooping with joy at the prospect of enlarging our estate on the cheap but given we recently had to plead with the banks twice or three times to vary our banking covenants I wonder where the "whoopee crowd" think the cash will come from to buy these bargains?
I also note that one of this group has made a "close scrutiny of the accounts" yet is unable to scrutinise the calendar to see which day of the week we are in ! You just can not make this up.
From my scrutiny of the accounts without a bid on the table we either have a rights issue or have to sell off the 40% of the breweries which we still own before we buy new cheap premises. I think neither of those options are not going to be good for the SP.
Still, all to their own eh ?

eccles
My divi appeared in my iweb a/c yesterday morning about 09.00 & in my wifes about lunchtime so if yours was being sent by bank transfer you should have seen it by now I'd have thought. If you usually receive it by cheque, then that depends on the post.
Hope this helps

Leas
You make a good point re the SP determining investors views on this stock but I am actually quite hopeful that their performance will be better than some of the analysts are talking, reason being their wholesale arm, Booker, is likely to benefit from the re-opening of hospitality venues which is only just starting, their online presence is better than any competitor & my supposition is that trade is generally headed in that direction going forward, even if it might not be wonderfully profitable right now. There is also the unwinding of lockdown which can surely only tempt more people to spend so Tesco should benefit from that scenario. I suppose you could sum up my strategy by saying that I prefer travelling to arriving ?
Nevertheless if I am wrong I do not see much downside in the stock with a sturdy dividend behind it, time alone, however, will tell if I am correct.

Leas
A good point, no one seems to be accounting for that, I added a few more today to my holding as I had 2 divis in from other stocks which had moved up too far to tempt me to reinvest back into them, TSCO seemed a better bet.

adv
We have about a month only now for the results which I can only surmise should again be very encouraging, certainly turnover on their platform must be good & with low fixed overheads we should reap the rewards.

Arthur
Your report mirrors what I have been seeing in London, certainly not a boom going on.
I took advantage of the weather too, yesterday & I was in Shepherd Neame country, lovely hot day, loads of pubs with good beer gardens but the car parks were nowhere near full, which genuinely surprised me.
So the value of our estate must be under pressure was my take away from that trip.

Trent/Fair Dealer
Not great to hear your report but certainly not unexpected as the twin tasks of slashing debt & simultaneously investing in the premises is almost a contradiction in terms ? If not it is a very big ask, for sure.
What bothers me more though are the reports in this weeks press saying that a quarter of pubs are likely to be forced to close by end summer.
Now we have had these exaggerated scare stories before but my fear is what will this possible backdrop do to our property values, most of which property is heavily borrowed against ?
This is potentially not a great scenario, it is fine for bulls to say, "we can pick up bargain properties" but given our property is heavily in hock the bull scenario doesn't wash with me.
Platinum partners where are you please ?

Scharnhorst
One thing the dividend should not be is generous, if it is it implieas that they are running out of good quality direct investments to make.
Second thing it won't be is a sample of the Warwick Acoustics headphones, otherwise Boards would likely have found it cheaper to buy a disclosable stake in MERC than go to Richer Sounds for a set, armed with his AMEX black card.
Yes, with Warwick equipment Black Cards matter....

FWIW, Tempus column tipping MARS this morning, purely on the expectation of pubs being packed out for a year or two, not a very cerebal piece but worth noting, I guess, in case it has a price effect.

Arthur/Shape
Interesting that you are both seeing in Edinburgh & the Midlands what I am seeing in London, no where yet have I seen pubs "heaving", although the weather forecast for this month is good so that can only help sales.
Euro games should also help but against that we have the apparent shortage of staff in hospitality, so reasons to be (partly) cheerful, yes, reasons to be seriously bullish, not apparent yet but hope reins eternal !

FD
I can indeed confirm it is easy to pay £5 in a fairly ordinary pub for a pint of draught, some pubs get away with more but my local, which is £4.80 for a London beer is now reducing it to £3.80 for a week as sales have not been great.
Interesting times we live in...

Fairdealer
Articles in the Grauniad and the Mail today saying 5 councils, including Manchester & Newcastle, are going to ban smoking outside pubs.
2 points here firstly do these councils want to stub pubs out altogether by making things more difficult and secondly can councils really do this, I thought where to smoke or not was a Westminster issue not the town hall, any thoughts ?

Leas/Rosewall
I see the employees have won at the ECJ for equal terms as distribution, by the looks of things/ little change in price, this must have been already fully discounted by the market ?

Trent
When I posted Tuesday about experienced staff being in short supply I was thinking of the comment made by 'Spoons that day but I see yesterday Michel le Roux is saying the same at his high end restaurants, so this could be another headwind for the hospitality sector ?
Any business that has been closed normally has hic cups during their restart process, so perhaps this shortage might iron itself out but traditionally there were always a lot of o/seas staff working in bars & eateries, question is how many have returned home to family due to the pandemic...

Man
I think you'll find that any trade done under the middle of the quote is deemed a sale, above the mid quote is a buy & bang on the middle is an unknown.
Hope this helps

Shaperite
Very astute, imho, to take a somewhat cautious approach on a day when both the FTSE & Dax are up just shy of 1% and other punters are all posting like optimistic Mystic Meg's on steroids.
Personally I've always been more of a Dear Deidre fan than of MM.
But one old market saying is very much on the button, "it's never as good as it looks, it's never as bad as it looks"
One thing to be wary of is experienced staff seem to be in short supply, as we know there is always a second side to a coin, it doesn't always come up as heads !

Some health buying so far this morning, hopefully it will carry on retracing its upward trajectory in June which was interrupted throughout May.

Royc
A good thought, but I fancy the MM's will see that one coming, don't you ?

Trent
My commiserations too, what cr@p luck !
I also think the lockdown regime is darned stupid now we are largely vaccinated, if you look at how the US has recovered without needing a permanent wet nurse like the UK has inflicted on itself we could all be back in hospitality premises now, without tapping your presence everywhere on the nhs app.
We can only look forward to that golden day, it will surely come...

Volume up 20% at AJ Bell in 6 months to March.
This should augur well for JIM with their next numbers due in July