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DarkArches & YoYoMa
You are both spot on & hours before he announced he sold his holding he was still posting "strong buy SP target 73p" or some such tosh.
I fear he posts so much that he forgets what he has said before, hence the confusion.

FD
As usual a very interesting & accurate summing up of where we are.
Only point I would add is that the payment by Carlsberg which is earmarked to repay debt can presumably only be used against their cheaper bank debt and not the unpleasant securitised instruments out to 2035, which were taken out in the mid 2000's at a fixed rate of approx 6%, "with a very significant redemption penalty".
This is a cross we have to bear for a further 14 or 15 years, and is the bulk of the debt, figures taken verbatim from a reply to me by RF following my enquiry 4 years ago.

Clearly when these were taken on they appeared a cheap option, and with inflation would be less important each year, trouble now is inflation is not happening even with the massive stimuli, indeed with a real chance of negative interest rates we could see deflation

Onward Jarvis share price, marching to the split.....
What a lovely move this week and we haven't had the 4 for 1 yet.

Pokerchips/fatprofits
I think you both make good points.
I am also averaging down but have been perplexed as to why the stock is so weak within the current backdrop.
The market is rarely wrong but sometimes it is, am pleased to read your comments as I was starting to wonder why I was averaging down.
I guess we have to tough it out

Fair Dealer
Indeed so !
But back to Mars, something that has not been aired is with the new round of "extra help" the Treasury are now promising, is it not likely that the hospitality industry, so badly hit all year, might be a prime beneficiary ?
I say this because of the number of people employed in it & to provide help for business in this area would be a cost effective way of getting things moving again, particularly with the outlook currently so bleak.
In a nutshell I just wonder if this might not be the dark before the dawn ?

Ja, not yes please....

According to the RNS on Monday Mercia exited clear view at 2X return & the IRR was 72%.
The 8X return was achieved by the investors in the EIS fund (probably also taking account of their tax savings too) and their profit will not impact Mercia's P&L other than the fund management fees, just the 2X reads through into P&L a/c.
I hope you are using the coreect diameter shells in your battle ship these days Obersignalmeister ?
Worry not, we can check with our enigma machine to see what your shell size is.

YoYoMa
A great summation, I thoroughly enjoyed it !

PYUECK
Earlier this year I was responding to some of your posts with a somewhat cautious attitude as to where Amati vct was going with a major loss on the personnel front, however 10 months later I am happy to have been proved wrong, the Edinburgh team of Dr Jourdan have made some exceptionally canny investments this year, well worth reading the facr sheet which came out this week. I am now a much happier holder than I was before, for what it's worth !

It is too long to post & is behind a paywall but you can usually get a free trial with the Times, then go to business, then more business and at the bottom there is an article headlined follow tech stocks the 1st article is about Polar Capital tech trust as a hold then the next article is Marstons.

Tempus in todays Times.
Could be good for a better start today.

TBH a few have escaped already, when no one was checking the pot....

An exit announced today of Clear Review which though modest at £1mill is certainly in the right direction as it was at 2X cost apparently.

Pitterpatter
That is why I said "deep enough", the problem I think, is that in 2016 ago when I asked the company if they were going to take advantage of the lower interest rates by refinancing their existing debt, Mr Findlay responded saying that it would not be possible as they were apparently using a securitised type of loan which got them a lower rate at the time of taking it on, which would be v difficult to refinance advantageously. Also that this particular debt was out to 2035 & worth £853mill. Given where we are with interest rates currently my guess is if they could have refinanced they would have done by now, I suspect they must have a collar of some sort on this securitised debt.
Certainly with the SP down here it is nothing like the problem it was 4 years ago with the price£1 higher then.
I hope this helps. It must be said that RF was extremely swift & open with his answer so it gave me a good impression of his managerial abilities.

Flint
This is the article I posted about yesterday, positive but not massively enthusiastic, which I guess makes it a pretty fair piece of journalism. What he did not do was too dig down into the debt question, which has been MARS real issue, imho.
Nevertheless it is good to read a piece like this, especially compared to 'Spoons media coverage !

YoYoMa
He most certainly is enjoying a seeing to !
There is a write up, positive but not massively enthusiastic, in the Grauniad today by Nils Pratley on Mars. Makes some fair points but does not dig down too far into the debt question.
Worth a read though, certainly his facts are more accurate than the Elon Musk of the board.....

Trent
I totally agree with you re lay offs, redundancies whatever, terrible to be on the receiving end of that, sadly though if the licensed premises are not allowed to open for a further period the company has no choice.
With all the ramping which has been going on recently on this board I do trust that not many people took too much notice of the constant bullish SP predictions (73p was one which kept on being predicted), as it is never nice to hear of peoples losses, though in the market you inevitably win some & lose some which is why sober analysis is way better than wild predictions.

Trent

I largely agree with your post, but what bothers me is what is NOT said, e.g. off sales up 23%, but what was the profit margin on that I wonder? Without pubs to service every brewer was surely offering attractive prices to supermarkets, let alone Amazon ? Turnover is great but profits are what we need.
I see no guidance on margins.
Debt down, great, but last time I looked at this debt the company were using derivative instruments which seemed to be expensive to pay off early so the company were unable to take much advantage of the low interest rates prevailing then & now.
Hopefully there will be a guidance as to property values in the final accounts as that is surely critical to the value of our company. I guess we must expect to wait until their is some clarity as to what prices licensed premises are fetching before we see a full revaluation once the dust has finally settled?
On the upside I think MARS have managed very well in lockdown with their cash flow & their like for like, both much better than I was fearing.
I see no mention of the "bonus" that the PR lady mentioned in her final post we could expect in this update.

Callan, it is Oxgene but is also worth searching for it in its old name which was Oxford Genetics as most of their growth was made under that name.
Hope this helps, in fact quite a lot of the more promising companies in their direct investments have had name changes which is less than helpful when researching them.

Fair dealer
I am sure you are correct, this is the usual time in October for them to give the update. What I doubt we will receive this time though, is a revaluation of their estate, which we really need to work out their nav. I was reading a report this week from Christies, who are apparently pub valuers in Scotland, & even before the latest lockdowns they were down valuing by about 20%.
Clearly one can not do a read across to MARS but it is not likely to be pleasant for any pub owner to reveal up to date valuations in the current toxic climate.