Member Info for barneysmb

Take away Arrowstreet - and short % = 1.65%. - not been that low in a long time ?

And past history...

In 2024, many short-sellers, including those in the UK market where Arrowstreet is active, faced losses due to rising stock prices in specific sectors like the London Stock Exchange Group and various industrial companies. Additionally, Arrowstreet has previously been involved in "crowded trades" and noted the risks of these in their investment approach, attempting to mitigate this with "big data" and quantitative models.

So why don't you bet the whole kitchen sink, sell the house and short this stock Firepower1 ?

Or you could just pick a single stock chat board, not invest/short.....and spout s**t .....oh wait !.....you do :-)

When you think of the drops e.g 60p --> 30p on less-than-good news (but not catastrophic news) - we should really be heading back to 60p-ish on today's news..

I'd be expecting to see 45p all things being equal.

JW - I read that the same, I imagine II’s will pick that point up too today.

👍 Positive points (these support the share price)

1. Profit beat expectations significantly

• Adjusted pretax profit: £122.3m vs £87.7m expected

→ ~39% above expectations — this is a very strong beat.

• Adjusted operating profit: £198m vs £186.2m expected

→ Another beat, showing core operations are stronger than analysts thought.

This is important because markets care more about adjusted / underlying profit than statutory profit.

⸻

2. Positive free cash flow

• Free cash flow: £77.3m

→ This means the company is generating real cash, which helps reduce debt and stabilise the business.

For a company like Mobico, which has had debt concerns historically, this is a meaningful positive.

⸻

👎 Negative points (these weigh on sentiment)

1. Revenue missed expectations

• Revenue: £2.74bn vs £2.923bn expected

→ Miss of about £183m (~6%)

This suggests weaker demand or operational issues in parts of the business.

⸻

2. Large statutory loss

• Net income: –£287.3m loss

• EPS: –£0.518

This is the biggest negative number in the release.

However, this loss is likely driven by:

• Asset write-downs

• Impairments

• Financing costs

• Exceptional items

These are often one-off accounting charges rather than ongoing operating weakness

I reckon Flixbus would have been buying MCG (less Alsa) for a couple of £££ today, if Garat & Stamp were still around....

Maybe i missed it in the chat...... just noticed that MCG financial calendar is updated:

- 26 Feb 2026 12 month unaudited results to 31 December 2025

Anyway....for a share that has been largely devoid of RNS's over the last few years.......i'm rejoicing in seeing some flow through finally :-)

And still 5 x loss making routes exist vs only 2 in the fixed service agreement.

Anyone know if those 2 agreed routes are significant compared to the other 5 ?

So in essence:

- Instead of earning money based on ticket sales, they will be paid a fixed amount to run the service. (Good)

- No mention of either compensation or explicit exclusion of penalties. (lack of any detail)

- Still some time to go for loss making routes.

I think we need to see the details before getting too excited. I'd hoped for a bit more substance to it.

Hopefully the start of --> Arrowstreet and the likes off to Upsh#tcreekStreet.......

@Saab93se - good to know they got at least one wrong.....i think i checked the last 3

Still feels a bargain at this price .....although i said that long ago at 115p :-|

I'd say increase in shorts for Arrowstreet Capital is more ominous - they've gotten a lot of other short calls correct.

I'd say the bond is "recovering" is more appropriate........vs "recovered"

@Paddy - yep, no more penalties going forward should be the least we can hope for.

Whether there are some to account for yet that haven't been declared in the last update.....we'll see but i hope for no more.

Reading between the lines ....

- NE escalated with short strike and important train cancellations, as a level to getting compensation.

- German GOV are still playing hardball and likely no compensation.

- NE have now plugged all driver shortage gaps to ensure that can't be used as a reason for penalties, going forward.

I doubt very much any compensation will get payed retrospectively .......i believe it should but i seriously doubt it, from what i can glean,

Which means....

· On track to deliver adjusted operating profit guidance for the 12

months ending 31 December 2025 towards the lower end of the £180m to £195m

range

This statement above from TU probably should have been altered ?

Mobico: To Change Its Accounting Reference Date And Financial Year End From 31 December To 31 March, Effective Immediately

I guess done to give more breathing space on current year ? or perhaps KPMG advised ?

On a positive, you can see shoots of a turnaround in the update.....

The market hardly ever reacts well to "lower end"