RE: AML14 Dec 2021 13:45
CFO resign after only 18 months
-Sports/GT cars sales collapse: Half what they were in 2019, pre-pandemic.
-Current court case could lead to bankruptcy : Stroll rips up Nebula agreement over Valkyrie/Valhalla/Vanquish royalties.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/11/03/aston-martins-billionaire-owner-head-on-collision-super-rich/
https://www.ft.com/content/3ed6a859-ad69-4b0c-b57d-3c580e9613e6
-Gross debt of £1.3bn = £165m per year in interest. Bondholders undisclosed, making 10.5% to 15% per annum, doubling their cash in 5 years)
-Operating losses of £250+ million this year. YTD 9 months = £188m loss.
-Still burning through cash…. £60m burned between 25th Feb and 28th July 2021( £144m per annum)
-St Athan (DBX production) running at 40% capacity, laid off 1/3 of the workforce.
-AML capitalise 95% of R&D when majority of other car companies are less than 40%, so shares anything but undervalued.
https://www.ft.com/content/a9a73b9c-ae9d-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c
"Concerns have focused on some of the carmaker’s racier accounting policies. For instance, it capitalises much of its R&D expenditure, amortising this over the expected life of each model it makes.”
-Valkyrie production handed over to Mulltimatic. Moers admits 6 weeks to build 1 carbon fibre tub = 40 produced p/year. 260 orders = 6.5 years to build them all.
https://karenable.com/analysis-of-aston-martins-q3-2021-results/.
-Cannot generate enough cashflow to pay interest on debt never mind pay off debt.
-Operating Profit, Free Cash Flow, and Net Debt heading in the wrong direction,
-Loading dealers with DBX models to inflate wholesales, refusing to publish 'retail sales' to obfuscate demand.
-Stroll promises 10,000 sales, 2bn revenue, 500m ebitda by 2024/25 (which is almost double the sales & revenue 2 years from now) Minus D&A of >£300m (so let’s say 325m), minus interest of £165m = £10m profit, but based on no royalty payments from Valkyrie/Valhalla/Vanquish (courts decide)
-Stroll suing company who sell 20% of all AML’s limited edition cars through their St Gallen dealership, and have an agreement in place to fund Valkyrie project, costs to be recouped on Valkyrie, Valhalla and Vanquish royalties, so you can pretty much say goodbye to a decent portion of the £10m profits above)
-Agreement with Merc until 2027, but Moers refuses to answer analysts if AML will receive the MBUX infotainment or Mercedes AMG EA (high performance electric powertrain) technology .
- Stroll raising hundreds of millions for F1 team via the brandname of Aston Martin. As CEO of AML, he should have our best interests at heart, not F1 and his son. F1 should be paying us for the use of the brand, not the other way round
Fundraising:
£150m 2019
£540m in Feb/March 2020
£75m loan from Stroll to see the business through to the rights issue
£100m credit line opened March 2020
£190m rights issue June '20
$68m bonds @ 12% June '20
£125m equity release Oct '20
$107.4m more in bonds Feb '