Member Info for chanjael

Although I am yet to receive a response (as ironically he is on holiday until 15th June but I will post his response here once I have it) I emailed TCG's Group Head of Investor Relations yesterday and thought it may be of interest to some of you on here prior to me receiving a response. My email to him reads as follows: "Mr Sandford, For the first time I find myself writing to Thomas Cook in order to express my total and utter frustration, disappointment and worry with the way in which the business is being handled by the current board. Their inability to communicate any positive news to the market amongst other internal factors has led to a huge drop in the company value over recent months. I ask you, as an individual with £140,000.00 (now only £80,000.00 in only 6 months!) invested in your firm, what are the current board trying to do to stop the current share price free fall!? I invested whilst Harriet Green was at the helm and what a superb CEO she was. Incredible that there was no explanation as to why she decided to leave at that time. I think I now understand. Surely she could only have decided that the people she was working with were incompetent. Just to see Mr Fankhauser smiling during recent interviews is beyond belief. When Harriet resigned in November 2014 the share price stood at around 135p. It is now less than half of that! Does this not ring colossal alarm bells with all employees of Thomas Cook? Does Mr Fankhauser not feel responsible or ashamed of his record? Any other business he would be history and quite rightly. He's the guy at the top and is failing his investors miserably. It is also absolutely unbelievable that after all the hype regarding the tie up with Fosun and the Chinese market, that it has not been mentioned in any of the company updates. As a personal shareholder in your business I'd like to know where we are at with Fosun? Why doesn't it get mentioned? Why are they building up their shareholding now at a shade over 7%. Are they looking to buy us out on the cheap? If any of this board decide to pat themselves on the back with bonuses they should be bloody well ashamed of themselves. You have a HUGE number of private investors who bought in with Harriet and later with the "what now seems to be the secretive" massively important Fosun tie up - NEVER MENTIONED!!! My word! get a grip board! My advice for all of the board is to get their act together, start giving the market some positive rhetoric of which there must be plenty and most importantly look at why your business is clearly failing under the current regime. Yes, it is failing. I am seriously worried about my seemingly ill founded investment pot decision to direct your way. A response with some meat to it would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Paul ******

thank you for the link, a reality check

Struggling to see why, from this mornings update, this share has plummeted 20% today! TUI's share price has reversed 2.5% so it can't be down to the missing aircraft in the news or they'd all fall similarly surely? Something stinks here for sure. Fankenstein is about as convincing as a UK entry at the Eurovision song "contest" - as in, no hope! The man has to go. The markets have no confidence in him and this is unsurprising when you read the way in which recent announcements have been worded. HG had a knack, he hasn't! Incidentally, WTF has happened to the Fosun China link. No mention whatsoever - quite incredible in that they own 6% of the shares in issue. Why no mention Fanky boy? Almost like the whole saga has been forgotten!! Frank out, bring back HG pronto!

incidentally Harry, and on a lighter note, my username is made of the first two letters of each of my four children's first names. I always wonder why people choose theirs so thanks for the insight . .

I'm hoping someone out there can answer a question for me. Why is it that Google Finance always seem to have a different closing share price to most other sites. For instance, TCG closed today at 88.85 as you can see here. But Google list the price as 89.27. This happens regularly and not just with TCG's price. Anyone know the answer? If so, thanks in advance . . .

Harry, I agree entirely. Invesco have substantially increased their holding since the Fosun link came to light. Ok it's true that these big boys can bide their time (which I intend to do inline with Mr W Buffet's "patience" quote) but for me, why have Invesco committed to such a large holding in Thomas Cook? Invesco are not chancers and I don't think I am wrong in stating that I firmly believe Fosun will acquire. There is no sentiment from either side - it's a mutually beneficial situation. Fosun get a historically strong and enviable brand, Thomas Cook (owned by Fosun) get large additional numbers from the most populous market bar none. I'm not hoping here, my gut and my head tell me these boys are for real and will choose their moment wisely. Anyway, this is only my opinion however strong? ATB, Chanjael

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-club-med-bidding-war-was-waged-1423692196

Optimism? Yes. Dreaming? No. In 2010 Fosun bought 7% of Club Med claiming that they wanted to help build their business in Asia - sound familiar?. They then offered a huge premium on the existing share price at the time in order to acquire the business, I am not a dreamer and I'd hope that if you read the following article you will see that although not a formality, the potential acquisition viewpoint is far from a pipe dream but a real possibility. GLA.

Bored and working nights so time on my hands. I have taken a look back through RNS's relating to Fosun's holdings in TCG. From what I see they bought 73m shares in March 15. This equated to 4.76% of Shares in issue - not quite the 5% reported. Their latest purchase has increased their holding to 92m shares, or 6.02% in the company. Although not a huge deal it still means they have acquired a further 19m shares since March 15. Clearly a real commitment which I'm sure will lead to Fosun acquiring Thomas Cook in the not too distant future. Either way the condfidence shown by Fosun in the future of TCG speaks volumes to me. GLA!

"The accountant" Thank you for that explanation much appreciated. Makes sense to me now. Note to self, "must think outside of the box more" :-)

Beats me! Why would Fosun buy up such a small number of additional shares after making such a large purchase last year. It kind of seems pointless to me. If they deemed the current price to be such a good deal why on earth not buy a significant number? 500k is not significant in the scheme of things! Any ideas?

Just seen Fosun purchase on regulatory news.

Evening Harry and Upnorth, hope you don't mind but can I ask where this info came from? I have not seen anything to indicate that Fosun have upped their 5% stake, although naturally if they have then that's great news. Is their a link or something as I have not seen an RNS or any TCG news report which mentions it. Any info would be much appreciated. Cheers.

Just in case anyone didn't catch this last week, it's worth a read. Apologies if already posted: http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2016/03/31/3-smart-picks-for-income-investors-bt-group-plc-babcock-international-group-plc-thomas-cook-group-plc/

Where did you read that Harry?

Hi all, don't get me wrong I am naturally as miffed as the next man to watch TCG's share price sink around 23% from 119'ish on 4th Jan to around 91 as it stands today. The reality is though, that although many of you on this blog are unhappy with the board in terms of their apparent downbeatness (not sure if that's a word but hey ho!), TUI's share price has fallen almost identically in the same period. It's not just TCG it is pretty much across this sector. G'luck all.