Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Velo y Tigerchamp,
Velo, I must admit I've followed many of your posts over the past year and more, often bringing a smile to my face! That article is ever so true in so many ways. Personally, I don't trust any of the politicians but given my predicament in Centrica and BT - both heavily under 'Cpt Nemo levels of water'.... I'm thinking I'll be suicidal if Labour get in. They (collectively) already destroyed my RBS, Bradford n Bingley and HBOD holdings in 2008 which I've never recovered from! Words can't describe that. Probably best for me if Boris 'Liar liar pants on fire' gets in and takes some sensible and decisive broadband stimulus measures. Jansen and du plessis are clearly capable individuals and do seem aligned to create value...I'm just not sure I will live long enough! :(
Tigerchamp- that does sound like a Golf related tag. He's had a good year! Good points by the way. To be fair BT do deserve a fair return given the billions they have invested in the network. There seems little chance any nationalisation is going to fairly price that into any compensation even though they ought to. Hopefully commonsense will prevail. Ultimately, that's all one can hope. Well, I for one am Hoping! :)
Good afternoon folks. Many good points on forums around Bt and the pickle it finds itself in. Mr Jansen didn't seem a little too laid back, almost accepting of labour's proposal. As someone that bought in to BT for a small brief turnaround & ended up 'holding' from 3.40 & now massively under water, it seems to have been one nightmare after another. I finally lime tbe chairman and ceo, better decision making & now this.
Clearly anyone would think free broadband is a fab idea but.... I can't help but think Mr Corbyn & Mr Mcdonnell don't really understand the internet/broadband/ fttc etc. And the nitty gritty of it all. To me, regardless if my heavy loss/investment here, it seems madness to spend money & time splitting up BT or Nationalising it. Destroying Talk Talk, Virgin, Vodafone & all other businesses employing people/ paying taxes on use of the network currently. Even people employed in 'price comparison sites' would probably lose jobs. Surely, its far more sensible for any government to incentivise more rapid expansion of the fibre network at minimal cost and without maximimum upheaval. The competition in the broadband supply market is already intense but also provides huge amounts of taxation to the Inland Revenue.
Labours plan, as well as making me even poorer (most likely) doesn't make financial sense to taxpayers. Has Mr Jansen pointed out....There's the build out cost, the pension liability issues, the loss of profit from current set up of openreach as a business. 5billion a year....the tax receipts, the cost of the openreach/bt employees going forward, the unemployment creates from redundancies at virgin, sky, vodafone, talk talk , price comparison, router manufacturers, broadband et al. It's completely bonkers. As many people have said, where do you draw the line? Nationalise TUI & give free holidays to all citizens...nationalise asda, tesco and all food suppliers. Lets face it shopping costs 3-5k+ a year to every household...that would be a huge benefit to all. Lol
It seems logical to tax Google, Amazon etc. Many of whom are openly & secretly abusing personal information for their own gain. I've no problem with that and put that money to helping incentivise bt et al. to improve the slowest & most remote connections more quickly. My view is that as long as we manage to go full fibre within, say, a decade from now....there's no massive loss of productivity. Folks that live in remote areas deserve higher connection speeds but those in cities getting 25-70mps speeds have enough speed for a good number of years yet.
For me, there's way too much hype & inaccuracy on the subject. Anyway, sorry to ramble on. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on anything but ultimately, if we are being sensible about this, given the way the western economies exist today....and the fact that UK gov't debt has exploded/doubled in a decade ....adding tens of billions of pounds on to create British Broadband seems nu
Oops....
As i was saying...
...No CEO can justify excessive pay.... I do think Mark Wilson gave good value overall. The company is on the front foot, without pension deficit, good cash flow, rising EPS, showing signs of growth, good capital position, slimmed down and seems to have good people in the right places. I'm very hopeful for it'a future....if they pick the right leader and get a new chairman. Good luck all that take the plunge! :)
It seems the majority of Ftse Boards like to pay themselves and they're CEO's unrealistically and It's even worse when the share price is heading south. I've been in and out of Aviva since before Mark Wilson. It was a nightmare under Andrew Moss. No personality, No sense of leadera
Ship or Creativity. I think, realistically Mark Wilson has done a great job at Aviva and I'm very disappointed to see him go. The share price has dived A LOT this week and part of that is the realisation that we've lost one of the most charismatic, concise, eloquent and refreshingly up front CEO's in the Ftse.
There is No doubt about this. Now, instead of having an impressive frontman that was -taking all things into consideration- doing a good job. If we had shown another 6-12mths of patience, Canada would be sorted out and the figures would most likely lead to re-rating. It's easy to criticise but Aviva was a rudderless mess before John MacFarlane took in Mark Wilson. I just hope Stoddard stays and they continue to be more modern in their approach. Wilson is a big loss. He'll end up running Blackrock. As for being left with Montague holding the reigns...that's a joke and a worry. He's past the age where he should be a chairman anywhere. Its like a disease across the City.
Anyway, more importantly, I do think Aviva is good value for money, especially at these prices, and given the euro/dollar strength to the pound...surely the chance of an overseas takeover is increasing by the day. If you were head of a Huge Insurance company.....what better company could you take over?! Just a thought. I'm looking to get back in when the Dow shakes out a lot more. We are living in unsettling times, between Brexit and mad Ultra loose fiscal policy that is finally being reigned in, but no-one Stateside wants the hideously big bubble to burst. It's incredible, maybe unbelievable is a better word. Moving on, It does seem that Aviva and Standard Aberdeen are becoming more attractive by the day?? Both companies could do with a Good cleancut, lively CEO...as opposed to having two or simply not having one at all.
Finally, much as I think very few or perhaps NO CEO can justify tbe excessive
known unknowns etc,. That sums up the banks and their general philosophy! Not into selling short/long yet. For those that are, they could be raking it in. The financial summary on A&L seems ok but there must be some 'hidden' problem that's leaked out, can't think paying higher interbank rates would be that damaging in the mid term. The supposed hidden problem is either a fairly big one or a relatively small one that's been blown out of proportion. There lies the risk for us i suppose. What are the chances of A&L becoming a takeover target if the price continues to fall. After all it's a 'small fish in the banking bowl of murky water!' :-)
Think we may be guessing right 'JL'. If 'reality ' does countfor something there's got to be a new '52 week low' on the horizon for most of these banks, societies and some of the insurers. Time will tell.......
Oh my.. now where did i put that crystal ball! There's sure to be a lift next week but what if this is just the start of the bad news. 50% chance of recession in states! folks out there have borrowed $800 billion dollars or more out of the value of their houses! Staggering!! but if they can't pay it back........ouch! wonder if we've done the same here? especially after our property price increases?? At some point money needs paying back or it all dries up. mnnnnnnnnnnn? philosophy is a wonderful thing! The gut tells me financial shares are a steal but that was before i saw the sub prime write-offs and the fact that more losses are to come.
where do you think bank share will go soon? I'm thinkin it's entirely possible that rbs will head below £4 , hbos below £7.40, barclays below £5 and alliance and leicester below £6? I keep thinking , even if it's true that A&L are paying more for there credit it seems they will soon be a good investment. $400 billion dollars , thats a lot of mistakes!
I have a substantial holding in ICI. What is the general feeling of the recovery in these shares and do you think they may have peaked. My feeling is that they may continue to flourish now that the debt has become managed and there seems to be a solid team at the helm. But then again ive been through the fall from £5.20 a share to 95p! !