Member Info for FJGooner

Hi Icecool,

Yes I am back invested in Saga and have been for a little while, but didn't want to broadcast the fact un-necessarily.

I can't help but think that things are really going to move rapidly here next month when our first cruise ship is back on the ocean earning its keep.

SumOverHistories,

Exactly !!!

If that trend continues, Setanta should be completely clear at almost exactly the same time as Spirit of Discovery returns to the ocean at the end of next month.

Happy days.

Perturbed,

I have this in my notes - given the below, Setanta must be getting pretty close to having cleared out their stock, if as we suspect, they have continued selling since 09/04/2021:

Setanta position
Position of previous notification before 01/02/2021: 6.95% 9,738,506

Resulting situation on 01/02/2021 (notified 03/02/2021): 5.99% 8,395,480
Share sells notified: 1,343,026

Resulting situation on 03/02/2021 (notified 05/02/2021): 4.96% 6,947,207
Share sells notified: 1,448,273

Resulting situation on 11/03/2021 (notified 15/03/2021): 3.93% 5,500,845
Share sells notified: 1,446,362

Resulting situation on 09/04/2021 (notified 15/04/2021): 2.998% 4,200,594
Share sells notified: 1,300,251

Gordon,

Re your: "Do you remember, saga sp was flat on 22nd Feb when other travel stocks up by 5%, then 30% up in following week. Do you think the sp will be up again next week?"

Who knows, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that. However, as Sharefall rightly pointed out earlier, Setanta may be key with regards the share price's continued recovery.

Setanta's selling does seem to have been keeping a lid on prices here in the short term. We know that they reduced their final holding to under the 3% notifiable threshold on 9th April, so they could be clear any day now. That's when I'd expect the SP here to start to move up very quickly indeed.

Either way, we saw on Thursday that Saga's CEO was confident enough to buy £198K worth of shares at £3.86 - I'd suggest that he knows better than most which way this is going to be going mid and long term.

Many thanks for the reply Gordon.

That is excellent to know, especially given that these are all UK cruises - it firmly settles any issues about cash burn from next month onwards.

It also explains why the brochure that I received in the post this morning only features cruises from September 2021 onwards.

Could someone please confirm that all Saga cruises up to August 29 2021 have been sold out? If so that is surely extremely good news.

I ask because the website is showing no cruise departures available for sale before that date.

When I worked at Saga it was within the Travel division. Half of our annual bonus payment was based at company level and half was based at divisional level.

If I recall correctly, during the last 10 years that I was there, the Travel division qualified for its bonus on 7/8 years and missed out on 2/3 years (one of which was due to the eruption of the volcano in Iceland). So travel was making a positive contribution - and hitting the annually mandated profit targets - for the majority of the time.

Just an observation from my experience there and make of that what you will.

Having said that, in the later years, I had the feeling that Travel continued to exist partly for marketing the brand and partly due to its important part in the history of the company. As you rightly point out the margins are rather thin compared to the insurance operation. Staffing levels in travel were also very high in comparison to insurance.

Insurance was always seen as the senior partner - at least during this century. When I first worked there in the mid-1980s, it was still very much Saga Holidays plus other offerings such as the magazine and some insurance services.

If we can avoid volcanoes, pandemics and airlines failing whilst owing money, then travel can operate at a profit every year - the profits may not be as huge as from insurance but every little helps.

So the question may be - is the "every little helps" in the good years sufficient to outweigh the damage done in the bad years?

jackbogle,

Re your: "No you may not you boring old fart."

Great post.

Well done to you for your thorough research and to all of those that recommended your top quality post.

Your contributions to this BB always maintain a distinctive tone and calibre that is worthy of note.

"I think Saga needs to catch up with technology"

May I ask what you base that comment upon?

That is a massive lack of respect and clearly shows that you are in the grips of conspiracy theory.

Regards,

TJ Hooker

Joe,

Isn't it a bit ludicrous that The Telegraph can run both of those articles on the very same day?

I suppose that they can claim that they have every possible angle covered? :)

Roguemale1,

If it helps, I read this article this morning in The Telegraph.

The seven destinations likely to feature on the holiday 'green list' this summer

The 'traffic light system' has been confirmed for our summer holidays – which countries will get the go-ahead?

HTTps://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/advice/green-list-countries-which-red-amber-holiday-traffic-light-system-travel/

The Government has, as yet, given no clear indication as to which countries will be green, amber or red, but Telegraph Travel has crunched the numbers to assess which destinations look highly likely to get the go-ahead for a the green list.

Basically, they are saying the 7 countries may be:

Israel
Gibraltar
Madeira
The Caribbean
Iceland
Malta
USA

Okay. Bye.

Hi Gordon,

Re your: " It’s really sad you sold your holding before 22Feb, but it’s your choice and too early to say you’re wrong."

Not really - I was definitely wrong to sell in February - that's already been 100% proven by the price rising at one point over 100p above the price at which I sold.

I wish you well with your investment with Saga - it is a great business model and now, with RDH back at the helm, it is or will shortly be a great company again once more.

You can't go wrong here long term.

Banbury,

I agree completely with all of the points that you made.

That is exactly why I was reminding Gordonzhang not to forget the Tours division in his analysis.

All the best.

Icecool,

Sadly that's not correct.

The government stated that the traffic light system is to be reviewed a further three times - by June 28, July 1 and October 1.

Annoyingly, this scenario looks set to drag on for some time - see the latest government statement:

HTTPS://www.gov.uk/government/news/global-travel-taskforce-sets-out-framework-to-safely-reopen-international-travel

"While the watchlist will warn travellers of potential changes in advance, the government will not hesitate to act immediately should the data show that countries risk ratings have changed.

The allocation of countries will be kept under review and respond to emerging evidence, with a particular focus on variants of concern.

Restrictions will be formally reviewed on 28 June 2021 to take account of the domestic and international health picture, and to see whether current measures could be rolled back. Further formal reviews will take place at checkpoints no later than 31 July and 1 October 2021."

What about all of the tours that have been contracted for? And river cruises? And resort stays? In territories not given the green light? All of these were originally slated for restart in March/April, then May 17th, now who knows when?

Has anyone got costings on revenue lost in these categories whilst the government fiddles about?

Saga staff will be having to contact each customer affected and try to re-arrange departures or offer refunds.

I'm still very positive on Saga for the future, but it's best not to forget the reality of all of these moving milestones for allowable travel. It's not just ocean cruising that is affected for Saga.

Roxbury,

I was working at Saga in 1985 and although Sidney had retired the year earlier, that was very much his ethos - no pulling the wool over a customer's eyes, acknowledging errors in a frank manner and resolving properly.

It was an ethos that stayed with all of us for the next 20 years at least.

Sadly, it was cleansed away by the last poisonous shower of money-chasing dimwits that lead the company down the wrong path. This was one of the reasons that I decided to leave the company a couple of years back - it really didn't feel like Saga any more to me.

I hope - and trust - that with RDH's influence, that ethos has been or will be re-embedded.

Roxbury,

I'm going to leave it until at least after Boris's update next Monday when the Travel Taskforce reports. It's anyone's guess whether or not Boris will be delaying international travel further back than May 17th.

In any case, the market has been behaving completely irrationally of late so any negative news next week may not have the expected affect. The only thing that we can seem to rely upon with this stock these days is volatility.

As an impartial observer, I have to say that I thought the results were actually quite good. I especially liked Roger's commentary - I always did and still do trust Roger De Haan.

Congratulations on winning the price prediction game today.

I definitely didn't win.

In more ways than one. :)