Member Info for gazman

interesting article

A healthy business
The airline group generally turns in an operating profit, having cut its cost base over the past decade or more.

The carriers – Condor of Germany, Thomas Cook Airlines UK, Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia, and the recently established, small-scale Thomas Cook Airlines Balearics – operate as a single airline.

The Thomas Cook and Condor brands are strong – when the latter was ditched for a time in Germany in favour of Thomas Cook it was brought back by popular demand.

They operate a fleet of 100-plus aircraft, carrying more than 20 million passengers a year from some of Europe’s primary airports to popular holiday destinations.

The group’s long-haul flights occupy one quarter of the fleet and are increasingly popular.

Thomas Cook operates a hub-and-spoke model for these, unusual for a leisure carrier, funnelling passengers on to long-haul flights from Frankfurt and Manchester through partnerships with other airlines.

It has a healthy seat-only business comprising about 38% of traffic.

However, two assets stand out.

First, the group has attractive take-off and landing slots at capacity-constrained airports – 400-odd at Germany’s main hub airport Frankfurt, 232 at Dusseldorf and 162 at Munich.

At Gatwick, Thomas Cook has 200-plus slots and at Manchester 350. These alone would make the airline attractive to rivals.

Second, nine million of Thomas Cook’s 20 million airline passengers a year are customers of Thomas Cook, the tour operator.

That is a large proportion of seats filled by holidaymakers who have booked a package. It’s the sort of percentage easyJet would love to see its easyJet Holidays attain.

here are the facts ,
Evans joins as director of operations on July 1 from his most recent role as chief operating officer at Karisma Hotels & Resorts to oversee Thomas Cook Hotels & Resorts.

His background includes 15 YEARS at Tui, including 11 years as MANAGING DIRECTOR for its HOTEL division

Cook’s hotel division now has around 1,650 people based in Palma, on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

Enric Noguer, chief of hotels & resorts for Thomas Cook said: “Given our recent expansion with 12 new hotels already opened this summer, I wanted to add more strength within our operations team and bring together the teams across Spain and Greece as well as franchise hotels and guest experience, training and CRM under one leader.”

TCG IS EXPANDING ITS OWN HOTELS DIVISON IN READINESS and part of the strategic review FOR THE SALE OF ITS AIRLINE . stated in last presentation FACT

your point is ? , read below .... Evans joins as director of operations on July 1 from his most recent role as chief operating officer at Karisma Hotels & Resorts to oversee Thomas Cook Hotels & Resorts.

15 years at TUI, managing director of the hotels division and most people keep saying that TCG are going bust ... why would he jump ship if that was the case , obviously he’s been advised the facts not the rubbish bring spread o on here

Thomas Cook Hotels and resorts has appointed two senior hospitality figures in its Spain office including former Tui hotels boss Neil Evans.

The appointments come as Cook sets its sights on strengthening its own-brand and managed hotel portfolio of 200 properties. It has opened 12 so far this year.

Evans joins as director of operations on July 1 from his most recent role as chief operating officer at Karisma Hotels & Resorts to oversee Thomas Cook Hotels & Resorts.

His background includes 15 years at Tui, including 11 years as managing director for its hotel division.

Cecilia Svane joins from GCH Hotels as head of e-commerce to support Thomas Cook’s direct hotel sales.

Cook’s hotel division now has around 1,650 people based in Palma, on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

Enric Noguer, chief of hotels & resorts for Thomas Cook said: “Given our recent expansion with 12 new hotels already opened this summer, I wanted to add more strength within our operations team and bring together the teams across Spain and Greece as well as franchise hotels and guest experience, training and CRM under one leader.”

The company has around 12,000 rooms operating under the eight Thomas Cook hotel brands in Spain.

if you have 45 mins .. go to the six month results RNS on here, at the bottom is a link to the video presentation available via the following link. http://view-w.tv/798-1035-21516/en

Within that in May the CEO was saying bids are healthy and very positive ,,, his words

Lufthansa in their statement advise they don't think their bids will win doesn't say they have pulled out of bidding ,

The headroom banking facility £300 million is not dependent on the airline sale and was agreed at the time of the strategic announcement , also confirmed in the video presentation.

Shorter are trying to destroy the company's reputation , with one thing in mind .. reduce the share price , I've noticed when one shorter sells another takes up their stock particularly TT , all in it together .............

until the announcement on Fosun the price will drift on speculation up or down

This took some finding

https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/79204-eurowings-to-consolidate-aocs-fleet-in-cost-cutting-drive

In terms of its interest in Condor (DE, Frankfurt Int'l), Lufthansa Group's CFO, Ulrik Svensson, said that the firm was "unlikely" to be the winning bidder for the Thomas Cook Group subsidiary given its "substantial" pension fund obligations.

may not be the wining bid ... interesting,

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-thomas-cook-grp-m-a-airlines/indigo-joins-likely-bidders-for-thomas-cook-airline-sources-idUKKCN1S749X

As anything really changed since the board announced results in May ,

The board in February announced a strategic review to maximize all stakeholder values, and that what's being played out. The share price held firm for most of the day following the half year results at 19p until that announcement from Citi , the following day i might had.

Therefore the worst thing that as happened with detriment to the share price was the statement from Citi and the coordinated attack from White-box and the other five companies who have placed t short positions, hoping to drive the bonds and the share price to maximise their gains , they have continued to purchase even as the share price heads north hoping to mitigate their paper losses.

Unfortunately the management have thought back rebuffing the press reports the company was going bust , Growth within the newly formed Hotel group , bids on the table for the airlines from Virgin , Condor to name a few The air line businesses are being sold with confidence knowing that Thomas cook will provide customers for these businesses good time to consolidate airlines..

Strategic review of their currency business., Fosun announcing their intention to buy the tour group,

other observations , oil price reducing , weather in Northern Europe very poor will drive sales for holidays.

These negotiations will take months , the CEO at the last presentation emphasised this when asking for the headroom facility, he hoped to complete the airline sale before they have to return the short term lending headroom facility in June 2020 , therefore the negotiations will take time to complete not weeks but months.

.

that's the point the bids were already in and the CFO speaks out loud and says to Morgan Stanley that he's very encouraged by the level of the bids. its not a fire sale , its strategic review with shareholder value considered I'm guessing that's statement was made for the benefit of Fosun ,,, the press and shorters have their own agenda so far from the reality.

A presentation will be held for equity analysts and investors today at 09.00 (BST). A live webcast of the presentation will be available via the following link and dial-in:

http://view-w.tv/798-1035-21516/en

go to the half year RNS and at the bottom is the link to the video presentation , during the questions and answers the CFO says the bids for the airline are very healthy and they are confident of a very positive outcome.

16:26 - 30/05

Buy 650000 17.75p £115,375.00

14:31 - 30/05

Buy 381361 18.00p £68,644.98

Shorts keep increasing ........ is that similar to buying more shares has the price lowers to reduce your average cost, Dangerous game any good news about sale of airline would increase the share price and surely when shorts have to close their positions this would further accelerate the price.

Shorts at 8%

AQR Capital Management, LLC 1.04% ? 0.07% 23 May 2019

Highbridge Capital Management LLC 1.05% ? 0.14% 28 May 2019

Silver Point Capital, L.P. 0.67% ? 0.23% 20 May 2019

TT International 2.02% ? 0.19% 20 May 2019

Whitebox Advisors LLC 3.22% ? 0.88% 20 May 2019

If you listen to the live web cast 6 month results the CFO was very happy at that point and very enthusiastic at the bids already in at that time, for several parts of Thomas cook business .People saying nothing will be left once these parts are sold off.

I Understand they view to a point , however it will have several benefits , less interest payments on debt ?, reduce more debt at a discount by purchasing our bonds. This will ultimately provide more focus on hotels , surprisingly 95% are franchised by Thomas Cook , Their new business plan with £90 million fund in place , is to grow this to 30% by 2025 , 30% owned 70% franchised. The benefits this will bring to is 3/4% uplift on margin and improvement on cash flow. Also China and Russia holidays figures have doublee very year since 2016 currently sitting at 320,000 , with two hotels opened in China and Fosun waiting in the wings to make an offer once the airline sale is completed. Its all in the web cast ,

This was all announced before the American's shorter's primarily white-box and Citi started the bad press stories re Thomas Cook hoping for the collapse , to allow them to complete a debt for equity swap of some sort. will be interesting over next few months to see how the bids develop and ultimately how Thomas bookings hold up specially with all the negative press driven by the desperate bond holders who crave Thomas cooks collapse.

Thomas Cook boss insists customers' holidays are safe amid share price plunge | The Independent - https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/thomas-cook-holidays-travel-winter-share-price-safe-flights-bargains-a8922561.html

I watched the live presentation and the CFO said the bids for the airline were in and very positive. The CFO said the money would be used to pay down debt and accelerate purchase of their own brand hotels which have had a positive impact on margin.

Thomas cooks gross profits were 590million the debt cost is killing the profit, The business is currently running at 19% gross margin on 7 billion turnover , remove the airline and 50% of the debt and you still have profit. and turnover will be approx. 5 billion with 19% margin on current estimates.

He also informed shareholders that the hotel group would have its own P&L like the airline business. The hotel group as already been given fund of 90 million and 50% with a private investor.

2-5 years the hotel group will grow to 30% of Thomas Cooks own brand hotels with 70% franchised The owned hotels would also have no upfront costs , releasing the cash burden that summer bookings bring with increased margins of 3-4% over the franchised Hotels , The airline will be sold, the bids are in and being reviewed ,

The banks have agree 300 million headroom for winter if needed. If they use the money it has to be returned by June 2020 , the sale of the airline company is planned before then however the CFO said clearly and many times they do not plan to spend the 300 million (headroom.)

Fosun should make a bid for the Travel company after the airline sale , he also mentions that booking in China have increased to 320,000 since start-up with Fosun, 2017 64,000 , 2018 180,000 , 2019 320,000 , so hopeful to have growth in China and Russia. if the airline sale completes the brand will survive. The presentation is available to watch 56 minutes the link is within the RNS below . DYOR

Unfortunately, today’s placing may just be the start of the dilution. Sirius is also going to issue $644m of new convertible bonds, due in 2027. This will raise $400m of new cash and allow the group to refinance $244m of existing bonds.

Convertible bonds can be converted into shares, hence the name. The conversion price is expected to be somewhere between 18p and 22.5p. So if the Sirius share price heads upwards in future years, bondholders may choose to convert their bonds into shares.

If all the bonds are converted, I estimate that about 2.4bn new shares might be issued, adding a further 35% to Sirius’s share count.

Overall, my sums suggest that the placing and convertible bonds could reduce the value of each existing Sirius share by nearly 50%.

What comes next?

The share placing and convertible bonds should provide $800m of new cash. The next $500m is expected to come from some standard (non-convertible) bonds issued later this year. The interest rate and repayment terms for these bonds have not yet been agreed.

The final $2.5bn needed will initially come from a giant overdraft provided by JPMorgan. As the project develops, the plan is for this short-term financing to be converted into further bond issues.

Good news vs bad news

The good news is that Sirius Minerals has secured the funding it needs to complete the build of the Woodsmith mine in North Yorkshire. Unless costs rise again, this funding should see the firm through until production hits 10m tonnes per annum (mtpa). This is expected in mid-2024.

Another piece of good news is that prospective customers still seem interested. The company now has supply agreements for 10.7mtpa of POLY4 fertiliser, up from 8.2mtpa at the end of 2018.

The bad news is that shareholders will face significant dilution.

Another concern is that most of the firm’s borrowing costs are still unknown. This is a risk for equity investors, as debt costs are likely to be a significant drain on cash in the early years of production.

My view: At under 20p, I think Sirius is a speculative long-term buy. But it’s not without risk and certainly isn’t a short-term trade, in my opinion.

Ady, if he buys over 30% Custos would have to make an offer for the business , he's playing his cards close to his chest ,and obviously not ready to do that.

Basically when Majedie sold out last Thursday it was to good an opportunity to miss , he now has the box seat and sure he will have Crystal Amber on is side too, after all Bernstein never likes to lose out , they did pay 40 million for their 10% current holding , its on their figures from 2016/2017 .

Custos wants the business i reckon he's busy sorting finance for the bonds , remember JPR have 24 million in the bank, making a profit and dont have to sell just need to finance the bonds. Also the 220 million debt mentioned,
isn't 220 million, the bonds have value and if settled today , you would need 160 million , Golden tree would probably accept that because over the last five years JPR have already paid 95 million in interest payments.

So if he can find finance cheaper than the current 19 million a year paid in interest ,hes onto a winner , already saving circa 60 million on the bond and hopefully a loan for 160 million .... paying say 10 million in interest a year,


Custos is a rich company and would be able to borrow on JPR assets alone so do the math a company making 43 million EBITA , 6 million EBIT half year results ,

New finance = increased profit = stabilised business = growth = +share price

GLA DYOR

Majedie sold out last Thursday at 1.25 hence the Viking showing is grit and hovering those shares up at 1.95 nice 50k made by Mm ‘s in one day and gave The Viking 26% of this company , why would he plough more money into a dead duck ? Not to ramp , he would need to sell 26 million shares .. no chance of that more chance of a bid ..DYOR

Next stop the shorts closing , big scramble to exit , before Custos Bid ? could hit 7p today GLA DYOR

Next stop the shorts closing , big scramble toe exit , before Custos Bid ? could hit 7p today GLA DYOR