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Yes, good point. There will be non-cash accounting charges to take on Nexus sales. It looks as though they have £8.7m (as at 30 June 2025j of capitalised software costs for the transceiver business. I would imagine this is nearly all Nexus and this gets amortised (expensed) to p&l over five years. So not too far off £2m a year as there would have been some more development costs in the last six months of the year.

From the other board Cavendish is projecting £14m profit for 2026 and £27m for 2027. Dependent on Kenya coming through.

I had hoped for PBT more around £5m than £3.1m but it is early days on the progress of the contracts so it is difficult to know how much of the MDA revenue is simply pass through of subcontractor costs for infrastructure and how much is software installation which is where SRT makes its money (although the software delivery is understood to be more front loaded in the contracts). About six months ago (?) they did do quite a detailed slide in a presentation showing the delivery phases (subcontractor for infrastructure, software delivery etc) on, I think, the actual contracts but I cannot relocate that.

Cash of c£41m is encouraging but c£27m of that is currently restricted and it will presumably take at least a year or so to become unrestricted. I wonder a bit if they have enough immediate cash to stump up if a new performance bond is required for a new contract. I guess they can, if needed, short- term borrow now the balance sheet is stronger.

The second half should have somewhat stronger revenue and (particularly) margin on the transceiver side of the business as it is skewed towards the spring/summer months in the northern hemisphere. There is also the Nexus rollout which I picked up somewhere is initially 5,000 units to fulfil back orders. The RRP seems to be about £1,200 excl sales tax. If the margin is similar to the transceiver business (about 50% from memory) that would be about £3m of extra gross margin which should more or less fall to the bottom line.

The transceiver

I find it absolutely baffling they need to put out this type of RNS (one of a number of Reach RNSs recently). I hope it is not pure desperation and a last gasp try on to get the share price temporarily up for, presumably, some rather disappointed recent US investors. Notably no numbers or hard new granular information, except just possibly India as others have said.

Griff75. Thanks also for the tender spec. It seems to me that they will get the GBR app up and running first and then, although it is not entirely clear, close down the ToC apps in Phase 2. I would imagine this would involve migration of data before closure but the spec is not explicit.

Griff75. Thanks for that. When I looked it up the fact that Trainline sells 50% of all train tickets seems to be what comes up on a Google/AI search and in turn appears to track back to a Competition Authority report which I cannot find. I can’t really believe that number. It may be that 50% relates only to e-tickets sold (that came up on one AI driven google search which did not point to a source). Also it could relate to the NUMBER of tickets sold rather than VALUE. I think value is the more relevant figure for Trainline as that is what it’s commission is based on. Here is some other data.

Trainline’s sales in the UK Consumer segment for 2025 were £3.9bn (2024 - £3.5bn). This will be the train tickets sales but also some coach ticket sales which I think will be immaterial. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) numbers for total UK rail tickets sales are for 2025 £11.5bn (2024 - £10.4bn). This would therefore suggest that Trainline’s share of overall rail market revenue is for 2025 33.9% (2024 - 33.7%). There may be some difference in the basis of the numbers eg Trainline’s revenue figure is net of refunds which may not be the case for the ORR numbers but I think the comparison will be materially correct.

Trainline also says in its 2025 Annual Report that online tickets are for 2025 57% (2024 - 55%) of the overall market and that e-tickets are for 2025 52% (2024 - 47%) of the overall market. On a revenue basis for e-tickets that is for 2025 £6.0bn (0.52 x 11.5) and for 2024 £4.9bn (0.47 x 10.4). This would suggest that Trainline has, given it is I think entirely e-ticket, a share of total e-ticket revenue of for 2025 65% (3.9/6.0) and for 2024 71% (3.5/4.9) of e-ticket revenue.

This is all rather heavy on numbers which may not all have the same basis and I cannot quite reconcile some of it eg why is percentage of total e-ticket sales going down but Trainline’s overall share of the market is stable but it does give a sense of Trainline v the overall market. It is a pity Trainline in its annual report does not give more analysis such as I have attempted.

It seems Trainline is more dependent on the overall market going up through fare inflation and more passenger journeys rather than capturing more market share. It would be interesting to know what falls outside their current market share. I would imagine a good chunk of it is season tickets and one off longer journeys where people may be more inclined to go to a ToC ticket office, website or app. Both will be high price items which may be difficult for Trainline to capture.

It has felt over the last few days that there is increasing momentum in the share price. Trading update soon.

I don’t think Trainline sells 50% of UK train tickets. Possibly I am wrong but I can’t find a number. What they have said is that e-tickets are 52% of the overall market in their FY2025 and I would imagine they do a good deal of that eticketing. The rest will be physical tickets so there is ample room for growth.

I also doubt the ToCs will turn off their own eticketing functionality until the app for GBR is up and running. This, however, caused me to wonder how the transition would work. Would they simply close off their apps and redirect current users to the GBR app to set up there or migrate their users and data to the new app? My guess would be migration as the data on customers will be valuable and want to be retained. There may also be pricing details such as stored railcards for discounts that would be important to have on the GBR app. With about two dozen ToCs the capacity for a government project to screw up such a data migration exercise is very considerable indeed.

Griff75

Here is my source which shows the other tech companies.

https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/east-midlands-railway-begins-digital-pay-as-you-go-ticketing-trial/69501.article

Trainline solutions (which will be dong the EMR trial) seems to be just as an important part of the business as the UK consumer direct ticketing. High gross margin and little marketing costs although it seems a great deal of the staff work on it as admin expenses are high. See page 105 of the annual report. Seems to be mainly B2B and EBITDA growing at a fast clip. It may well be that this becomes the central part of the business if ticket revenue and commission rates are smashed down by a government competitor.

Also worth noting that Continental European rail lines seem to be going the other way to the UK ie liberalisation rather than central control.

Trainline is the tech provider for East Midlands Railways’ trial of Digital Pay As You Go. There are three more trials in England on the Northern railway each with a different tech provider (not Trainline). As I understand it how DPAYG works it requires a smartphone, app and crucially the downloading of a barcode to be scanned at a barrier at the start of a journey. The end of the journey will be determined by geolocation on the smartphone or presumably scanning at a barrier (if there is one) at the destination station. At the moment it is therefore (because of the use of a barcode) seemingly not that different from having a digital ticket. The crucial difference seems to me that you do not appear to pay in advance but in arrears - I would guess by payment being taken automatically from your account using preloaded payment details given to the train operator. A major benefit to the customer of paying in arrears is that the system will automatically give them the best price based on their rail journey activity in a particular day or perhaps week.

I think the barcode is necessary because for revenue protection the train operator needs its revenue protection teams and guards to have some way of checking where someone has started their journey.

It seems to me that, for the moment, three different digital models may emerge. Firstly, just paying by bank/credit card (I think this is still how the Tube still works but haven’t used it for quite a while). This works for short journeys costing not too much in a largely enclosed rail network with barriers at nearly all stations so evasion is minimised. Secondly, at the other end of the spectrum will be digital rail tickets for long journeys where there is significant incentive to fare evade much more significant journey costs and so revenue has to be protected by tickets and barriers. Somewhere in between is the EMR type hybrid model where most journeys will be short but a passenger can get access to a rail network that can take them long distances ie the network is not as enclosed as eg the Tube.

It is all rather complex and there are issues around collecting failed payments, family groups being catered for, refunds for cancellations, delays etc. The structure and tech cannot be easy and it will need the expertise of a company like Trainline.

There is actually an article in The Times today about revenue protection at Waterloo and the problem of short ticketing. Fare evasion is reckoned to lose the entire rail network around £350m - £400m a year. So not trivial.

I take your point, however BOD members often do not purchase shares even after a sharp or prolonged dip. They may not have the money available and may be reluctant to commit too much to the company which is also their wage earner. Concentration risk.

I suppose the enhanced buyback is a sign of the BOD seeing the share price as too low. They could easily start paying a dividend which would be more likely to immediately boost the share price but are not. I am rather with the buyback. They don’t often yield immediate results but gain traction over time. I had expected the buyback to go up somewhat from the previous £75m but was very surprised it went to £150m. Not entirely sure how it is being financed (need to see the latest financial information when it comes out) but guess it is from ongoing (then projected at time of announcement) cash flows with the RCF as a potential backup.

Convertible also due to be repaid in January. Not sure how that will be financed - presumably the RCF.

Yes, thanks. Having posted I did have a sneaking suspicion that they may have extended longer last year but could not be bothered to check. The fact they went out to end 2026 perhaps tells as to when they the think the business may uptick (if it ever does).

We are due SYM’s annual extension of the term of the Directors’ options “for practical reasons” shortly. They normally sneak out an RNS just before Xmas.

Bought a few. Looks like a reasonable price. Not too sure about this but, as with others, I am doubtful about the government getting a rival up and running anywhere near schedule. Also with a bit of luck the losses on the Continental Europe operations will start to lessen and it may move towards breakeven.

SYM have a very long history of broken promises. In their entire almost 25 year history on AIM they have only made a decent profit in one year, just above breakeven in another and all the rest have been losses - often quite substantial. The problem with these mooted commercial trials concluding is that, even if successful, customers tend to initially only order quite cautiously and it will take some time to build up sales from that position. SYM’s best immediate hope is Indian certification. If that comes through, the timing of which is highly uncertain, then the share price will be get a boost.

Note that Indorama’s latest extension on the convertibles is only six months. The previous extension was 15 months. That MAY indicate that Indorama are expecting some early results next year. However, although SYM is seemingly terrible at selling its products it has been very good at attracting investors who have generally ended up disappointed. So it is difficult to know.

Yes, rereading it you are right. Apologies. I think it is somewhat unusual as most convertibles do not have automatic conversion. I therefore struggle a bit to understand Indorama’s motivation in rolling the convertible conversion. Perhaps it comes back to the Takeover Code point, SYM may have more power over this issue than I first thought.

Yes, that it what I said. Right to convert - Indorama, right to repay (in full or part) - SYM. Perhaps we are talking at cross purposes.

The right to convert, of course, lies with the investor. The Indorama investment vehicle has a tricky balancing act. Obviously it would prefer to convert at the lower price and get a bigger share of the company but this is not very attractive if SYM continues to go nowhere (more of very little is not helpful) - it would be better to be repaid. However, this is SYM’s right not Indorama’s. Having said that because they are in hock together through the Indian JV there may be (some) scope for negotiation between the two parties.

There is another aspect to this. Indorama owns 19.68% of the company. If the convertibles were converted in full and the conversion price resulted in c24m or more shares issued then they would go above the 30% Takeover Code threshold and technically have to bid for the whole company. I think they might be able to get a Rule 9 waiver on this from the Panel but it is all a bit fiddly. At the current share price since 1 October they would have to issue that level of shares. It is only if the shares get to 9p - 10p or above that the problem goes away.

Extended again (third time I think) but this time for only six months. Probably always the most likely outcome. SYM does not have the cash to repay and I am not sure in SYM’s current state Indorama would want to convert. However, I suspect this is the last time they will extend. Patience must be running out.

Just to add a point or two to others. There are two types of leverage -operational and debt. Custardpoint was talking about operational leverage (ASIC costs v revenue). Gold companies are also typically leveraged through debt and the related interest payments (again a cost v revenue). However, with the gold price so high that leverage is diminished for many companies.