Member Info for jazz_01

I had no holdings pre covid, my first buy was 74.5p and topped up all the way to circa 200p but then trimmed along the way up to move into Cake Box which is a completely unrelated stock to this one when it was circa 270p ( now at 360p)

This is a very quite board, are there any key dates on the horizon for Hollywood Bowl? Dont seem to get much movement in price on this one - suprised we havent seen more of an uptick considering its been pretty flat for months.

jtan - Ive always found it helpful to zoom out when theres high levels of volatility, when you look back at these issues a year past when they occured, you realise just how insignificant certain topics of discussion were.

With NEX, ive seen every comment under the sun from the initial 50% crash in 1 day at the peak of covid, many people brought in and sold with a quick 10% gain here and there, some took losses, most of the people sitting on healthy profit in my opinion are the ones who kept a level head. This doesnt exclude those that got lucky that sold at the peak but the timing of that is near impossible.

Fundamentals of NEX are strong - its very difficult to see how the covid situation wont be radically improved a year from now.

as usual - market overeaction.

Nothing wrong with the owner wanting to sell a stake in the company - the company has strong growth fundamentals and they have over delivered against everything promised to date.

I bought in at the peak of the crash so still sitting on healthy margin here and topped up all the way.

This merger will be a good thing and aid in multiple areas, the obvious being synergies in removal of managment layers, shared resources in internal contracts i.e buying power in new buses in the future. The biggest benefit in my opinion is less competition as i have witnessed first hand these two bid against each other, once that is is removed you will see much higher margins in the UK over the years.

NEX and stagecoach have strong local authority links in their own areas too - they are almost fully embedded/fully ingrained into the councils and transport networks to the point i cant see how they will ever be removed from the contracts they are in neither.

The market is still wacky and alot of pricing makes no sense - so i wouldnt take these share price movements as much of an indication of anything.

In a weigh up of buying vs selling in the short term , i can see both justifications for buying and selling, however the 2+ year time horizion it is buy all day.

Excellent news - was expecting something like this to occur as we exit COVID - only thing I wasn’t sure on was would mergers like this be allowed due to various competition laws but when the industry is in the way it is - the government has close contracts with national express I.e whole of West Midlands, this merger will go straight to the profit margins botto
line as there’s so much cost duplication that can be eliminated.

Its disappointing but its being dragged down as part of the wider travel sector - when things like this happen you should be mopping up those that have been unfairly dragged down, not running scared.

Its difficult to analyze the performance of a single stock like NEX in the short term in the current environment we are in as a whole.

You can see clear correlation in prices from certain sectors/stocks that bare little to no relation on NEXs environment but NEX is dragged down (or up) in the same way. At the moment stocks are very much in my opinion moving in a herd manor rather then being able to individually breakout based on their own performance. Its only the well researched that realise NEX's positioning is very different then other travel companies and within that, other bus companies.

Overall - when this was 320p+ vs the 258p we are out now, have the facts changed to justify that 20-25% gap? I dont think so one bit. Im actually more bullish but the news of all the potential Delta variants slowing down international travel, risk of Delta in general around the world, Inflation and all the usual fears have pulled Transport stocks down.

There is almost 0 chance the UK operations will not continue to be supported by the government for years to come as its such a key agenda piece for carbon footprint, focus on public transport, getting electrified etc. The US will ramp up the vaccines eventually and you will see a boom again too and Spain will also eventually recover.

Key thing is to ignore the day/weekly/monthly swings unless it is a clear fact that fundamentally changes the future of NEX - which nothing I have seen is.

Ive seen similiar pull backs on MAB (Pub shares) which makes 0 sense to me yet BOWL (Hollywood Bowl) is going strong (you would think they are both almost completely correlated in terms of covid restrictions etc) but over the short term you can really over analyze movements and waste your time.

Good luck all.

Suprised there hasn’t been more activity on the back of the results.

It’s hard to compare what we were expecting given we are projected for strong growth with like for like sales up, store openings but then impact of COVID to consider.

Either way this looks like fantastic news overall and reaffirms the share price for the near future.

I don’t see what in the near term could bring this down, only slow the growth at realistic worst case but I think with everything that’s going on in retail right now with many landlords dropping rent rates, I can see more aggressive expansion on the horizon.

Crazy price, I cant top up as im heavy into other shares but the price of this has gotten silly.

This is a critical service in the UK that will only grow, Bus service in US is going nowhere with the whole of the US opening up. The only risk really is the Spain service with how fast the volumes will rebound.

Either way - you wont see new players in this market for a very very long time, NEX has market dominance in many of its markets. This should be 350-370p in my opinion and is now firmly on my radar for a top up if this continues to drop.

They said in their RNS it is not a material impact....

Topped up, nice and easy.

This is down purely on retail investors being shaken due to the data breach (cakebox sending email to all customers telling them their data may of been compromised such as card and security code, email addresses).

The fact that this hasn't even been RNS's tells me this is precautionary, not a single news article on it neither. Ontop of this i think this breach was a while back but they only just know now, therefore we can only assume that the data was probably never even used.

Great example of how small rumours/panic selling can move a share price of a small cap so fast. this was 15-20% higher then some of the lows today at the point of that email going out.

I dont see how this will suddenly surge to 350-450p anytime soon.

The only routes I can think of will be:

- Rapid decline in Covid (theres still downward pressure on a share like this, try telling someone to buy shares in a bus company and they will think you have gone mad).

-Large contract wins

-Confirmed long term government support i.e Birmingham Council doubles down on the midlands area with elements such as the new congestion/emissions zone coming into effect and a push for bus dravel.

-International recovery in schools/long distance travel, again linked to Covid reduction.

I saw a recent Facebook post today from Merry Hill in Dudley, the shopping centre now had a massive kiosk. 100s of positive comments and excitement, I can really see this business model dominating and doing so fast, much faster then what’s currently priced in so I’ve topped up again today.

If you can get these stalls in places like Cheshire oaks outlet, Cannock outlet, Bicester and all the major shopping centres this thing will pop.

I can also see this getting acquired before it ever gets to the top true value tbh as big players will see this as a play to acquire and make more efficient.

Could always of been earlier! Agreed on the momentum - this is still under the radar so it feels as though this has been simply mispriced at the point they said sales were strong even after factoring in lockdown.

Ive added more here on the back of more thinking into this. I like shares with low market caps and no share chatter on the board, this tells me its something thats under the radar.

Any buying based on not much news to me indicates insider knowledge through low level employees, suppliers and in this case probably franchises.

Went to Cakebox yesterday, again impressed with the service, product and overall proposition.

If i didnt have so much in this already relative to all my other holdings i would be topping up here.

The retail results today shows how much of a bounce back there is, this is after the pubs/restaurants have barely been open ( not sure if they are even captured in the numbers yet). But if the pent up demand for something like clothing was so high,which could of been purchased online. What does that say about the potential pent up demand for pubs and restaurants?

Genuinely think many of these pubs and restaurants will be practically unbookable for months on the peak days as people get ready to spend as lockdown eases.

Feel im late to the party but put a very small amount into here.

I have been to a few of their stores multiple times and has been a excellent experience everytime and the cakes are always consistent.

In the asian culture whenever there is a big religous event these places are packed, all our birthdays are pretty much through cakebox with their cakes too.

Prices of the cakes are very reasonable, fresh, consisent.

Overall, theres a small bear case that they currently have a lot of the asian dominated areas of the country covered therefore how much more can they really grow, but equally the product should cover a wide basis of people and i currently only see most customers in the asian community but i can see this covering everyone.

Hence although location wise the expansion will rise but eventually reach a peak point, the volume each store could do could easily increase with more marketing and exposure.

i also think the supermarket play is a potential to take volume away from the franchises and cannibilise some volume but at the same time the exposure of cakebox may boost the sales from new customers again.

Also the fact the product lines are still very limited with no dine in, there is potential for more products and throwing in 1-2 tables into the bigger cakebox stores as you see with takeaways.

Overall - not sure if its currently overpriced as its gone up quite a bit, but equally theres a massive bull case scenario here with a tiny market cap backed by solid growth and value fundamentals.

Could be 20-30% down from here a year on but over 3-5 years could potentially 2-5 bag.

How do you claim the vouchers ?