Member Info for justaquickone

No bid was inevitable but great news in my eyes.

Platinum being the buisness they are thought they could get MARS on the cheap but everyone knows MARS are in a great position and poised to capitalise post Covid.

Managed to make a few quid out of the bid but will be buying back in now and hopefully we can realise true value GLA

At some point you would think it's got to turnaround as its been a very gloomy share for a number of years now.

I'm personally not convinced of a turnaround as it would take a changes at board level or series of events for me to reinvest but I always like to keep a watchful eye on this one as its made me alot money in the past.

Only 3 possible reasons as to why Trak have a high turnover of staff

1) Poor recruitment i.e. selecting individuals who dont deliver
2) Lower than average salarys or inability to earn commission - No idea if this is the case
3) Poor company to work for and people leave at the first opportunity of a new job offer

Eiether way when you look at the past 4-5 years Trak have had a new sales team pretty much every year which doesn't instill confidence with me.

Future looks good for ARW. I took a position couple of weeks ago which was going to be a trade based on a decent update but the SP is massively undervalued and with the outlook looking so positive and ARW primed to take advantage of the current climate this is now a hold for me.

I know through people who are connected to the industry.

Also saw a post a few weeks ago on linkedin suggesting Shell were handing out free hardware and employee's of Geotab were liking and commenting on the post (in a positive manor)

Shell are using Geotab

I would say it was privately tenanted.

In fairness we didn't ask for table service as all members of staff (2) were behind the bar. Had we sat down for long enough someone might have come over but we just didn't get a good vibe hence we moved on.

''Sorry clicked post message before I'd finished''

Anyway as I said we felt uneasy with the lack of precautions and hence we walked to another pub.

My concern as an investor was the fact that the pub which had clearly put precautions in place and was offering table service only was busy whereas the MARS pub with no precautionary measures was actually really quiet.

Indeed, but not at the risk of safety. The pub was far from busy just what looked like a group of regulars sitting around the bar area putting potential new customers (like me) off.

Rest of the pub was empty was purely an observation and was purely a passer by who did not like what I saw and went elsewhere.

I was just surprised. We went into a couple of pubs (well gardens) whilst we were away and generally they all seemed really organised and safety conscious. This particular MARS pub however, seemed to be in a time warp where Covid didn't exist and typically was the only pub I'm invested in. Just hope it was an isolated case and MARS have implemented better safety precautions elsewhere as it certainly put me and my wife off.

Apologies, meant to say narrow boat.

Has anyone visited a MARS pub recently. I'm not sure if this is an isolated case but I was somewhat shocked with a recent visit to a MARS pub. We hired a narrow last week and stopped overnight in a village in Stafford which had a MARS pub right on the Canal. I was shocked when I entered the bar area to see lots of people sat up the bar drinking, no screens on the tables / bar and no measures for track and trace as they did not ask us for any personal information. We felt very uncomfortable so left and went to a pub up the road which were offering table service outside and were clearly taking precautionary measures. Has anyone else visited a MARS pub recently ?

Great set of results and wording around Covid and impact on consumer habits and online shopping was perfect.

Perfect market conditions for online shopping and with AO. doing their own internal house keeping everything seems teed up for game changing November update.

Indeed, I'm setting the alarm for 6.30am, a quick coffee and hopefully followed by a positive RNS confirming business is booming.

My only reservation is AO. downplay current and future activity levels as they may not want to sound to positive about the fact they are actually benefiting from Covid / lock down.

If AO. choose their words wisely £1.85 has got to be on the cards.

The expansion was a pure gamble and an expensive one. If I recall correctly it was going to cost on the region of 1.5 million to turn it into a state of the art manufacturing facility. That's a a lot of money to spend when you havent got the signed orders to keep it busy.

In terms of customer losses 10% attrition is high (circa 25k per year). You only have to look at the fleet connections 76,000 - 2019 and 77,000 in 2020. They are pretty much standing still ?

Pianists - All fingers and thumbs but it comes to something when you have to point a typo ?

There is no way Trak are going to get anywhere near 500.000 units by 2021.

Putting Covid and a recession to one side Trak are losing customers hand over fist.

The expansion of their manufacturing facility still lies dormant and empty.

Last RNS said there was a modest return to growth. Hang on last year was a disaster and a 2% increase in sales is still a disaster.

Based on the last 2 years what makes you think Trak are going to hit 500,000 units by 2021

Another possible reason for not mentioning the contract value is the likelihood it would put Icelands nose out of joint.

Iceland paid a premium for their software so if all of a sudden Trak win a similar contract at a knock down bargain price I cant imagine this would go down too well with existing customers.

I agree the customer may not have given consent to be named pubically but i still stand by what I said if this was a significant contract you can guarantee Trak would be shouting it from the roof tops (as they have done previously).

In terms ignoring debt - This is most likely because software only contracts are derisked as there is generally no capital expenditure i.e hardware / installations etc.

Likewise you also have to consider the fact the ex CEO of Routemonkey is now offering optimisation on pay as you go.

If Trak are also offering a pay as you go option it might explain why this particular customer decided to take the risk ?

All assumptions of course but my views on Trak iare based on their inability to be upfront and straight over many years.

People seem to forget only 3 years ago JW filmed himself saying they would have 1 million connected units within the next 5 years.

Leopards and spots spring to mind !!

Knowbody - For someone who has been invested in this share as long as you have you clearly dont know anything about optimisation contracts.

Optimisation contracts are no different to any other type of contract. Yes fleet sizes change and yes future development outside of the original scope may or may not be required but ultimately there will always be a starting point I.e minimum term commitment, number of R&D days required to deliver spec, project timelines which are probably linked to payments and volume commitment etc.

If you think the customer and Trak dont know the value of the work being committed to and carried out then your delusional.

Don't think the Cowleys have any clout in the way the business is run.

Its the Watkins pulling all the strings and the rest of the BOD are lemmings.

The Cowleys authority was removed years ago when JW started employing his oppo's from his Omitec days including his son.

Clearly didn't work out to well as the share price has done nothing but drop since, R&D spend v's output is ridiculous, reliability of tech questionable and all bar MW the rest of the Omitec team have all disappeared.

Shame they didn't take MW with them !