Member Info for LorenzoLynch

Incredibly disappointed today. I really wasn’t expecting this at all, and I was actually in a rammed Card Factory yesterday.

It was the most impressed I’ve ever been by the gift selection, by a mile, especially consider the price points, although they were having a laugh with the prices of their Toberlarones.

I think they need to look at their supply chain, because effectively £10 for a Toberelarone is absolutely insane.

CARD should be insulated from the business rates rise though imo, and I expect FP to start contributing from next year and beyond.

The main thing here imo: I don’t believe that the company is in structural decline, so I expect this to be blip on an otherwise positive trajectory.

I’ve topped up aggressively.

One last thing… notice how the SP is falling as the business is seemingly turning around.

You can’t tell me that Mobico is a worse stock following the NASB sale, appointment of a new auditor and an Q3 trading in line update etc.

Risk seems to be falling week after week, whilst the potential upside remains imo, and the share price declines.

Risk remains however, so DYOR, and then DYOR again.

Just my 2p on Fitch…

I highly doubt that the board knows what’s going to happen to Alsa’s profits in 2028, let alone anybody else.

Alsa has 2 full years to generate more revenue, reduce costs and increase profitability by then. Likewise, some of the other assets might start generating a profit.

There are so many unknowns, but what I do know is:

• ALSA remains highly profitable

• There is a significant catalyst for a return to profitability in Germany

• Following the NASB sale, Mobico is awash with cash at present

• The £600m RCF is fully undrawn

• Whilst debts are large, repayment dates make this a long-term concern; not a short-term bankruptcy threat

I think we as holders underestimate just how ‘under the radar’ this is at the moment. As things improve, this stock will garner attention imo.

The FY results should pull in a lot of new money as the balance sheet will look much improved at year end imo. While we know this, it hasn’t actually been clearly RNS’d yet as the NASB money arrived after the interims.

Will be shocked if we don’t see some director buying by financial year end.

I believe the reason for allowing the hybrid bond to continue is so that they have the cash available to deal with any potential crisis which could hit the company.

While they’re not paying it off now, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s paid off in 2027 or 2028.

Smokey,

It’s the usual case of the market not knowing its arse from its elbow imo.

The market saw value here at over £3 in 2021, when it looked a sh*tshow to me and others…. Now the turnaround is underway, the market sees no value.

I can see how Buffett made his fortune by oftentimes doing the opposite of the average investor. It’s no coincidence that nearly every top investor is a contrarian.

In fact, all of my biggest profits have came from contrarian and/or deleveraging plays. I’m very relaxed about my holding.

I expect a nice rally today and tomorrow.

The market has priced in capitulation imo, and fear of the uncertainty was sky high imo. Steady trading and the appointment of a new auditor should put these fears to bed.

I think it will be a similar story with the budget, with businesses being let off the hook after last year’s disaster budget.

Glad I increased my holding by 33% on this recent dip.

I expect patience here to be rewarded nicely in the coming months and years.

Gaztop,

I genuinely expect it to be trading around the £1.50 mark within the next 12 months. If marco improves, it could push to £1.80-£1.90 imo.

It sounds ridiculous from here, but if you told any holders that it would fall from £1.54 last October to just over 61p the following April, they’d have called you insane (myself included).

Remember, the share count is much lower now than it was last October as well.

The World Cup and improving macro is all that is required for this to multibag imo.

I think the market is wrongly expecting this budget to be a repeat of last years (when it battered retail). Back in the 90’s for Xmas, I imagine.

The budget obviously presents risks to every business, but I think it’s more than priced in across most small and mid caps.

With Mobico, I would expect them to maintain pricing power even in an economic downturn. Can’t afford a train or petrol?… bus is the only realistic alternative.

Also, I visited Spain recently and I was shocked at how poor/slow the train network is there. The bus was THE way to get around, unless you had a car and didn’t intend on drinking or getting high.

For me, what this realistically needs is Alsa stability, the U.K. to break-even, WeDriveU stability and a German rail resolution for the long-term.

German compensation, Alsa/USA growth and Uk profits are non-essential according my calculator, but could turn this from a potential 15x into something even greater.

For me, the smart move for management is to solely focus on deleveraging for the next 5 years. It’s pretty remarkable what that could do in terms of profit growth and de-risking the business.

Obviously black swans are unforeseeable… if we avoid those, I’m incredibly confident of the turnaround here.

I expect the Q3 results to put a lot of concerns to bed, and I hope (and believe) that the reason for the delay is because a German resolution has almost been achieved.

Do your own research, just my views.

According to Company-compiled data as of 14 November 2025, the current consensus of 16 sell-side analyst expectations for FY26 PBTAI is £871m, with a range of £853m to £888m..

The board are now expecting to hit the lower end of the estimates due to the macroeconomic environment.

It’s dirt cheap on those numbers imo, especially with the catalysts on the horizon next year. Not great results imv, but it’s nice to see some negative trends improving.

The bad was more than priced in imo. Steady riser from here I imagine.

Why won’t this be taken out on the cheap?

I think European Express Enterprises Limited are actively building a position to ensure that this doesn’t happen. They now own 23% of the company.

At 25%, I believe that they could single-handedly reject a low ball offer.

Will be interesting to see if they cross that 25% threshold to support the theory.

Moreover, if ALSA was going to be sold on the cheap, why hasn’t it already happened?

Of all the stocks I own, the story here excites me the most by some margin. It’s going to be an interesting hold, at the very least.

Heads you could win huge (10 bagger potential, and then some); tails you could lose everything imo.

The asymmetric realistic risk vs reward is the best I’m aware of on the market.

All just my opinions, do your own research.

To those of you who think a rights issue is needed, I implore you to do a cash flow forecast. I did one recently showing why a placing isn’t required (imo), and nobody argued against it.

I can’t for the life of me see why a placing/RI would be required.

All being steady, the balance sheet should look much improved now that the NASB money has been received imo.

Also, the hybrid bond repayment can be postponed if necessary, so how is this going bust?

There are potential catalysts for improvement in the weaker parts of the business as well, but I do believe that ALSA needs to remain steady (even flat earnings are suffice imo).

The NASB sale was the game-changer here imo… and the market seemed to agree for a short while.

Do your own research. Risk remains, as always.

Firepower,

Why do you only post on this bulletin board?

It’s quite unusual for a genuine investor/trader to be obsessed with one stock, and post nothing other than ‘sell this dog’ and ‘it’s going to 1p’.

Are you shorting this with your mortgage?

Matchstick,

Why are you mocking my research when my average is 28.6p, and you’ve already lost your shirt investing in Mobico at a time when my research indicated that it was a bad investment?

You’re about to get it wildly wrong again imv… banked your losses on the dip, and now set to miss out on the rise imo.

Anyway, I’d rather let the share price do the talking.

What other stocks are you bearish on at the moment sparkplug? Asking for a mate.

Firepower,

We're not ramping, because we've done our research and we're very confident holding this....

Before long, I suspect an RNS to be released which will explain exactly why we were so confident holding onto our shares and/or topping up quietly.

As for you 'waiting for 1p'... grow up little fella.

Firepower,

W

Cyberbub,

It’s a valid point that you’ve raised, but if you look at the September presentation backlog charts from the prior years, it doesn’t look bad or unusual at all.

• Sept 2025 - Gap in forward bookings for vessel 8 soon. No bookings for vessel 12. The rest is exceptionally strong imo.

• Sept 2024 - effectively no backlog for vessels 12 and 13

• Sept 2023 - a poor backlog for 4 of the vessels and mediocre backlog for 2 other vessels.

Doesn’t look like anything out of the ordinary to me, and aren’t we leasing a new vessel now to compensate? I do think that one of the vessels (12) will see reduced utilisation moving forward, and I believe that this is the reason for the increased depreciation.

Reading between the lines, I think that vessel 12 will be sold and replaced soon, hence the recent comments regarding the intention to purchase new vessels and expand. Leasing remains another option, and vessel 12 might have more utility in other parts of the world, for another company.

What impresses me most is that margins and utilisation remain strong while oil prices are so low. I think the market is overlooking the fact that low oil prices = low operating costs for GMS.

Either way, is one poorly performing vessel enough of a reason to swerve this opportunity? I don’t believe so, and I topped up yesterday at 15.9p after the company proved its resilience once again.

Let’s not forget the hurdles that this company and management team have recently overcome. I’m relaxed about my holding and expect a serious re-rating after Christmas; there are certainly enough potential catalysts for it imv.

Beo,

I ended up with roughly the same numbers as your good self.

For me, it’s impossible to really value BME atm though. It could make a mockery of this share price within the next 2-3 years, or things could get much, much worse before they improve.

I don’t mind buying into a company as it stabilises (as I’ve done earlier this year with Mobico), but while it’s on the decline is a step too far for me, unless it’s on a p/e of 3 or something silly like that (made a pretty penny on Reach when the p/e was under 2, for example).

I think the CEO needs to build upon the underwhelming ‘back to basics’ strategy, and quickly.

I’m not surprised that they’re having to reduce prices; it hasn’t seemed cheap to me for a couple of years now vs the supermarkets.

I’ve sold up today, as I see no signs of stability here, let alone a turnaround.

I’m not convinced by the turnaround strategy either, and I didn’t think there’s much value on offer here now that earnings have collapsed.

It seems to me like there might be structural issues; a collapse in pricing power due to increased competition and poor operational performance.

I think it’s priced fairly, all things considered, but I like a bargain. I see this as high risk and low reward for the foreseeable future.

If margins stabilise, I’ll reconsider an entry. Good luck all.

The contract itself seems fairly immaterial to me at this stage, but this could open the door to more opportunities in Saudi; and let’s face it, the Saudi’s aren’t poor, so I’d expect the contract to be high margin.

The most important thing for me as a holder, however, is that Alsa remains stable/growing, so that the deleveraging can take place with relative ease. This contract increases the likelihood of this occurring.

Key catalysts over the next 12 months imv:

• A positive Germany resolution

• Net debt to fall by year end

• The commencement of paying off bonds

This could look like a very different company in the near future.

Imo, selling shares in a company at the HY results (dated until the end of July btw… while we’re now entering October!), WHILST THE COMPANY IS TRADING IN-LINE WITH EXPECTATIONS FOR THE FULL YEAR…

..is about as silly as selling shares, because a company had a bad week.

I just don’t understand it personally. Forest through the trees etc.

Anyway, I topped up at £1.

Either get upset at the drop, or capitalise on it. That’s my view, anyway.