It seems clear that this leg down in the last couple of weeks has been triggered by the Berenberg downgrade. Iāve been invested in other companies in the past which have been targeted by shorts and theyāve always been accompanied by broker downgrades. The U.K. stock market is rigged and the dice are always loaded against the PIās we know this , there's a game being played here and their aim is to spread panic which to be fair is succeeding at the moment . The fundamentals havenāt changed with MCG , thereās a decent business in there but itās debt heavy and suffered one off hits on P&L which with better financial management wonāt be repeated. If NA bus canāt find a buyer at a reasonable price then yes there could be a problem but the BOD seem to be fairly relaxed about things. Iām not seeing anything to persuade me to panic sell at these levelsā¦ share prices go up and down and itās probably going lower. But in a years time the picture could look very different in a lower interest rate environment and with reduced debt.
Nothing has materially changed here apart from the fact that Mobico are being shorted by hedge funds and now PIās have jumped on the bandwagon. Itās all sentiment driven and encouraging all this nonsense being spouted about share dilution and conspiracy theories about how the Cosmens are keeping Garat there as a useful idiot. Apparently as a master plan to destroy the company that theyāre major shareholders in so that they can pick up Spain for pence in the Ā£. Having worked for a multinational company that did go into administration when they failed to refinance a huge RCF I have seen close at hand that not only do all shareholders get wiped out when the banks take control but all sorts of vultures then descend to feast on the pickings. In our case it was multiple hedge funds led by Apollo who bought out the banks exposure and then proceeded to asset strip every company in the group and our version of the Cosmens , the family who owned the majority of the shares, were wiped out and got nothing for the shares . The owner and Chairman even had to suffer the humiliation of giving up his parking space in our City office to the āadviserā appointed by the hedge funds while he was still coming in every day. Mobico are nowhere close to going bust of course but if anyone seriously believes that this is being driven down on purpose by insiders with bad intentions then thatās just la la land stuff. If that scenario came to pass the Cosmens would lose their investment and the likely outcome would be that hedge funds or banks would run it and sell off its parts after a restructuring period when the market conditions allow them value. The Cosmens could bid for Spain of course but theyād be one of many and definitely not preferred bidders as the banks arenāt fond of people who have lost their money. So letās wait and see how it plays out here. As long as they donāt repeat the same cycle of incompetence and mismanagement going forward we should eventually see a bounce here.
Canāt see this reversing the down trend until we see either sone news , half year figures or dare I say it a new Cosmens or Garat share purchase ā¦ everything here is weighted towards the shorts and regardless of what we think the sum of its parts are worth until the management demonstrates it can perform then why should anyone invest in this business. We can all list at least half a dozen serious screw ups made by the company in the last 18 months but Iām really struggling to think of one good thing that theyāve done thatās beneficial to us as shareholders. For those of us sat on big paper losses itās a question of riding it out and waiting for the end game to play out ā¦ probably a lowball bid by Cosmens or another bus company. But I must admit that Iām tempted to call time here and take the loss in exchange for some stress relief. Luckily I have some equally big gains on RR that I could write this disaster off against in my head at least. I do really appreciate the insight and shared pain that some of you guys on here give me though , Iāll miss that when this nightmare is eventually over!!
Youāre not wrong there wealth itās not even a rollercoaster with MCG more like the Tower of Terror lift drop at Disney. At this rate we either go bankrupt or itāll hit bottom soon but another 3pc drop the day before the AGM isnāt a good look. I wonder if the company will drop another nasty surprise on us tomorrow, another skeleton has been found in Stampās empty cupboard perhaps?
My personal view is that this will bounce back at some stage , maybe next year , but only assuming that they can get a decent price for NA. Itās been so hard to find reasons to keep going with this as weāve all suffered a death by a thousand cuts on NEX/MCG over the last couple of years. Like others on here itās made me stressed and made me doubt myself for the stupid calls that Iāve made doubling down on this dog on several occasions. But I still think itās going to get back to some sort of more realistic value eventually as the sum of its parts are surely going to be worth a lot more than 51p.
A change of management and a decent sales price for NA would turn things around quickly here imo , this doesnāt look like a business that is in its death throes to me. The Cosmens have been building their holdings and MCG are still actively aquiring new companies . Unless are actively looking to run the business into the ground for the gamble that the Cosmens will be the only show in town to buy Spain then maybe we need to look beyond the current share price shambles and believe that most of it is sentiment driven. Which can change with some good news after 18 months of crap from this firm. After all this suffering on the way down I canāt bring myself to sell and then see this double in 6 or 12 months timeā¦ which could easily happen given how much itās dropped.
Iām in exactly the same position as you JG and probably up towards Ā£80k loss on paper as things stand today. Iāve made all the same mistakes here that you have ā¦ amassing a huge number of shares by continuing to average down catching a falling knife and getting it wrong every time. Itās been hurting me in more ways than one to be honest but we are where we are. I still feel like the share price will improve here one day , very quickly probably, but obviously much depends upon the NA bus sale. Which I suspect will then be followed by a Cosmens bid for ALSA otherwise why have they been buying shares in the millions on the way down ? A lot can happen with this company and having seen so much negative stuff and management incompetence and mistakes that surely has to change sometime soon with some better news. A long term decent business like it was for years canāt be in a death spiral here surely not ? Interest rates will fall , thatās a certainty and a good price for the NA bus business with a big reduction in debt would change the direction very rapidly.
On the other hand if thereās no buyer interest or at very lowball numbers then the really bad scenarios could come into play. A couple of years ago I held Rolls Royce shares which were being shorted and constantly kept dropping with sentiment in the market just as bad as it has been here. Look whatās happened there now. This could turn very quickly in a similar way to RR and I keep reminding myself that I sold out of Tullow Oil a few years ago and took a very large loss ā¦I was stressed , not sleeping and checking it every 5 minutes. In fear of losing the lot I sold everything and took the loss ā¦ to see it rocket 44pc two days later. Every time that Iām tempted to trim my holdings here I look back at that one. We might be having a very different chat on here in 6 months time, letās hope for and expect things to improve here eventually. Getting rid of Garat after the AGM next week will be a good start. We must be getting some news on NA soon too Iād guess so fingers crossed that itās decent.
Sale of NA bus at a fair market price and removal of Garat to be replaced by someone competent will sort this issue outā¦ sum of the parts is still a lot higher than todays share price and this can be turned around. The main problem here is that the market has totally lost credibility in the management and the NA bus sale might be facing lowball interest if we are seen as distressed sellers. Getting Garat out next week would be a great start in the unlikely event that the main shareholders are thinking the same way as most of us on here.
Iāve just been reading the Fitch report and to me it looks a lot more positive than the headlines suggest ā¦ but Im just a little curious as to why it gets downgraded now when this was all reported in the group accounts weeks ago. A bit like the timing of the Berenberg forecast downgrade earlier, it makes you wonder if the shorters are being given a bit of a helping hand ?
I voted both Garat and Weir out ā¦ if enough of us have sent the same message letās hope that someone at Mobico is listening. Garat needs to go , the Liz Truss level of incompetence shown under his watch is the main reason why the share price continues to take a kicking. Get someone serious and credible in place and surely we will see a quick reversal of the trend here.
Not even his Mum could claim that Garat has done a good job as CEO. Heās been an absolute disaster and the performance under his tenure has been awful both for financials and very notably for shareholders. I donāt understand how he has survivedā¦ from the rebranding, the reinstatement and cancellation of the dividend, the missed targets , the profit warnings, the late filing of accounts, 20pc backdated pay rises to drivers in a loss making businessā¦ has he actually done one thing that could be considered as a success ?
He needs to be replaced before we are going to see sentiment change here , the incompetence of the BOD are a large part of the reason that the shorts are in here.
As Warren Buffett said if youāre not prepared to own a stock for ten years you shouldnāt be holding it for ten minutesā¦ be greedy when others are fearful ā¦ itās going to be the story with this one eventually though MCG is a hard one to hold onto positive thoughts about. And Warren Buffett wouldnāt be as stupid as weāve been investing in this dog .
JG68 ā¦ you are not on your own in this crappy company, Iām north of Ā£70k down on my investment as the share price today which is probably going to worsen as we are getting targeted by the shorts and just waiting for the next broker downgrade to come from another of their friends. I donāt know if stressed is the right word to sum up the way Iām feeling but Iām certainly checking the share price way more often than I should be doing and it inevitably makes me feel worse about it most times I do that . However Iām also thinking that this is exactly how the shorters take advantage of us PIās when sentiment is so negative and people are fearful of losing more money. The company isnāt going bust anytime soon. Thereās a decent business there if they start pricing fares right and get their overheads under control. A decent CFO doing the basics should soon get a handle on things and hopefully we now have one. The main shareholders have been buying and youād have thought that the worst of it is priced in here now. The sum of the parts of MCG must be multiples of todayās joke of a share price surely? So value should eventually return here though we might be locked in for a long time yet to realise it. Every time I think about selling here I keep remembering Tullow Oil who were under attack from the shorts at the time . I took a big loss . , sold in despair at watching my money disappear every day. Two days after I sold the lot it went up 44pc in one day. Lesson learnt the hard way.
From end of April 2024 ( 5 weeks ago )
Encouragingā first-quarter trading should to aid its valuation, Jefferies said, with route recovery from new contracts slightly ahead of expectations, according to Mobico
āWe continue to expect the disposal to prove a material positive catalyst, kick-starting a debt-to-equity value transfer, followed by a deleverage-driven re-rating journey,ā analysts added.
A 100p share price target was laid out as a result, marking a 67% upside on Fridayās close.
Apart from the fact that MCG has attracted the interest of shorts of late and the Berenberg kick in the nuts this week ( probably hand in glove with their clients who are short) Iām not really understanding where this talk of insolvency and rights issues is suddenly coming from on here this week? The pullback on the sp is predictable given that itās being targeted by shorts and in the absence of any news or updates itās probably going lower in the short term. But to say that the company is about to go bust and that weāre all getting wiped out by the BOD working with the Cosmens. Iāve been spectacularly wrong with this company and itās cost me a small paper fortune but Iām not seeing how/why weāre heading for administrationā¦ far more likely a break up sale of the units if itās that bad surely?
Forward thoughts thatās the most sensible post that Iāve seen on here today. Iāll vote on the HL site myself. The constant bleed on the share on the share price is infuriating and Iām as underwater as anyone on here but I donāt think that thereās a conspiracy at play here between Garat and the Cosmens to take it to administration or a RI and wipe out the PIās. Garat should have been fired , the company has been badly managed and the market has lost trust. But not so long ago the analysts had this at Ā£2 or more and surely if it was to be broken up and sold off in its parts itās still worth a long way north of todays share price? Thereās a hint panic and fear on some of the posts on here this week that the shorts will be loving , they feed on it. Give it time and sentiment will change here.
Iām resigning myself to the expectation that things are going to get worse here for the share price before it gets better as too much negative stuff has happened. If it wasnāt so painful itād be farcical the way the bad news comes at us one after another , shorters start to increase then a broker downgrades significantly from an already battered position. Conspiracy theory maybe but it would not surprise me if they work together. Anyway unless you want to sell out at an historical low when the macro stuff has hardly changed from the last set of broker forecasts ( Jeffries had us at Ā£1 just a couple of weeks ago after published accounts) then we need to bear the pain and wait for the re rate. We just need some better information from the company. A decent half year set of results would help. Keep the faith, we will see our investment coming back here eventually.
The broker forecasts are irrelevant to the long term price of the share and theyāre probably working with their mates who are shorting it. I really wish that Iād never bought into Mobico/ NEX , Iām down an eye watering sum of money and have foolishly kept buying to average down. Itās an absolute disaster of an investment. But thinking back to my original investment in NEX I went in heavily to begin with based on broker forecasts that the stock was undervalued and I was buying in at a bargain price. Berenberg at the time ( Owen Shirley analyst) had put a target of Ā£2.20 on it , and 6 or 7 other analysts had it at Ā£1.80 average. That was when we were back at something like Ā£1.20 less than 18 months ago. Itās so easy to get despondent with this absolute dog of an investment. The CEO should have gone with Stamp , itās a disgrace that heās still there pulling a massive salary out whilst presiding over this mess. But I still think that the business can be turned around, interest rates are going to come down, surely there canāt be any more skeletons to pop out and more significantly the Cosmens have been building their stake. They understand the business from the inside better than we do. As bad as it looks today the business isnāt going bust and we are going to be above Ā£1 again one dayā¦ though perhaps we will need to wait till next year. We just need a bit of positive news , the bad stuff we get every time here is so draining.