Member Info for MrMaggoo

Not sure that they could go more bullish given that the statement includes the going concern flag from EY.

But agree that PF comes across as a clown - the fact that he remained in charge after last year's results spoke volumes about how the business is run.

Of course it is ultimately TCG's fault - they have ultimately mismanaged their own business. Bottom line is that they have put themselves in this debt position through mismanagement and left themselves open to these outside vultures. This week has ramped the problems up as they have been forced to air the laundry in public.

As far as I'm concerned they are in serious trouble because of this. The more I think about the airline sale the more I think that there wont be much of a bidding war and price will be low if any sale at all.

Once the buyers know that you are desperate they either pay a minimum or wait for you to fail and buy it in administration at the price they choose. As soon as they revealed that not selling causes going concern problems they left themselves exposed to all of this.

Certainly an interesting angle. Brokers advice is often inconsistent because they are laced with self interest.

I think the points they are making are correct but really this is the only new news since yesterday. The market reaction is pretty dramatic and they would have known a zero valuation would do that.

It's done now though so could well come self fulfilling with the impact its had - certainly will speed things up to a conclusion at a minimum

Normally I would completely disagree. I mean I think administration of some sort is now inevitable...

However, I would be very interested to know what position Citi put themselves in before they released that rating today. I dont think they are wrong but they would have known what their announcement would do

Yeah I dont see how the private investor can hold any faith after the past couple of days. As ever the FT is pretty accurate. Note their info on hedge funds manoeuvring

https://www.ft.com/content/e3811564-787c-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab

Best post of the day.

Old boys network performed a sexist coup. She was 100% fixing the wreck and they stopped her. Agree on the headlines too - that Daily Mail article posted earlier was a disgrace. Compare her behaviour to Manny and she was a saint.

PF was senior in Arcandor and that went bust yet he got this gig. What a joke.

Totally agree. If you can get the same holiday somewhere else for similar money why risk it? Dont forget the customer base are so risk averse that they dont like booking on the internet and flock to shops (so we are told)

Current publicity is a disaster - they need to stabilise and reassure the public or it will become a viscous circle

XL was something like 15th Sep I think. The Citi argument was that even with selling the airline the cash might dry up... might be low chance of it happening but if customers are spooked by this it could be a real possibility. need customer loyalty and a rainy summer in the UK

I'm not a brexiteer i just think it's a BS excuse.

I know what happens with FX - the point i am making is that (for example) FX rate was €1.12 to £1 for most of last year. It is now €1.16. Which means that their costs are now 3-4% lower if they pay them in Euros. So that for me is not an argument - things should be improving since last year.

If people are putting off holidays for doom-mongering since Brexit then surely this should have been an excuse since the referendum in 2016. Suddenly it's causing all of TC's problems which is BS

She shouldn't resurface but reading that article I can't see your point. She sounds like she was exactly what they needed. I would rather have a ballsy no nonsense leader than the drip who replaced her. You haven't been around many CEOs if you thing they don't charge everything to the company and milk their bonuses.

Manny her predecessor chartered a plane to South Africa for the 2010 world cup and took all his cronies. Charged it to the company. He also took a £7m bonus 2008ish and was the highest paid CEO on the FTSE100 that year.

That costs a bit more than a manicure.

Do you remember XL holidays? 3rd largest operator in the UK at the time, went mid-September. Same seasonal cashflow model - ran out of cash to pay hotels etc

I was on holiday at the time with a different operator and there were loads who were stranded. Got home in the end but it was hardly fine. If they don't sell the airline for enough cash they could easily fold in the summer. Especially if hotels etc adjust trade terms as predicted in the press.

Agree that the late market will be strong for them - but that is the market with the worst margins. People are holding out to see if there is another heatwave in my opinion - bad weather will help them. Dont agree with all this Brexit rubbish - every business that is having problems uses it as an easy excuse. If you have enough money and want to go on holiday you're not sitting there saying "ooo what about brexit though". Ridiculous argument apart from the FX impact on the business - and actually fx is better this year than last year isnt it.

Unfortunately the current publicity is a disaster. It's been one of the main news stories on BBC for the past 2 days

Why would you both booking with TC when you can book with TUI and Jet2 and know that you will definitely get to your destination, enjoy your holiday and get home. It's alright talking about protection but why would you bother taking the risk. "TC will reduce their prices then" is your likely response - to which you then ask yourself about what that does to margins and therefore debt and therefore going concern issues. Their own auditors are flagging the risk so it's hardly rumour.

It's been one of the main news stories on BBC for the past 2 days

They havent been given a loan, it's contingent on them selling the airline. If they don't sell, they are bust - as per the EY statement

It's bought not brought

The EY one is a blow - going concern risk flagged. Anyone remember XL Holidays? Ran out of money in Sept as it couldnt recoup cash quickly enough to pay suppliers on the same cashflow seasonality model

Chinese govt will not be amused. The Fosun head of investment is probably starting his 30 years hard labour as we speak

No worries - it's so frustrating from my point of view to know how easily this could have been avoided. Some strange decisions in the past couple of years.

An interesting example is the move of head office. They went from a modest building to "Westpoint" a few miles away - I live pretty close to it. They spent literally millions kitting it out - it has lakes, fancy AV equipment - the lot. You have to wonder about the sense of priorities. I don't know if you're on linkedin or not but check out their feed. They were spouting off about what a great office it is to work in about a month ago with a video tour. You couldn't make it up could you

You know how it is in these companies - Harriet turns it around a bit then they take their eyes off what she was doing to achieve that. Functional areas will always push for more resource and get it when things are looking rosy so probably a fair bit of fat to cut. It has never been the leanest of organisations and wasn't exactly a hard working culture when i was there.

Would guess the cuts will be across the board - marketing, product, finance, HR etc

I can't see Fosun buying at any sort of premium vs market pricing, most likely will hover and pounce around administration. They've already lost a load on their investment haven't they so why pay more now when you can wait til administration and not pay for a load of debt? It's not like there is any competition to buy the business at the moment

I struggle to thing of many retailers who have nearly 600 stores, and if there are any they are not selling things that are easier to buy online.

Like i said the other week, they got the trumpets out that they were closing 21 stores but that needed a zero on the end. With the numbers they are producing I would estimate that probably only around 100 are profitable fully costed. Trouble is you needed to de-scale your back office/tour operator to do that and they haven't geared to do that in the last 10 years so they're in no-mans land

Product of confused strategy - "we are going for margin but we are doing it at scale/high volumes". Just read that back - it's nonsense

No the guy is a stooge from the same old cronie network from the pre-Harriet days (you know, the ones that nearly crashed the company the first time). Take a look at his work history - Arcandor - used to be TCG majority shareholder. Oh yeah, until they went bust!

So no surprises that he was installed. I think Harriet was a divisive character, she wasn't afraid to live the high life as a CEO but was getting the job done. Simple aim - make TCG an IT company.

Trouble with the Travel Industry (like many i suppose) is that there are many who are stuck in the dark ages. Alot of senior people with 20+ years of service waiting for redundancy. There will be plenty who work for TCG who believe that there is still a future in retail stores - they must do or they would have fixed it over the last 10 years - they have had enough time to deal with it. The problem isn't just the CEO - it's also a lack of vision (plus nobody willing the change the old guard) at the level below

Still seems like there is some blind faith here.

It only took some rudimentary maths to work out that there had to be a reason that they were asking for £400m - and the reason was that they were borrowing cash to keep the business solvent as the position was worsening

I pointed this out 2 weeks ago and got personal abuse from those sorts of idiots - i wouldn't wish losses on anyone but i might make an exception in this case

Yep was an inside hatchet job - she didn't leave through choice. Made herself too unpopular by telling the likes of him that they needed to change