Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Great results. BEZ is pushing through some huge rate increases which is great to see.
If that 1st HY performance can be repeated in the 2nd Half, then we are on target for an annual profit of around £250m-£300m.
Every adult in the UK has now been offered a vaccine. There can be no more lock downs for people who have refused to have a vaccine.
The only exception is a new variant that the vaccine doesn't protect against. Even then, i think the government would be VERY hesitant to introduce another lockdown.
My understanding is that business travel is not as important to PI as leisure trips for things like gigs, concerts, sporting events, stag and hen parties and tourism. The return of these will no doubt boost sales. The key figure to remember is the 55% room occupancy which is the point at which they turn a profit.
WTB are in the process of buildings thousands more city centre rooms, especially in central London and Manchester, so clearly still back our big cities to bounce back. I doubt that's aimed mainly at business travel.
We all know that this share can move rapidly in either direction. My average price is around £28 so I've seen my near 25% gains wiped out over the last 10 weeks. I would not be surprised to see £27 before it starts to rise again (assuming no further negative covid news). I will be holding as I see this as a great buy in the medium and long term and if I had some spare funds I would be topping up now.
Hi Mike, I don't disagree with anything you've said there. Plenty of people on this board and elsewhere were saying not so long ago that they expect a rise to between £48 and £52 in the next few months
If it sits in a narrow channel for a while I'm ok with that. Like you I'm not expecting a quick buck and we have gone ex divi in the last month so we'll bank some income shortly.
Agreed. I think today's sell off is a bit harsh and overdone.
Like for like sales in the first 9 weeks of this financial year were only 1% down on last year. If that was replicated throughout the year, you would be looking at another £500m profit for the year.
The market definitely ties these two share together as peers in the specialty insurance market.
I actually think that BEZ is in a much better place than HSX. BEZ is expecting to return to profit this year, HSX not till 2023.
The most interesting aspect will be what sort of rate increases Hiscox are pushing through. I expect they will have managed big increases (10-15% on average) on cyber, PI and Management Liability renewals. If BEZ can replicate that then we will be in a strong position.