The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
I do not believe that Aviva would be implicated in this. The FCA investigation is more looking at unscrupulous insurance brokers who have occasionally being taking high commissions (sometimes as high as 40%) at a time when tenants are having to pay sky high insurance premiums. The investigation will focus on those brokers who either a. Retained a very high level of commission, b. Kicked back some of the commission to someone, often the landlord c. Brokers who did little or no work to justify the high level of commission.
Since Grenfall the insurance market for high rise buildings with cladding and people who manufacture, design, install and provide advice on cladding has been a complete nightmare. But I don't believe Aviva has or had a huge exposure in this regard.
Wouldn't be surprised if it's LVMH who are interested. They have a really strong luxury watch offering and own Tag, Bulgari, Dior and Hublot. Plus they have tons of cash and are very acquisitive. Wouldn't rule out it going private again either.
What's a fair price though? Surely 1,200p as a minimum.
Agreed, it almost the perfect RNS. A lot of positives. Didn't expect the share buyback. Pleased about the big hike to the divi.
I'm not overly worried. It's all part of a trend away from cheaper independent shops and market stalls to larger discounters. If poundland and Home Bargins are doing well them B&M will be too.
Wilkos seems to be out of favour at the moment and probably struggles as it's store estate is largely on the High Street with limited parking.
Results on Tuesday will be interesting. Analysts are forecasting profits of £389m for the year and I expect we will hit that.
Cost control, growth in Germany and future trading predictions will be closely watched.
Funny you should say that. Mines due v shortly and it's gone up 25% on last year, got them down down to 20% with a bit of haggling but no more. Did a quick shop around but nothing better elsewhere.
Overall the customer experience has been awful this year, as well as a hefty above-inflation price rise.
If they were being very aggressive on commercial combined or motor fleet I would be concerned. These risks frequently come to market and there is very little fat to cut away at and it is hard to differentiate between the big players like Aviva, Allianz, AXA, RSA and Zurich on anything other than price. Its a race too the bottom and insurers often get in a Dutch auction.
Much better to be targeting niche lines where there are fewer players and rates have risen significantly over the last couple of years. Beazley have a COR of around 87% which is fantastic in modern day insurance. Who wouldn't want a bit of that.
The BoD made a conscious decision to shrink the business in 2021/22 by selling non-core overseas assets. They are returning that capital to shareholders through buybacks and divis.
Aviva are definitely looking to grow the business organically. On the General Insurance side, they have recently invested a huge amount of money in specialty lines like cyber, management liability, marine, engineering, group personal accident and the like. They have seen how the likes of Beazley have grown at a very rapid and profitable rate in this space and want a piece of the action.
I have it on very good authority that Aviva are being very aggressive on new business in the specialty lines, especially cyber insurance. Personal lines motor and household is simply not that profitable any more, look at DLG. The margins are wafer thin and the book is admin heavy. More than happy for Aviva to focus on high margin commercial specialty business providing it is being underwritten sensibly.
Hi Iain, read up on Uncrossed Trades and this should explain things.
It probably won't make too much difference on where the share price opens first thing on Tuesday (which is the next trading day) as there are a million and one things that could impact on the price between now and then.
Wasn't expecting such a big jump in the divi. Great company to be in.
Any thoughts on this:
"Travelodge bids to team up with councils to build 300 hotels
Hotel chain Travelodge is writing to 220 local authorities across Britain proposing a joint development partnership aimed at stimulating regeneration and economic growth.
Travelodge said it has identified that it can expand its UK hotel network with a further 300 locations for new hotels.
The company said the expansion programme could represent an investment of around £3bn for third-party investors and create more than 9,000 jobs across the UK.
Steve Bennett, Travelodge's chief property and development officer, said:
In the current climate, local authorities are under extreme pressure to invest in their economy and support regeneration projects.
This is why we are today writing to 220 local authorities to offer our support, as we can make a real difference.
Our effective, innovative co-partnership development deals are spearheading regional economic growth and providing a solid long-term revenue stream.
Britain is now a nation of budget travellers, with more of us choosing to stay in budget hotels than any other hotel type, and this trend is set to grow, which is why we are looking to expand our UK hotel network with a further 300 hotels."
We're being dragged down with all the other financial stocks today due to worries that Deutsche Bank might default.
Still, I agree with the opening post, i was expecting a decent rise going in to the ex-divi day on Thurs. All things considered, this share is v. Cheap, despite the headwinds.
It's hard to know how serious this is and whether it could spread wider/worldwide. Or is it just a massive tree shake making people panic and sell their shares cheaply.
That's one of the hardest things I find about investing in shares, not knowing which noise can be ignored and which to be fearful of. It's hard not to do anything when prices are down and panic sets in. Our natural reaction as humans is to act if something is going wrong, but actually sometimes it is best to do nothing at all.
Sentiment in the airline sector was lifted by news German carrier Lufthansa returned to profit in 2022 as revenue jumped on doubled passenger numbers, although they remained below pre-pandemic 2019 figures.
The Cologne, Germany-based airline said it made a net profit of €791mln in 2022, from a loss of €2.19bn in 2021. However, this is still 35% lower than a pre-pandemic net profit of €1.21bn achieved in 2019.
Revenue jumped 95% to €32.77bn from €16.81bn and was 10% lower than €36.42bn in 2019. Passenger numbers more than doubled to 101.8mln from 46.9mln, but was 30% below 2019's 145.2mln. The load factor improved to 80% from 62% but was below 83% in 2019.
Shares in Lufthansa jumped 5.5% and helped lift shares in British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (LSE:IAG) by 2% and Wizz Air Holdings PLC (AIM:WIZZ) by 2.8% and easyJet PLC by 3%.