Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
I would hope that the group would post a small profit however any profit posted by GLS will almost certainly be offset by the losses of the UK operation?
I don't believe that the cost savings associated with only sending letters out once or twice a week will bring the UK operation back into profit plus it looks as though Solystic have held Seidenberg's feet to the flames over the parcel machine contract which Thompson tried to stop midway through the process?
Continuing with the politics theme......
The business does not want to employ more delivery posties than is necessary however the retention of new entrants is becoming an issue especially when there is a struggle to retain staff in general. This is obviously going to have a knock on effect with delivering quality of service and will therefore feed into the uncertainty factor.
The fact that supermarkets are upping their pay is not going to help with staff retention either.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3ge8e3l040o.amp
Cherryandwhite, a couple of weeks ago, MaryBr190 asked "Would someone be kind enough to summarise in a few lines, politics aside as to what is happening with IDS" and I replied that fundamentally nothing had changed with IDS this year however I believe that the politics come into play here.
The UK operation has a unionised workforce, albeit smaller than it was a couple of years ago, despite the will of previous CEOs trying to break the union and the USO which has led to a period of instability and the stock market does not like uncertainty. This is the politics part.
Fortunately, this uncertainty has provided some great opportunity for short term trading. Over the last couple of years I have dipped in and sold up taking modest profits of around 40p to 50p a share on quantities of around 10k to 20k holdings. Certainly not huge profits but a nice amount of pocket money even after tax. I don't gamble on sporting events as that's a mugs game in my opinion however when this stock dips below 200p then it's time to drawdown from the slush account again:-)
My opinion is that the stock market is anticipating the Q4 results for the UK operation to be below expectations and this may well have a knock-on effect to group profits which is driving the SP down. It seems that with every day that passes, the stock market is more certain of it's uncertainty regarding this stock?
Time2Kill "you have to sense RM are trying to kill off non business customers sending letters"..... Yes it would appear that RM are deliberately pricing themselves out of the market. It will be interesting to see if they put the price of DSA up by the same percentage as 2C?
Cherry, price drop of 50p (18%).....perhaps the market is anticipating a poor set of Q4 results? The slating on Panorama isn't going to help either, although I'm still convinced that the conga line of newbies was fabrication by a mischievous BBC employee.
ABRoyalMail, you speak a lot of sense and I couldn't agree with you more. I retired last summer after 45 years in the business and my last year was spent ensuring (along with my colleagues) that our third year apprentice was fully up to speed. I'm pleased to say that he passed with flying colours and my work is done.
Redceo, "all employees should have a substantial element of salary dependant on achievement" is unlikely to happen given the legal position on minimum wage employment. I agree that everyone should earn their pay however it's not always possible as some employees don't "produce" a quantifiable product.
ABRoyalMail, this may sound like a bizarre thing however you have to ask why the managers didn't get involved or even train their cohort?
Perhaps you are trying to allude the fact that RM don't really need managers, or at least nowhere near as many?
Mike, the York Challenge.....lol. During Christmas pressure 2020 we had a couple of teenage lads working as casuals who managed to spend their entire shift moving a couple of empty Yorks around the mail centre. The late shift manager wasn't particularly bothered as they weren't getting under his feet.
As JB pointed out, the safety aspect is more worrying from the footage plus senior managers such as Jenny Hall know that the business is poorly managed but don't seem to offer up any solutions. She definitely drew the short straw for the interview.
JB, it was a bizarre piece of journalism/documentary making. The content was roughly what we expected regarding quality of service, mail prioritisation and staff shortages, oh and they wrote to Simon Thompson but received no reply. Was that because he didn't receive the letter, the response wasn't received or quite possibly because he is no longer an employee?.....lol
One item that has come in for much derision on social media is the clip of around thirty hi-viz workers pushing one empty York container in some form of chain gang. Was this actually done at the superhub or mocked up in a warehouse? Anyway, someone has added the "Benny Hill" music to it for added hilarity whilst others are asking if they can get a transfer to this office.
RM..... Royal Mail or Right Mockery?
RGPostie, presumably your QofS data was released internally as either a notice board exercise or on Workplace (assuming that is still being used following Thompson's departure)?
Even so, these are shocking figures and it looks like a deliberate attempt to force OFCOM to recommend changes.
On the parcels front, I have been restoring an old motorcycle in the workshop since retirement and have ordered quite a few replacement parts, service items and specialist tools. It seems that only around 20% are now being delivered by RM and these are only the small jiffy bags. Anything bigger than a shoe box has been delivered by Evri, DPD or Yodel who are very prompt and deliver within the allocated time slot as per email.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure where this stock is headed this in the short term. I have no doubt that Brendyboy will state that parcels have never been so busy but ex colleagues from mail centres with two parcel machines have been telling me that they only use one at a time and alternate between machines on a daily basis which is concerning as they were originally intended to be used twenty hours a day, seven days a week. The good news is that the maintenance should be carried out fully plus there's always a back up if necessary.
"So, I kill myself to make RM a profit, and the fat cats cream off even more."
Yep, that's the way it works in most large privatised companies. The top brass certainly don't lose any sleep about the workforce's terms and conditions and have almost as much contempt for the customer (look at the UK's utilities companies). If it all goes Pete Tong just walk away with a big cheque and put your CV back out there like a premier league football manager.