Member Info for OliGarch

None of us has a crystal ball...... But you're probably on the right track...lol

Boeingdriver, presumably just asking for a friend...lol...?

Ten years old? I was given the keys to a 57 plate Vauxhall van at the end of October. 125,000 miles on the clock, dent in every panel and cable ties holding some of the plastic trim on. The inside was tired and the drivers seat uncomfortable and ripped. Still on the upside, the tyres had a good 2mm of tread all round and it was a lovely shade of pink :-)

Alas_Smith, if you are looking for information regarding reform to working practice, redundancies, variance to business delivery etc, then I can tell you that the CEO is using the RM Workplace app to guage employees opinion regarding the proposal of a seven day parcel delivery service whilst keeping the USO viable. This has the backing of the CWU as it will ensure an increase in CWU represented grade employees. So the upside for the customer is a better service in keeping with our competitors but the downside is a larger workforce and fleet.
I hope that this will be useful going forward.

Commonsense, probably best to chalk that one down as a life lesson?
From what I have seen, only post in another chat room if you are seeking advice as opposed to trying to give advice as they don't take too kindly to it.

mhudson, a 10p swing on a 500p stock is 2%. Surely you would expect a little movement on a day to day basis?
If it sat at 525p and didn't move for a couple of weeks then nobody would be happy.
Anyway, you still need to hold for another couple of days to get your dividend so it's pretty immaterial but it will be interesting to see what happens on the 3rd?

Teamlh, "that's why rmg need to automate".
I can only assume that you are not aware of how a modern mail centre operates? RM has had automation since 1958 when the first automatic letter facing machine was introduced at the original Southampton Mail Centre. RM have also developed prototype parcel machines since the late 1960s however they choose to disband the R&D in the mid 1990s in favour of "off the shelf" machines from France, Germany and the USA.
Automation for letters, parcels and flats has been around for decades but it still requires the input of trained operators to work.
Amazon's "automation" relies even more heavily on human input as their management think)know that minimum wage labour is more cost effective than mechanical diverters.

The LSE has RMG at 496? It looks as though there was a drop at close which is strange as other stocks dropped upon opening. I will never understand what drives this one...lol

beatrootjuice, staffing is going to be difficult this December. Our mail centre has only managed to secure around 50% of the Christmas casuals that we had hoped for and only 30% of the night shift casual vacancies have been filled. If there are not enough extra manual staff on the night shift then the mail will back up very quickly. We are also suffering from a shortage of trained machine operators on the night and weekend shifts as quite a few of the ad-hoc operators that we have relied upon in the past have now moved onto driving posts.
On the subject of driving, is there a national shortage of 740s? We can't seem to get hold of extra big wheels at the moment. Perhaps Amazon have hired them all?
Hopefully the management team will renew their efforts over the next week?

AngerSharkz, on the subject of diversification, we already know that both the BoD and CWU are both actively seeking to roll out a seven day parcels service whilst keeping the letter deliveries and USO viable. This may mean that letter deliveries drop to a five day service (Act of Parliament required) however a seven day parcel delivery service will require extra hours to achieve this which I am sure will meet with approval from the CWU.
RM have also been trialling different types of electric vehicles which will be needed very soon to replace the current ageing fleet. I would imagine that this will be phased on over many years however no one is talking about costs...yet.

Are the 200m shares burned forever or is it possible that they may be reissued at a later stage?

AngerSharkz, on a side note, it's also worth noting that Rickenbacker started buying shares at over 300p and then bought all the way down to the low 180p region.
I know that history never repeats itself but never say never etc...

My usual postie isn't happy with the latest revision. He delivered my mail at quarter past six this evening. He obviously needs the overtime.

Are directors and/or the CEO contractually obligated to purchase shares? I know that both Rickenbacker and Moya Greene were shareholders.

stodgy, in truth we all want the RM SP to soar. Hopefully the institutional investors will not see our day to day office difficulties as anything other than minor and ignore it?

Just received this email from my manager.
Following yesterday's half year trading update, this is a reminder to brief your teams on our achievements over the last six months. Please use this brief as the basis of your conversation.
We are also talking about our ambition to grow our Sunday parcel deliveries and offer Sundays for all. We love letters and believe there is an important role for them as part of the UK's social fabric. But we have to acknowledge that letter volumes are down more than 60% since their peak in 2004/05. So, it's time to start defining what a sustainable USO is for the future.
We want to hear the thoughts of all our colleagues on expanding our Sunday parcel deliveries. and how we can keep the Universal Service relevant and sustainable given all the changes we're seeing
Anyone can share thoughts and questions in the 7 Day Service Workplace Group adding #7dayservice. We're also running a short survey where colleagues can give feedback and raise questions anonymously. This poster can be displayed to encourage teams to get involved in the discussion.

AngerSharkz, if your analysis is correct then we should see the end of High Street retail and a massive shift to online or out of town business parks?
Hopefully those displaced retail workers could then retrain as drivers and parcel couriers?
So it's going to be a world of ordering online and waiting in for a parcel or food delivery from a parcel courier or the supermarket or Deliveroo?
I do hope not.

JB, Christmas does indeed happen every year and so does Christmas Pressure but it always seems to come as a bit of a shock to our local management team as they have a proven track record of running around like headless chickens for the first two weeks of December, and it has become a standing joke in my office.
Hopefully RM are getting better at their planning for new buildings as ours is no longer fit for purpose or anywhere near large enough and hasn't been for a few years.

AngerSharkz, are you not expecting retail habits to change or revert post pandemic?
It would be great for RM and Amazon if retail habits remained and this may be true over the coming winter months but going forward? We shall see...

nims, you are correct. The SP should reflect the fundamentals which currently are looking extremely good as at 500p a share, the January divi works out at 5.35%, which you won't be getting from a high street bank.
I was slated for posting earlier in the year that the pandemic had been a saviour for RMG in terms of business and also galvanising management and union but that's very much the reality.
Unfortunately some of the promised machinery won't be available for several months which means that we will be very much reliant on manual labour in some mail centres this December. This will mean that the usual practice of doubling the workforce in December within our building is set to continue. Hopefully there won't be any issues with Coronavirus!
Also, this year there has been a lot of activity nationally around removing letter sorting machinery to make more space for the manual sorting operation (and eventually parcels automation) which has left many mail centres with a vastly reduced letters capacity and still not enough parcels capacity and storage options. The over capacity solution in my office is to divert mail to a bigger office however we already know that the bigger offices that are closest to us cannot cope between January and November so what hope is there that they can help out in December?
Going forward, I have seen the recommendations for parcels automation solutions (small, medium and large) and these are not the self operating autonomous machines that we think about. They are in fact very similar to the machinery used in Amazon warehouses which still rely on a substantial manual labour input especially where portering is concerned so expect to see a maximum 10% labour savings with these.
In conclusion, I am hoping that RM will appear swan like above the water and below the surface our "behind the scenes" activity can be concealed long enough for investors to make some decent profits. As for 2022, let's hope that the pandemic continues a little longer?
You may now slate me for that last comment.....lol