Member Info for OliGarch

English Football League Club ownership does seem to be attractive to many high profile people. Even The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has entered the arena with the acquisition of Newcastle United so it shouldn't be a surprise that Kretinsky wants in. Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea are already taken and he probably feels left out. The question is, will Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos be fighting over S****horpe United?

JMT and Caino, many thanks for your posts. I have looked at the charts and my belief is that this could be a good investment for the future so I'm going to keep a keen eye on the SP. If it drops below 800p then I shall be raiding my piggy bank.

Looks like BlackRock have decreased their holding today, or have I read this incorrectly?

I have been looking to invest in Fresnillo but wanted to do some research first and also get some opinions.
Would the new labour reform in Mexico and possibly the power outages at the San Julian site have any impact on this stock or are these issues that can be easily resolved?

I'm not sure that a special or increased dividend would be helpful to RMG going forward and I'm also not sure what the business would have to gain by purchasing it's own shares at the moment.
Further acquisitions would be my preference but knowing RM they will probably tuck it down the back of a sofa somewhere..... and then lose it.

Commonsense, just to clarify the pension fund situation.
RM currently has two pension funds with a third scheme due to start up very soon.
The original Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme deals with staff pensions up until 31st of March 2012 and was guaranteed and ring fenced by Cameron's government as the fund was a final salary scheme and had a sizable black hole (not as bad as the BT scheme thought) which wouldn't have been attractive when floating on the stock exchange the following year.
The second scheme is the Royal Mail Pension Plan which runs from the 1st of April 2012 to current as the new scheme, which will be a combined defined benefit scheme, has yet to start up. The RMPP scheme was only supposed to run until 2018 but the proposed pension reform had to be approved by Parliament and we have also had a global pandemic since then so I'm not sure if the new scheme will take some of the £3bn with it or if there will be an extension of the RMPP until the CDBS starts.
£3bn sounds like a vast amount and at least it is in surplus but it will be spread out over a vast number of employees, some of whom are already taking their pension.
Hopefully there are steps in place to prevent RM from dipping into the fund?

ebygum who recently posted;
"Just speculating/playing Devil's advocate but why could the more efficient GLS not become the UK's delivery business at a considerably lower cost than RM without the bloated Indirect labour costs and mill stone of the CWU. RM being relegated to carrying out a reduced Universal Service?"
If you own RM shares, why would you even think that would be a great idea?

RMG profit may have increased tenfold plus but should and would that translate to a massive hike in the SP?
Perhaps the spike that sent the SP temporarily to £6 was manipulation and it's back to where it really should be?

I think that they were referring to DSA mail which comes in pre-prepped and ready to go straight to the LSM/IMP. The customer gets a huge discount for volume and I have heard figures of around 10p per letter but that's not gospel.
Obviously the more stamped LBC that we process and deliver the better as that comes in at a minimum of 66p, so if we can get a delivery point with one second class letter and a small parcel or jiffy bag then that's excellent.

Have BlackRock just increased their holding?

blockfire, you are absolutely correct that letters, especially letter box collection mail, is extremely profitable which is why RM are bringing in "Delivery to Specification" which essentially means deliberately holding back second class mail until day two despite the fact that it could have been delivered on day one thus ensuring that the customer only gets the service that it has paid for.
RM are also working out how it can link parcels into the equation.

Commonsense, if PE (or Vesa) wanted to buy RM then why didn't they do this when the SP was in the £1.40 range last year? They could have picked up RMG for a song and hived off GLS as a separate entity leaving RM to flounder?
No, I believe that PE is very wary of RM because of the built in mandatory obligations and the unionised workforce.

Giddyupskippy, "Thus paving the way for the company to somehow bin the letter side off as that is a burden & then to go as a parcel company".
Is that where you think that this is going?
So who is going to empty those funny little red boxes on street corners six days a week?
Sorry to burst your bubble but RM are committed to the USO and this can only be changed by an Act of Parliament.
No letters will be binned before then

It is breaking news and is currently under investigation.
Simon Thompson is on leave this week but commented on the RM Workplace app on Sunday morning.
I don't believe that it will impact the SP in any way as it is an internal matter.

I'm hoping that it's going to drive the culture of staff starting and finishing their duty at the correct time, taking their breaks when they should and working safely instead of starting early, rushing around like a loon so that they can finish early.

Ponty, this new signing in system is going to be interesting. I work on a mail centre and it has already caused issues over the correct staffing levels for automation with some sorting and sequencing machines not being run due to the lack of trained staff. There are also issues with some staff finishing their work with ten or fifteen minutes to spare and then catching up on social media on their phones whilst waiting in the signing off area for the clock to tick over to their finish time so they can sign off whilst others are finishing bang on time and leaving work over for the next shift.
Hopefully these are teething issues and will be resolved soon.
Will the new system have any impact on delivery office staff with regards to workloads and finishing times?

Could a disgruntled workforce dumping shares have influenced the massive drop?
I wouldn't have thought so, however a disgruntled workforce managed to force the last CEO out of the door so perhaps UBS read between the lines?
The good news is that "workforce disgruntlement" is nowhere near as bad as it was under Herr Back.

Scamp, do RM actually have to purchase the shares or just pledge those shares in the hope that not everyone is going to cash in at the same time? Perhaps RM purchase shares in advance? It would certainly have been prudent for RM to purchase serious volumes of shares at sub £2 last year in the knowledge that they would eventually need to then allocate these back to the share scheme anyway and in the process making a profit?
Just a thought.

Some further reading?
These communications were sent out by the CWU today.
For those of you who think that the CWU are irrelevant to the success of RM, this will hopefully give some assurance that the union is fully on board and helping to drive the success of RM which should be encouraging news.

https://www.cwu.org/news/protecting-jobs-fighting-for-our-members-and-growing-royal-mail/

https://www.cwu.org/news/were-delivering-change-but-management-must-improve-on-toolsets-and-timings/

https://www.cwu.org/news/keeping-the-pipeline-pumped-new-hubs-and-driver-training-opportunities/

Scamp, do the hubs at Daventry and Warrington also have good road transport access and links as a backup to the rail network. I remember that we went away from the rail network in the 80's (apologies for historical information) as the rail network was unreliable and there were endless strikes.
Did you meet Simon Thompson in person or was your communication via Workplace?
I have not met him but I have posted a few messages on Workplace and received a couple of replies as well as individual work emails from him. He is very dedicated to communication and a breath of fresh air compared to the last CEO.