Member Info for oxygen

Well Tony looked fairly relaxed last night, been thro 7 commodity cycles so knows not to look at daily swings. Clearly 2020 will be a year of treading water, in his words, but for LTH this currently represents a good time to top up.

Who needs enemies when you’ve friends like the Lloyds of London CE merrily announcing that total C-19 losses will overtake those following Hurricane Katrina. Lets hope AV. are able to give a more optimistic estimate of their potential losses relatively soon.

So when the CE of Lloyds states that C-19 losses will exceed those of Hurricane Katrina, you know you’re in for a bad time !

This Company still seems to be under the radar for many potential investors. Interesting that the recent Ventilator order, may be expanded according to the Company and we can expect further news flow on their C-19 diagnostic kits. Either way, can only see the SP reacting favourably as the year progresses.

It would seem Greggs are in a good position to exit lockdown quickly, as offering a take-away service. Pubs and Restaurants on the other hand will have all sorts of issues in trying to comply with social distancing measures and may be the last to exit, for those which are still around anyway.

Unfortunately for Insurers they just don't know the eventual financial loss they are likely to suffer from this pandemic , certainly from the General Ins. division. Whilst AV. are probably not exposed to the Credit Ins market there are many lines of their business that are exposed and once the ‘blame game’ gets underway , fuelled by the legal profession, all sorts of professional indemnity / medical malpractice / and liability claims will start tumbling in. Hopefully In the May Update they are able to at least provide some basic guidance as to there Net exposure , otherwise the Market will continue to assume the worst .

Not sure EL will give rise to an excessive exposure unless it can be seen that C-19 causes long term disability. The Death toll currently seems highest amongst the elderly/ retirees plus compensation claims for death can often be limited where there is little financial dependancy plus you’ll need to prove contagion happened in the workplace !

Its rather naive of any Insurer to suggest that a policy extension covering unspecified contagious diseases, was never intended to cover global pandemics. If that was the case the wording should have said so.

I’ve said it before , that for me the Chairman, CEO & CFO need ousting. Ok Montague is due to retire this year, so he wont be too concerned but Tulloch isn’t inspiring, no doubt a nice guy, but hasn’t shown vision and I’m not sure he knows where to take the Company , other than more of the same.
Its just unfortunate that the AGM will be held behind closed doors this year.....they need an ear full
from disgruntled private shareholders. Institutional investors are far more polite , basically as the funds they deploy are others money !

Difficult to see how Social Distancing , which is now being talked about as continuing till year end, can take place in a pub . There’s going to be a lot of shouting !

Yep, they need to sort this out quickly but guess they are concerned over quantum. If they knew it to be low they surely wouldn’t risk this being dragged into court, as thats where it will go.

Cereus....suspect BOO will be the best share you will ever own .....well done !

BI exposure......will be very difficult to quantify. They don’t yet have an answer but know they will have to seek a compromise to limit reputational damage.

“at least we’re not getting hammered for poor results”....assume you were being sarcastic there ! ....can’t think of another Company, of this scale, that has out performed BOO recently. Its in a good
position to weather this storm.

2rein. Yep, one never knows whats around the corner although being able to ‘cut and run’
and taking a loss is something LTH’s aren’t normally good at. I’ve had several howlers that have fallen into Liquidation where I should have acted earlier but we’re probably all optimistic by nature. Anyway hope your next investment(s) go well. GL.

Riskingit,..correct, albeit its rather perverse as you would think the SP once its ex.div should rebalance up by the amount of the cancelled dividend . Trouble is it seems the Market now judges the Company as one with its dividend under threat going forwards ad infinitum. Only when a new divi is announced & paid will this drag on the SP be released. Hopefully later this year !

Its usually the case that the uninformed follow the herd, so when the herd panics to cross the river so do they, whilst the informed quietly continue grazing waiting for the crocs to have their fill so they can stroll across to lush meadow. Best be patient.

L&G must now be under immense pressure to cancel the Divi. Its not a case any longer that it can be afforded ( Av .could ) but the future is so uncertain that the PRA has dictated caution. You wouldn’t want to go rogue, only to find at some stage the necessity to seek Govmt. assistance in some shape or another !

Possibly a tad optimistic there, but had the Market been up 1.5% today ...rather than down that much, its likely you’d be over half way to your target !

Problem here is even as lock down is lifted it will take considerable time for the general public to have sufficient faith in being able to socialise in Pubs etc without risk. Yes the hardened drinker wont be put off, but the average family will be more cautious. Pubs being closed for another month or so will soon be a major issue here given its significant debt, with Licensed trade likely to take much longer to return to pre C-19 levels.