Member Info for Pianista

Thanks dc_2. I agree that the resolutions regarding share issues look like a straight copy of last year's, so nothing novel. Once again, they appear to give the company, amongst other things, the authority to do a rights issue, or to buy back shares on the market (should cash resources allow!).

I feel I ought to attend, though they can be very dry, uninformative affairs, and I'm not sure if it would be worth an early morning 2 hour slog up the M1/M6. It would be interesting to meet the directors, including Raza.

I'm also waiting with baited breath to see ML's first set of accounts. Perhaps they'll show why the shares have jumped 20% since flotation - TBH, I thought they were fully valued at 135p (using QTX as a rough comparator).

It's worth noting that, per the Admission Doc, they "do not anticipate paying any dividends in the near term", which will put some investors off.

The irony is that over something trendy, like a climate emergency that doesn't actually exist, they'll probably go to town, while continuing to ignore PIs' complaints of boardroom corruption.

"people who do not have the intelligence to see that getting vaccinated is the totally obvious thing to do"

It's the opposite actually. Research has shown that people who question the vaccines are on average more intelligent than people who blindly take it "because everyone else is taking it".

dc¬_2 - the market has no idea really: like us, it is waiting for a clear indication of how the current year will turn out.

The next update won’t need to shoot the lights out to get the SP off rock bottom and into the 20s, just a steady workmanlike performance will do. If that’s what we get, it may be in our long term interests for Trak to continue going it alone.

On the potential takeover, though, dilution as you mention would be a factor, but the increase in ML’s earnings from the tie-up should offset the arithmetic dilution, ie each ML shareholder will get a smaller share, but of a bigger pie, which should mean a bigger share in absolute terms.

Even better for ML is the fact that, ML’s SP having already jumped by nearly 20% since the IPO, fewer shares will need to be issued to Trak shareholders than was perhaps originally envisaged. This should encourage ML to get on with it, if it’s going to. It wouldn’t want to give QTX a chance to interlope, now would it?

All sounds good. Meanwhile, in the real world, you can now buy at 15.4p!!

"pnegatives" s/b "negatives".

He's very bullish, and no mention of any pnegatives, like possible driver shortages. Perhaps he knows something we don't.

Mention of 100p makes me look like a deramper when I talk about it being undervalued by up to a third.

I'd be happy if it got into the 40s by 12/21, which I do expect to happen.

It's hardly "good news", especially if ports start to refuse to let passengers off, since this will obviously dampen the appetite for cruising generally.

Looks like someone has thrown in the towel with a large (for Trak) sale at a derisory 14.1p. If he's been waiting around for 5 years for something to happen, it's understandable, but time will tell whether it was the right thing to do, or whether he should have waited just a little bit longer - who knows, the new owners of the AA may suddenly wake up and fulfil the expectation that they'd throw money at Smart Breakdown to beef it up once and for all.

It's a shame we won't get regular updates on SB, now that the AA is no longer a public company. However, at least in its 20/21 accounts, filed in June as a private company, there are several references to SB:

- “the rollout of SB was affected by Covid-19. Despite this, over 11,000 new and existing customers have SB”

- it confirms that it will continue to promote SB, as well as the rollout of its "younger driver telematic insurance proposition"

- it will "maintain [its] course of making Britain’s drivers’ lives simpler and smarter”.

The SB figure is interesting: I think at the end of Sep 20, they'd reached 10,000 customers, so only a rather embarrassing 1,000 were added in around 8 months. However, since the AA obviously still believe in the concept, we can surely expect some sort of initiative (including a re-run of the highly rated Red Dwarf advert?) to get the numbers up, together with a substantial order for more product from Trak!

An extra “has” crept in on line 3.

It’s unloved partly because it’s under most investors’ radar. It’s not the easiest business for the average investor has to understand, and has no conspicuous presence on the high street, for example. And it’s yet to convert all the impressive publicity and undoubted promise into hard spondulicks.

It should definitely return to profit this year, but does that mean £1 or £1m? The market has no idea, though I hope JW et al do!

The exception to its being unloved - apart from yours truly who recently topped up at 16.7p - is Microlise, who bought in at 22p and don’t expect to make a loss on their investment. I would value their opinion much more than the market’s (or, in the absence of any turnover in the shares, the marketmakers’).

It’s been a long wait so far, but everything‘s been put back a year because of Covid. I still think, as I said at the end of of 2020, that 2021 will be a watershed for both the company and us long-term investors. There’s still plenty of time left for that to happen…

Had a quick look at DX’s Facebook page which, although it only represents anecdotal evidence, doesn’t look good on the face of it. Having said that, over the years I’ve suffered some pretty atrocious service from a number of courier companies (not including DX).

Only today, Hermes left something in an exposed, insecure location, instead of following clear instructions as to where it should be left. Amazon on two occasions in the last week have delivered delicate items damaged through rough handling in transit. I could go on….

And if you take a look at DPD’s Facebook page, the litany of complaints reads just the same as DX’s.

All couriers will obviously have a “% failure rate”, and at the end of the day it’s impossible to judge from social media posts how DX compares to others.

Not familiar with the expression "pulled out". But under the current management, even without shortages their drivers have always been worked hard.

Let's hope the worst is well behind us, including the Covid isolation nonsense, when they report at the end of September.

On a brighter note, I saw two DX lorries on the road today within the space of a couple of minutes. Must be an omen...

Certainly the NOMAD should have been involved. Whether or not it was, we'll probably never know. All we do know is the end result.

With the shares already trading at over 10% above the launch price, I'm not sure if now would be the time to buy. Much depends on the interim results due 30.9.21.

What also stood out for me was the "we...look forward to updating new and potential investors with further contract wins of this kind." Is that just an aspiration - in which case Trak could say the same! - or a promise? It's not entirely clear.

Or maybe it just shows a lack of experience from this new kid on the block at what should go into an RNS.

Maybe, but after all the false starts, investors have learnt to be cautious vis-a-vis the virus and, more importantly, governments’ over-the-top reaction to it.

It’s never been more true than now, that you can’t believe a word politicians say.

From one of the adverts:

"...increased interest in our products and services. As such we now have an opening..."

This suggests the latter.

Ports – thanks for your response.

In about 2016, I think, the closed period changed to 30 days in all cases, including preliminary announcement of finals. However, most directors still seem to observe 60 days: perhaps they’re not all aware of the change, or they’re just playing it extra safe.

It was indeed an inspired decision by DX to expand their fleet when they did, and cements their reputation for being on the ball.

I agree margins could now be coming under a bit of pressure from higher input costs, but I’d expect that to be offset by improved efficiency all round, high operational gearing realised through strong sales growth, and the company's ability to increase its own prices to some extent, so overall I would expect margins to increase over time. Once again, we won’t know the exact position until at least the next update - it seems a long wait...but don’t let that spoil your break!!

Ports (if you’re still around) - nothing wrong with your expressing a cautious view - there are always two sides to any investment decision.

Regarding directors’ buys, there’s still plenty of time for more of these before the next close period, which I don't think starts until a month before the results in late September, though the directors are already fairly heavily invested, so perhaps in any event there’s not much scope for further purchases. However, we can still hope for more buys from the likes of Lombard, Schroders etc, though I suspect Gatemore are, if anything, planning to sell down further.

Regarding driver vacancies, I would guesstimate that there are around 700 drivers at the company’s 70-odd locations (out of a total of 5,500 employees in the company as a whole). Even if the business were not growing, there’d be a certain level of employee turnover, so the number of vacancies will obviously never be zero, and might never go down below, say, 20 or 30. However, with a rapidly growing business, you’d expect an abnormally large number of driver vacancies for a while.

So if, as you say, there are 100 or so driver vacancies, that’s about 1 in 7. But where the new recruits are replacing existing drivers who are working their notice periods, there’d be no hiatus. Where this is not the case, eg they are additional posts created by expansion of the business, and where other employed drivers are unable or unwilling to provide cover in the meantime (despite being able to coin it in with all the overtime!), I imagine the company may have no alternative but to use agency drivers, which is obviously not ideal.

However, we can take comfort from the 2020 accounts where they comment on this issue as follows: “DX has resources specifically focused on recruiting suitably qualified drivers, and the current level of vacancies is not impeding the business’ ability to operate”. And there was no mention of any particular problem in this area in the recent update.

All in all, I still think the current SP undervalues DX by up to a third (and if this state of affairs continues, I think we could well see things “play out”, as you put it, sooner than any of us expected…).