Member Info for Pianista

Ok, cheers. Agree with you about "crazy". Let's hope it's 6 days though!

Fusion98, re your 300p target, over what timescale?

LTI - Rox did say "the majority of people....", which you quoted but don't appear to have taken in.

Meanwhile, lockdowns are killing, and will continue to kill, more than Covid itself, including people I know. There is growing anger from those affected. Don't we matter?

At the end of the day, it's all a question of balance, which is what is lacking in the way this crisis is being managed.

Shame on you to suggest that all that matters is your own personal situation.

Based on the trading update, I think we'll be lucky to see adjusted profit before tax into double figures (millions, of course!).

However, all that matters at the moment is that we get confirmation of some kind of cruising this spring. This alone will be enough to get the SP heading back towards 400p.

Thank God we have Sir Roger at the helm. If anyone can bring the government to their senses, he can.

Ndn71 - the idea was for Covid patients to be isolated in the field hospitals. In the event they were basically never used. Medics who volunteered to man them were told they weren't needed. There's something fishy going on here.

Bottom line is, due to the obsession with Covid, which will be with us forever, people ARE dying of other illnesses, but that's ok, apparently.

Rox - I totally agree. I've said as much. The country is being run by a bunch of politically-motivated pseudo-scientists. It's bizarre.

A "cruise to nowhere" is tantamount to a staycation, except that the hotel is on the move. There is no reason why this should not be approved as soon as domestic activities like shops and restaurants are reopened. This would give Saga a unique advantage over other travel companies. I'm sure the company will be lobbying hard behind the scenes.

FJGooner, I really can't see a foreign port denying disembarkation to a Saga cruise ship full of well-heeled vaccinated guests. There'd be no logic to it. Saga will have proof of all vaccinations to show any port authority if required.

FJGooner, all Saga guests will be vaccinated anyway, which will be checked by the company before boarding, so what difference would a vaccine passport make?

Not sure. The Oxford vaccine has limited efficacy apparently only against MILD disease from the South African variant, ie a form of the disease that should not require lockdown in the first place. So in theory irrelevant. But predicting hourly/daily movements is a mug's game, especially at the moment as we await an announcement on cruising.

Rox, did you know that 25% of the women in this country are on medication for mental illness?

That's scary. It means 75% are running around untreated!

AA shares are still being traded (it's not yet privately-owned), so in theory there'll be the usual TU next week, following its 31/1 year end. However, will they bother? I suspect not.

However, as regards SB, I do hope for, and expect, some interesting marketing initiatives in the coming months now that the finance is there. Although we may not get any specific news from Trak in their next TU on the prospects for SB, the likelihood of it being ramped up may at least encourage them to be much more bullish about the company's prospects generally for 21/22.

I have a feeling that for us long-suffering shareholders the worst is behind us.

Thanks RH. I certainly enjoy reading your posts, even when we're not on the same page. But I do agree with you here, that it's better just to move on...and enjoy the ride to £3+. (Mind you, I hope that wasn't one of your KoD predictions!)

With all these unnecessary ad hominem attacks, this board is going downhill as fast as the SP is going up (hopefully!).

To be honest, I think a relatively busy board like this one would indeed be a better place if it were better organised, and it’s not OCD at all to say that, that’s just being silly. Perhaps if it were better organised we’d get a proper discussion going from time to time, rather than people firing off thoughts in all directions at random, and never properly addressing the issue concerned.

Just one example: in the interests of establishing the facts, which anyone reading my posting history will know is my one and only focus, I queried a post early yesterday by “Jasonsdad”, the one that talked about "likely institutional interest in 23m shares” (ie 16% of the company!) , which had been recommended no less than 8 times for some reason. No one, not a single poster, has come back with a reply (unless it's well-hidden amongst the jumble of messages posted since). So people are blindly recommending posts, it seems, without even understanding them or querying them, and potentially misleading posts are being allowed to stand.

This is not the mark of a serious and useful discussion board. At best it’s a mere echo chamber.

It’s an amendment to the share incentive scheme rules.

Management are already heavily incentivised to get the SP to 40p+ by Dec 21, when the average SP will determine the shares they’ll receive in Dec 22 (having already received shares in Dec 21 based on the average SP in Dec 20).

The amendment means if they retain the shares for 3 years, rather than sell them straightaway, the company will pay the employer’s NIC on the gain – but only up to an SP of 40p. (Under the existing share scheme rules, the employee pays the employer's NIC).

So there's now a strong disincentive to immediately sell the shares vesting in Dec 21. Similarly for any further shares vesting in Dec 22.

And there's a strong incentive to get the SP well into the 40’s by the end of year, though there’s every chance of overshooting that, and producing an upside of at least 50% on today’s closing price.

I agree, Deep333, that it was the comment in the update on B2B during lockdown that stopped the SP pushing on to 40p.

However, where I am in the SE, judging by the traffic levels, we seem to have effectively come out of lockdown, so I reckon a busier-than-usual Feb should make up for a slightly quieter Jan (relative to a very busy December!).

If that's the case, then with a further update in March, we'll soon find out.

Furthermore, it doesn't look like this will be a prolonged lockdown, eg vaccination is on track for 15m doses by 15 Feb, and the expansion plans of the company show that management is clearly focused on life after lockdown.

So I believe the March update will allay the doubts created by the recent update, and get the SP back on track. But even if that is not the case, and we have to wait a bit longer, I still think it's worth continuing to hold shares in this tightly-run company.

"Around 23 Million shares". Can someone say where that figure came from? (It's around 16% of the company!)

SaleSale - many activities can safely take place before any return to absolute "normality", Saga cruises being one of them.

...and their targets for DX have always been conservative.

finnCap apparently increased their target price yesterday from 33p to 39p based on free cash flow yield.