Member Info for Pianista

Bearing in mind my last two posts, I'd be amazed if we didn't see some significant PDMR buying.

What a surprise! And a pleasant one at that! If this doesn't wake up this share, nothing will.

This contract appears to secure c£1m pa of gross profit (gross profit is around a third of sales), and should at least buttress the currently depressed SP.

Having now released this "price sensitive information", the directors are free to deal, provided we are at least 30 days away from the release of financial results, which is probably the case (they’ve applied for an extension of the deadline to 31/1/21 for the publication of the annual accounts, and this would seem to indicate that the half year results are unlikely to be published within the next 30 days either). I wonder if we'll see some PDMR buying, therefore?

UK Retail was up overall today, but that concealed some big gainers and some big fallers, eg JD Sports was down 6% because it will have to close, being “non-essential”. But Halfords is expected to be classed as essential, as it was in Lockdown 1, so today’s big drop is difficult to fathom. There may be a buying opportunity here, therefore.

Rox- great minds think alike, obviously (except when it comes to dilution!)

Rox - flattered that you're an attentive reader of my posts, in particular the one on 26/10/20.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say.

If it's anything like Lockdown 1, it should again be good for Halfords. What else is there to do, but go for a bike ride or tinker with your car, using money that can't be spent elsewhere?

Lockdown + Davidson Kempner = Blue week for the AA?

Lockdown means fewer breakdowns - while not really affecting renewals - and fewer insurance claims, so should be positive for the AA.

Though I'm not in favour of a further lockdown, a time-limited lockdown should, in theory, do no harm to Saga.

Insurance would be hardly affected at all. Cruising wouldn't be affected, because there isn't any; on the contrary, if a lockdown now would make the prospect of a return to cruising in the spring more certain, then it would be a positive.

Rox - it wasn’t a rights issue: there were no rights to sell.
And rights issues are not inherently bad - I virtually ten-bagged following one done during the financial crash of 2008 - but like any financial tool they can be, and are sometimes, misused.
The Saga capital raise was over-complicated, partly because of an unnecessary share consolidation, but we must all be grateful for the fact that it has secured the future of the company in these extremely challenging times.

If senior management are so clueless, the bidders will surely be able to see the potential from having a clear-out, which will be in their gift once they own it. It's no reason, therefore, not to make a decent bid. The opposite in fact.

Since flotation, AA membership numbers have dropped from c4m to c3m, and it's crucial to the ability of the company to pay down debt that they don't drop further.

I suppose the Consortium could be waiting to see the very latest numbers, though in this digital age, that shouldn't take very long.

Rox - Poker and I, and all those who took up their entitlements in full, own a smaller % but of a bigger pie (as Batfasted put it). We've been arithmetically diluted, but not economically diluted. Of course, the effects of the capital raise have since been swamped by the drop in the SP - but it'll come back...

At the end of the day, FTSE down 1.1%, AA down only 0.4%. So not the massive crash the prophets of gloom were predicting.

Thanks Pokerchips - I should have said "First Firm Placing".

Batfasted - I see you made a similar point to my last post at the end of your last post.

Rox - the Firm Placing to Sir R was only 224m shares (not 350m), for which he paid 27p, ie well above the SP at the time. This was not dilutive therefore, it was the opposite of dilutive ("concentrative"?). Although it gave existing shareholders a smaller % of the (increased) number of shares, the value of the company increased by £60m, ie the money he put in. The net result of these two factors was an increase in the value of existing shareholders' holdings.

Your comment about dilution, Pokerchips: I agree with you, although there are some on this board, I know, who would disagree. In my case, in order to avoid any dilution at all, I simply took up my full allocation of the 972m-odd new shares issued.

The SP dropped slightly by a predictable amount when the shares went ex-offer - which of course you can claw back by taking up your full allocation of the discounted shares - but the more recent precipitous drop from c180p was not directly attributable to the capital raise, and is more difficult to explain. All I know is, as a result, I along with many others have not been able to avoid any "capital erosion" - for the time being.

I'm not the only optimist, spindok - someone else splashed out all of £488 on CRU this morning!