Member Info for Pianista

Don't worry about Euan. With Sir R breathing down his neck, he'll have to shape up or ship out.

The Singaporeans must have seen my post of 3/10/20, where I said in response to a suggestion that Saga's ships might for the time being be used as "retirement homes":

"If the retirement home idea would work, what's to stop the ship weighing anchor and moving around in the sunnier climes of the Med or the Caribbean? AKA a cruise (but with fewer ports-of -call)".

Let's hope Sir R is reading this.

No mention of Trak, but let's hope Microlise applied the same rigour that they are advocating in this article, when they chose Trak as a partner!

Very odd - can buy through Barclays!

Odd that this is not being priced in - the opposite in fact - given that Mr Market is supposed to be forward looking.

It’s not so much due to a virus, as the government’s bizarre overreaction to it, which isn’t just killing the economy, but also thousands of people who don’t, or didn’t, have such “newsworthy” illnesses and are not even a “statistic” in the government’s eyes.

Slownsteady - so the underwriters were left with about 150m shares, which compares with the average daily turnover of about 7m shares.

The overhang could therefore take months to clear, unless Sir R comes to the rescue again.

But he could only pick up about half of the overhang before hitting the 30% threshold.

The RNS has nothing to do with the AA. The RNS relates to Aon, not the AA. It's just been misfiled!

The RNS refers to a “DISPOSAL of voting rights”, which is not the case if you simply do not take up your allocation.
It also uses the unenlarged share capital as the denominator to compute the % holdings before and after the transaction.
So it looks to me like a genuine disposal by SLA on 1/10/20, albeit reported on this website as part of the exceptionally large turnover of £20m on 2/10/20.
We may learn in due course that, in addition, SLA didn’t take up (all) their allocation(s). This would bring down their % even further, from 5.67% to potentially around 3%.

It appears to be the views of an unknown, generally bearish, PI.

There are plenty of other unknown PIs who take the opposite view, but have not gone into print like he has.

And why should that article carry more weight than last week's Berenberg upgrade to a target price of 30p?

All will soon become clear!

Sir R has put in £100m for 552m shares at an average of 18pps. They’re currently worth, at just over 11pps, £60m odd. So he’s suffered an instant loss of £40m - small change to a billionaire.

This was not in the script, though! It is bizarre that the SP is lower now (even allowing for the increased number of shares in issue) than before the capital raise, which basically secured the future of the company and news of which was so positively received by the market. Like I’ve said before, people seem to have very short memories these days.

However, recent weakness in the wider market hasn’t helped either. When it recovers, Saga’s SP should move north again too. If it didn’t, then fortunately for Sir R, he’s got just a tad too many shares to fit into an ISA, so at least he’d get tax relief for any loss! But I’m sure he’d much rather turn the loss into a massive gain, albeit taxable. We all would…

If the retirement home idea would work, what's to stop the ship weighing anchor and moving around in the sunnier climes of the Med or the Caribbean? AKA a cruise (but with fewer ports-of -call).

Roguemale1 - after years of poor performance, reflected as you say in humongous goodwill write-offs, the company was I believe on the way back (long before Sir R appeared on his white charger). Then along came Covid.

If Covid hadn't come along, the SP would now be 50p+, which though still historically relatively low, would be more than acceptable to most sensible long-term holders who, like me, will have averaged down. And it is a resumption of cruising that will get it back to 50p+. No doubt there is scope for improvement in other areas too, but that will be icing on the cake.

Oppa et al - the SP is where it is only because of cruising, or lack of it. What real difference can Sir R's intervention make - apart from buying the company time - if it doesn't get cruising again?

With his background and his 26.4% stake, no doubt he'll be "Non Executive Chairman" in name only, and the ideas he has will be key to the company's success.

We all hope there'll be some kind of breakthrough - on the health front or in terms of governments accepting that the world will just have to learn to live with the virus - but with cruises continually being deferred, there is no end in sight at the moment.

Many investors including myself have been in this dog since flotation in 2014, so cannot be accused of only wanting to make a fast buck if they are impatient to see it turned around, or would be willing to accept a reasonable offer. We're not around for ever...

What we need from De Haan is not just £100m that, as a billionaire, he can well afford to lose, but his thoughts on how and when cruising will restart.

"New cruise ships ready to sail when Government approval is given". And when foreign ports-of-call allow.

The $64,000 question is: when will that be? Will Sir Roger be able to work his magic in this regard?

33p probably equates to about 25p now.

(1,122m x 33p = £370m, + £140m capital raise = £510m / 2,094m = 24.4p)

His 26.4%, or 553m shares, cost him £100m, ie 18p per share on average. Slightly better than my 20p.

Enlarged share Capital 2,093,921,536 shares in aggregate, but soon to be divided by 15.

Only 44% take up of the Open Offer. Not surprised. I took up 56% in the end.

SP looks like it's still got legs, so I'll continue to hold. My mistake was not investing enough.