RE: Spirit of Adventure2 Jul 2020 00:28
In the current context, I think the news of the inaugural sailing is critical: when a company has only one ship, commencement of cruising by its second ship is pretty significant, particularly when cruising is currently paused anyway. That's certainly the way the market should see it, having savagely (and unjustifiably) marked the company down on its cruising business. (By the way, Carnival has about 100 ships, so I wouldn't expect them to make a song and dance about every addition to their fleet).
Like you, I'm more interested in Saga's much larger insurance business. Margins have fallen, but they still consider the business to be "resilient". Travel insurance has fallen off a cliff, but I imagine it's now coming back strongly as foreign holidays are back on, especially as Saga are now one of only a handful of companies covering Covid-19. Reserve releases in the underwriting business amounted to £20m in the first 4 months. If they continue at the same rate, the full year amount will be £60m, against £40m for the whole of the prior year, so an improvement of £20m. I'm not as concerned about goodwill write-offs as the company's ability to service its loans, which I am comfortable with given all the measures taken, including suspending dividends.