Member Info for Pianista

"...the Group expects the performance and cash generation of the Insurance business to be largely unaffected".

The market obviously feared a lot worse yesterday.

rs28: when I say "fortunate", I mean the virus didn't take off last summer/autumn, when bookings were in full flow.
I don't see why people should now be cancelling bookings months in advance. (I'm not sure what the refund policy is).
There may be last minute cancellations from people who are unable to travel, but that will be covered by travel insurance.
If the epidemic subsides by this summer, bookings for later cruises should not be significantly affected.

rs28: "i spoke to saga this morning and they confirmed that all cruises currently scheduled will be taking place. the only cancellations are the china holiday tours. looking at the booking rates, it appears that most of the cruises are booked 70-80% at least for the remainder of the year"

..in which case, the timing of the virus was fortunate for Saga, and the big drop today bizarre.

Redundancy was discussed on this board some time back and was seen as a positive, or at least dismissed as a red herring.

As a potential Smart Breakdown customer, it hadn't really occurred to me that it might be primarily of benefit to the AA in terms of cost savings. I don't think most people think it through that cynically, or that deeply.

I would just see it as an overall more modern, more efficient way to do things, which is generally a good thing, should improve the service to me, and may even lead to lower prices for everyone in the long run.

Looked sparsely attended: there was seating for at least 2,000, including an overflow marquee, but maybe only 150 turned up.
I got the impression that not many were won over by the BOD : the only proxy votes I was aware of were AGAINST. But in view of the small number of attendees, I imagine the votes lodged at the meeting will have little impact on the result. The die was cast last Friday probably.

The amount offered by AAL is certainly chickenfeed, but the profit stream down the line is not, even to AAL.

I can't see AAL letting SXX go into administration. If they were happy for that to happen, and buy the assets from the administrator, why did they make an offer for the company in the first place?

AAL don't need to up their offer till after a "no" vote. I think they'll do that later in the week - they've had plenty of time to think about it.

Spike - what on earth makes you think that I think they haven't?

Franalex - I realise they can't run their bank balance down to the last penny.

The only assumption I'm making is that the BOD will do everything possible to save the company, i.e. get off their butts and seek long term funding or get a better deal from AAL or someone else.

In fact, with the prospect of a "no" vote, they should have been doing all this already!

If the vote is "no", what happens initially is NOTHING: the company is not insolvent, ie it can still pay its creditors for the time being, so it just carries on. No need for any suspension.

Of course, it will eventually run out of cash if no alternative to the AAL offer is found, at which point it would appoint an administrator.

"In current market conditions I can see bid being withdrawn"

I would have thought the opposite - that since SXX won't start trading for a couple of years, it is almost uniquely immune to current market conditions: it's discounted cash flow value is basically unaffected.

This makes it relatively more attractive than other alternative investments, not less.

I think Sirius have called it a "FIRM OFFER" to make people think it's a "FINAL OFFER", when it isn't necessarily.

I think AA will increase their offer, but if most shareholders have already voted "no", surely it's too late to do that before Tuesday?

I suspect they'll increase it a few days later. But who knows?

ffc - I've already voted "no" through my broker, but I've also asked them to send me the documentation to enable me to attend and vote in person.

ffc - I've been in touch with them several times....

From MailOnline, 24/2/20:

"Small investors could be blocked from voting on Anglo American's £405m takeover offer for Sirius Minerals

Sirius has said it is important that 'as many votes as possible are cast' so that the ballot is 'a fair representation' of investors' opinion. But many backers hold their shares in nominee accounts through brokers, rather than owning them outright.

….platforms such as Hargreaves Lansdown will only count as a single shareholder when the votes are counted, even though they look after the stakes of many people via nominee accounts".

ffc - not according to Barclays! They say the number of shares held is not taken into account.

If you vote via your broker, and you hold, say, a million shares, your vote is counted as just one vote, not a million votes!

This means that the "85,000 PIs" will have negligible effect on the result - assuming IIs with their zillions of shares are not similarly affected.

Surely this would invalidate the voting?

The Sirius scheme document assumes we all have certificates, which is absurd, because most of us hold through a broker.

It would be logical if brokers aggregated all the "no" votes notified to them, and registered a "block vote" of the total. Likewise for any "yes" votes.

But I'm not sure if that is happening. If PIs are indeed being disenfranchised in this way, I can see the result being challenged through the courts...

"If there honestly were anywhere close to 85k PIs left, this thing would be flying. It takes a couple of mins to complete and there is no obligation.

I would in fact argue that the site is counter productive since any prospective investor would actually look at it and see only minimal PI support".

But I suspect only a small proportion of PIs even know about the fundsirius website. How many of "the 85,000" are keeping in touch through this BB, for example? If you extrapolate the interest already shown across the whole PI population, it is substantial, not minimal.