Member Info for Raleigh

to March, not end March.

All lines are constrained by Covid and it's international element. Carnival will make a net loss for full year ending November. They are still repatriating staff. They will have to get them back, when they know where they can sail from and where they can go. Carnival thinks it has sufficient cash to see it through March, and it continues to make additional savings. Some commentators suggest March is optimistic. Whatever the truth turns out to be, a strong quarter 4, firing on all cylinders, does not seem on the cards. And quarter 1, 2021 will take us to end March........
Investors have done well over the month and may continue to do so. But there are reasons to be cautious.

Home Investing Barron's Markets

A Rally In Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Stocks, Has Gone Too Far, Morgan Stanley Says
Published: June 3, 2020 at 10:41 a.m. ET
By Lawrence C. Strauss

MS
+3.41%
CCL
+3.05%
RCL
+2.35%
NCLH
+3.70%
UBS
+4.18%
Shares of the three big U.S. cruise operators have perked up in the second quarter with double-digit gains, thanks to growing optimism about their liquidity and overall prospects of surviving the pandemic.

A Morgan Stanley research note Wednesday asserts that investors have been too optimistic. The firm reinstated Carnival (ticker: CCL) and Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL) at Underweight, and it downgraded Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) to Underweight.

MXCP will sell eventually, as it is intended to wind that company up within 5 years, following disbursements to shareholders as assets are sold. And, according to Ide's last updates, it is by no means a dead duck.

Management are relatively heavily invested. They will stick with their product. They have no reason to lead us up the garden path with their expectations. So I wait.

BAE Systems' CORDA cements Dstl relationship
Georgina O'Toole, 09:35, 02 June 2020
BAE Systems logoBAE Systems’ CORDA has cemented its relationship with the MoD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) for at least another five years. BAE Systems CORDA is a modelling and analysis consultancy, kept independent from the rest of the BAE Systems Group. Its new contract, which can be extended for up to a further two years, is named ASTRID (Analysis for Science and Technology Research in Defence) and is worth up to £350m. The framework contract is open to any customers in MoD and in wider Government with in-scope requirements.

ASC has already delivered over 300 separate analysis activities for customers that took advantage of that framework. ASTRID will continue to provide cutting-edge analysis designed to underpin UK defence and security decision making, while endeavouring to introduce further innovation. BAE Systems CORDA “will source and select the best supplier from its specialist supply chain to conduct analysis and inform decision making”. There will be a drive to increase the percentage delivered by SMEs.

The aim of the framework is to ensure the best decisions are made when the MoD (or other Government organisations) are faced with strategy, policy, and investment challenges. It will operate across five areas: strategy, policy and enterprise, capability and investment for platform and system-level capabilities within current and future force structures, organisational structures (including back-office support, systems and processes), enabling services (including modelling and data collection) and horizon scanning. Subject to Intellectual Policy Rights, the research can be re-purposed and shared across other areas within Government facing similar challenges.

The board changes, strategic plan etc. can come to nothing without the cash. Although the board expect it to be raised as planned, it is listed as a material uncertainty, as they are obliged to. In the unlikely event it does not go as planned, then the board has to revert to less favourable plans as listed - merger, acquisition, etc.
We have bought ahead of the funding finalisation and also believing that it will be sorted as planned by early July in accordance with their timetable, and in my case the belief that buying may prove difficult when that becomes positively clearer, particularly appearing in one 7am RNS. Others will be waiting for announcement(s).
I do not expect it to make much in the way of gains now until next month. Neither do I expect it to trade below 25p.
Just get the funding done.

No trades but up 4.04% - bid 2.40 ask 2.75. Same on stock exchange and HL.
I shall see what happens tomorrow.

I do not intend to argue either way on at this stage unnecessary ifs, buts, and maybes. It will play through.

I do not know why the issue of a share split arises at this juncture, if at all.
It is the fundraise and associated matters which are of more immediate import. Taking one step at a time the fundraising, which the company anticipates will be successful ( and which will include an open offer ) will require shareholder approval, and the equity raising process itself expected to be completed by 8th. July.

Yes. Like others I have come in as a small punt, as a cash shell plus looking for an RTO.

Taking things as they arise here. The brief I/C article contains nothing new and inspirational beyond where we were when the market opened on Friday. It is exclusionary when compared with the detailed RNS at 0700. ( as posters have remarked ). It adds up to the I/c person saying he does not think the new management can turn it around. CD and R etc., see things very differently, and back the results of their own in-depth enquiries with cash.
We now need to see the additional funding confirmed.

"incorporating a pre-emptive offer" they say. So there will be one - I have no idea what form it will take.

It is all in here somewhere and with Companies Act. https://www.sigplc.com/~/media/Files/S/SIG-Corp/documents/investors/agm/SIG%20Notice%20of%20Meeting%202019.PDF
They will do what they will do, and in accordance at least.

I agree. It is as per. RNS. That is why I started with my comment on no comment. I have not read IKO will take part, but they support and my expectation is they will. I do believe a fair obligation exists, to extend any pre-emptive offer in similar form to all existing shareholders on a record date - we shall see about that. I am content to see it play out. I read, but discount , certainly in the longer term, the individual pundit's view. A case of my money, my choice, as always.

I cannot comment on the open offer mentioned. However, what has been said in RNS is:-

"The equity offer, to be launched in the coming weeks, will be structured in two, inter-conditional tranches: a tranche of £60m being placed firm to CD&R (at 25p per share) and a second tranche of £90m, offered to a broader range of investors and incorporating a pre-emptive offer, in which CD&R will invest up to £25m"

Pre-emption rights give existing shareholders first refusal when a company is issuing new shares. If pre-emption rights exist, new shares in a company cannot be offered to other potential investors without first being offered to the current shareholders.

CD and R will benefit, naturally, from the second tranche. I expect IKO at least to be given the specific opportunity. I do not suggest it will necessarily do so, but a pre-emptive offer will be made and we shall have to see if that offer, as opposed to a right, will extend in limited form to include pi's.

And for those who genuinely believe there will be a mass 'dumping' of shares on the market, and they will not be taken up, sell now.

A recovery is on the way for Sig, not so much in the shorter term from Covid19, but from poor management. Yesterday's announcement was the outcome so far of months of due diligence and behind the scenes discussion. One can see that private equity saw an opportunity and took it, and the appointment of Mr. Francis and other board changes up to and including yesterday were a fundamental part of the plan, as was the announcement of CD and R putting two more of their people on the board. Effectively, private equity CD and R will run the company, having agreed to take perhaps 25% for the privilege of the opportunity at 25p.per share.
Sig is already a pan-European market leader, and therefore with significant opportunity, targeting 5% margin on historic revenue of say getting on £3bn. The foregoing and practical recovery plan will form the basis of the proposition ( possibly/probably already put ) to investors in the second tranche. One wonders perhaps if the terms will be higher, but I suspect that it will not, with their 25%, matter to CD and R.

The high volume day at price yesterday will hopefully have afforded larger investors intent on selling the opportunity to do so - less encumbrance to the sp. Some investors may be waiting for completion of the fund raise, and I do see that announcement as being beneficial to the price. But it is probably as good as done, and over-subscribed.

Unknown ifs and maybes. I can only deal with what I see. If all goes well, tremendous support for the business. At a price, granted, But that is to be expected.

This will probably do better when the placings are complete. Private equity have their eyes on it anyway.