Member Info for REITStrategist

My original thesis -

- government and healthcare customers provide sticky business and backlog continues to grow stronger

- Cost to customise software and provide bespoke digital services is coming down due to AI Innovations

- Contractor use is elevated due to strong backlog and pipeline of new business but AI Innovations enable each staff member to do more, opening the door to reduced contractor usage and margin improvements

I wrote this thesis during the depths of the AI-induced software stock selloff and Kainos was actually a potential beneficiary despite what the market was saying. Today's update validates my thought process.

My original write up regarding Kainos - https://reitstrategist.substack.com/i/187330497/kainos-systems-knosl-knos-246-ytd

I wrote this about Trustpilot (#TRST) on a post in Feb -

"In my view, this is a distraction and doesn't matter to their fundamentals as much so price overreactions on this front are welcome opportunities to buy I think"

At the time, the stock was caught up in the AI software stocks selloff.

That being said, there's certainly an element of short covering in play today and hence the extreme move. This might make it a hostage to FTSE 250 beta until the next trading update. Given the noise around the Strait of Hormuz, that might mean price consolidates here for a period.

Link to the Trustpilot (#TRST) section from my post below 👇

https://reitstrategist.substack.com/p/the-ftse-100-and-ftse-250-x-ray-11?open=false#%C2%A7trustpilot-group-plc-trstl-trst-26-peak-to-trough-in-2026-555-over-a-year

Also, they specifically flagged cost of contractors as one of their main negatives on their results last year. The cost of writing code is coming down thanks to these models and perhaps KNOS have the ability to reduce their contractor costs by leaning on these models more to help improve their developed productivity.

Amidst the backdrop of good growth, strong backlog and customer base (~50% revenues coming from government departments and healthcare customers like the NHS who I would wager aren't on the bleeding edge of innovation and utilising AI to make their organisation leaner), I'm a believer.

I wrote about this and a few other software names that piqued my interest in a recent post of mine - https://open.substack.com/pub/reitstrategist/p/the-ftse-100-and-ftse-250-x-ray-11?r=5v3iev&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

As BuyMeAnother says though, there's a good chance that we continue to see poor performance in the near term so I'm mentally prepared for that.

Thanks for the kind words CHELMOCHASER

The 2026 FIFA world cup and the planned America 250 celebrations are likely to increase air travel and inbound visitors and hence raise footfall for SSPG's concessions stands in the US in 2026.

We can't tell what the future holds but the odds are in favour of 2026 seeing an increase in US tourism and air travel compared to 2025. Additionally, I hold the view that consumer behaviour has shifted to consider air travel based holidays an essential rather than a discretionary expenditure. In the absence of some deep global recession, it's hard to see that trend reversing. More importantly for SSP Group, they are focused on buybacks and returning capital to shareholders. There is a chance they do share buybacks to the tune of 30% of their market cap over the next 4-5 years. Those are tailwinds I'm willing to bet on.

I mentioned SSP in a blog post of mine covering potential world cup winner stocks from a couple of weeks ago - https://open.substack.com/pub/reitstrategist/p/the-2026-fifa-world-cup-stock-basket?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5v3iev