Member Info for Richard365054

I have to smile when people try to convince themselves that Lloyds will come good. How long do you wait for such an event. One of the comments today was that the whole market was down, but my main investment was 3% up. At least I had something to smile about and be thankful I ditched most of my Lloyds holding 10 months ago. I first held Lloyds almost eleven years ago, paying 70p. A few months later it touched 77p and nearly everyone was hazarding a guess when it would touch £1. This went on for several years and the optimism was always there. I managed to top up once or twice and managed some at 22p. But overall, what a dog of a share.
Without a doubt the Board are jaded and have no imagination. They also make promises and break them. At the AGM in May they said all enquiries would be replied to. None of my five have. I've also written to Osorio, Bailey and the PRA. No one replies as we are urchins. Oh, I'm sorry. We actually own the company and the focus on the Board should be to maximise return for the shareholders. But they are not aware of this responsibility, they're too busy rewarding themselves and printing new shares. Hurry up and leave Osorio, you have no imagination and your street cred is shot to pieces. You have been a puppet of the B of E and the Government for years.

That's a very quick brushstroke that doesn't take account of the low volume and high premium of various specials under development and construction which will have significant impact on revenues and profitability over the next two years. The margins on these models alone will probably cover the debt payments allowing the time to refine and re establish the core models with the improvements that will already be identified and in the pipeline. If these low volume/high margin specials didn't exist I would be worried and not invested in this share. They provide AML with the time to get the improvements to the core models and introduce derivatives as well as hybrids and all electric.

I watched a very interesting video yesterday by Harry Metcalfe on the Ferrari Roma. I've said before how much this model "borrows" from the DB10 and I didn't see anything to change my mind. The side profile is uncanny and it sadly shows what a trick AML missed. Harry tested a Vantage Volante some weeks ago and he was very critical of the price. I think it began at £120,000 and his test car was around £150,000 to £160,000 with options. The Roma begins at £170,000 and Harry's test car was £220,000. Because of the strength of the brand the much higher prices are more acceptable, although we know each model carries a 25% profit margin. This is the area that AML are aiming for and under Herr Moers will surely achieve.

The Roma has about a 100 bhp advantage on the Vantage, but we know the Mercedes twin turbo V8 already gives 700+ BHP in the Mercedes SL black, so the power discrepancy wouldn't be an issue. The interior of the Roma looks to have a nice cabin but we know the infotainment in the Vantage is one major area that will change soon. Some of the modern tech trickery was downright annoying such as the lane assist which goes off every time you cross a white line. In an older car you'd attack it with a hammer.

So I hope AML and Reichman are watching. The DB10 was under his control and the Vantage was definitely his baby. A case of never too late!

Actually, Vettel is one of the most likeable and down to earth drivers on the grid. He's a very private man with a delicious sense of humour and appreciates many of the characteristics of English satire. Outside of the car he'd be a very easy man to get along with. He doesn't go in for social media which gets my vote.

But which would you rather own and which one has a soul!

I know I'll be criticised for seemingly talking down the share, but a bit of realism is needed, plus a new Board.

Ten and eleven years ago people were prophesying the £1 share price about to be achieved. Year after year the bets were made and the share never delivered. It never happened and has never remotely looked like happening with the number of shares in issue, which have generally increased year on year. With furlough still to end and debt and redundancies to multiply, there is a lot of pain still to come. Just being realistic and I still hold some shares.

Congrats to you, Cortez and big thanks to GT4. That was a generous offer.

CarsCoffee, I'd enjoy that sometime in the future when everything is clear. Thankyou.

That's kind of you GT4. I enjoy Silverstone and have memories of some fabulous cars and races. It would be a nice to meet up once this covid is defeated.

1658. That's a generous gift.

It will be fascinating to read an update (hopefully next month) of AML's plans for the next few years as there are quite a few unanswered questions.

DBX will become hybridised by 2023 although I would imagine a conventional higher performance version will be added first. There is a 700bhp plus AMG GT already available with essentially the same engine and I would imagine quite a few prospective buyers like to quote performance figures and also find a welcoming airfield. Hopefully infotainment across the range will be updated with more modern systems, a criticism every model receives from road testers and overdue when you consider what current Mercedes' models receive.

Valhallah appears to be still coming to fruition,although whether with the in house V6 or some other powerplant has not been revealed. This still appears to be a 500 unit vehicle with a £1 million price tag. It was due for release in 2021 but who knows with the problems continuing with covid19. Somewhere between Valhallah and hybridised DBX is the Vanquish, a model that isn't get much mention at the moment, although it will be electrified but probably not 100%. The fully electric Aston is approximately 4 years away, but not a Lagonda. So we are no closer knowing what plans there are for the other brand.

Which leaves the three sporting models which are undoubtedly going to receive significant updates - part of the 8 or 9 relaunches Herr Moers has promised. None of them are long in the tooth, the DB11 being around the longest. It will be interesting to see if AML can get the V12 through the more onerous emissions as Ferrari sales for their V12 derivatives are very healthy. Many people recognise that the days are numbered for this configeration of vehicle. A few more years and they'll probably have gone for ever. I still miss the magnificent sound of the previous generation of V12 Vantage racing in Blancpain and the British GT championship.

Speedster, Valhallah, 007 DB5 and Valkyrie will have a combined turnover of around £1.1 Billion. A healthy figure considering none of these are mainstream models.

The future of the company however will rest with the core models and it will be fascinating to see what form the first few relaunches take. I hope Marek Reichman accepts that AML are known for beauty as latterly he's followed his own path as a design engineer. If the evolution of the Vantage had been right to begin with, the pain the company is suffering would have been a little less. As a direct competitor, Ferrari continue to go from strength to strength and I find it disappointing that the unfinished (in my opinion) DB10 should end up being refined and beautiful as the Ferrari Roma.

The measure that will drive the AML shareprice will be turnover(sales) and the real impact won't be felt until the second half of this year. Sadly covid continues to have an impact with showrooms closed, although hopefully St Athan and Gaydon are still running.

But there are some real shining lights to come in 2021 and 2022, not least the deliveries of Valkyrie and Speedster, which will contribute £500 million to sales with a very lucrative margin. There are also perhaps 20 Goldfinger DB5s to add to this, yielding an additional £55 million.

And then we come to the DBX contribution, say around 4500 units annually, yielding around £800 million. But what do we guess for Vantage and DBS? Say 1500 for the sportscar and 1000 for the GT tourer. That's an additional £450 million annually.

On conservative figures this all equates to £1.525 Billion annual turnover and ignores derivatives of the DBX, plus Valhallah and Vanquish. The various derivatives that Herr Moers has talked about are an unknown and unmeasurable. As for the impact of Formula 1 and pace and safety cars at alternate Grands Prix, who knows. The one thing for sure is that all this will be positive.

Y11, so you think lloyds capitalisation will surpass HSBC. Wow!

Axe-Capital, you've done well, albeit being in a position to take advantage of a low point in the share price. Many, many people are carrying shares in the 50s, 60s and 70s who have waited years to see the price recover or at least have a dividend to supplement their income. If others had spare capital back in September there were numerous shares waiting to bounce back. Many people are not risk takers and yet Banking shares were always recommended as safe havens with regular dividends when interest rates were poor. These are the hundreds of thousands that have watched a diminishing share price for years and just wanted some certainty that the dividend income and share price would show a gradual rise. Instead they continue to be hammered by the regulators and the lawyers, plus poor management that continues to reward itself. You could say don't invest in shares if you don't like risk. But Banks traditionally were not a risk investment and Boards used to maximise returns for the share holders that owned them. No longer the case now and why I say there are better opportunities out there.

I have held Lloyds shares for over a decade and one thing you can guarantee is that the share price will disappoint. A good part of this is the solely UK focus as well as blinkered management who have rewarded themselves but not the shareholders. Ten years ago the share price touched 77p and about six years ago it touched around 90p when ppi was at it's height. This highpoint was realised on the back of some very opportunistic words from AHO specifically to achieve his bonus. I've said before that the Bank will be a better investment when he's left and we hopefully have a Board that looks to broader horizons. AHO will probably receive an honour for his support to the economy during the ppi debacle reflecting how well the car industry did on sales achieved through the Bank's compensation. His compliance with the Bank of England was the final straw and for many, including myself, the time to dump most of my holding. It was one of my better decisions.

Lloyds are doing what Lloyds do best, disappointing their shareholders. The latest covid19 figures are the principle reason why the share price has backtracked and the need, as I mentioned a little while ago, for massive vaccinations has become the reality. Doing it as opposed to finding reasons not to achieve are what is needed. The administration is not science, just forward thinking organisation.

The other factor that will hold Lloyd's back are unemployment figures and these will filter through for months, leading to bigger write offs. That will impact further on Lloyds. Every year I have held Lloyds, shareholders have tried to guess the year end closing price. Every year there has been optimism and people convinced about a share price breakout. After a decade you count up the missed opportunities that exist elsewhere. Fortunately, these are still out there and waiting for investors. By all means keep a holding in Lloyds, but don't assume it will ever be as good as it once was.

Using the DBX to tow your Valkyrie must be the ultimate statement for a petrolhead. Wonderful.

The first of the special DB5s are reaching lucky buyers at £3.3 million per example. All 25 have been sold.

The light at the end of the tunnel is surely that the vaccine is being rolled out and another more portable one should be available later this month. We can't go on being locked down and the worst piece of news is that the mutated virus can be caught within days by someone who has recovered from the original version. The more people and the greater quantities of vaccine that can be administered the sooner we can get back to normality.

MM, best news possible. We have to see normality return, albeit taking care.