Member Info for rupans

Anyway used car prices are falling like a brick which is good for our underwriting business and motor insurance margins in general:

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/business-car-sales/dealers-under-pressure-used-car-values-freefall

Yep definitely good riddance. Far too many mistakes and far too reactionery rather than intuitive leadership:

1. When the house brokers, Peel Hunt and PIs (including myself) wanted him to sell the underwriting business for circa £400M, he tried to sell Titan travel during a travel downturn.

2. tried to sell the underwriting business ealier in the year when it was the cheapest.

3. his digital crap.

4. blocked the 33p ( or £4.95) bid for Saga. You can argue that this may not have happened after due dilegence but equally it could have gone ahead. I also note that the peak (for literally a few weeks) price for Saga after this offer was around £4.30.

5. In fact not sure he did much at all apart from get deHann on board.

Taverham,

#MeToo

Oogleflugal,

Unfortunatley you have got it all wrong. Before he brought DeHaan in, there was an offer on the table of £4.95 (or 33p in old money) per share. DeHaan was brought in to block that bid and we never saw this price!!! ever after that offer.

Zccax77,

you missed off the £1M fee just to use the facility and of course if Saga refinanced it would presumably for the amount it needed and not to renogiate for the entire value of the bond. The point the calculation is complicated but I think they can do better than Rogers facility ... which is why Saga brought in Lazard to advise.

Alnwick,

I am with you. we should not be using Rogers financing ... it is quite punitive.

I think with regards to the underwriting part of the business, will have turned dramatically in last few months as my previous posts have highlighted ... especially the research done by citibank.

Anyway my first preference would be for Saga to sell AICL the underwriting business which should go for a lot more than the 90M which was the previous offer which fell through.

Refinancing on the ships would be a second preference. I think the current loan rates on them were 5.5% not sure they could get that again but should do much better than Roger's 10% plus 1M fee

ohhh and I look forward to Eldose increasing his ownership to over 5% which should happen by December 31st ;-)

Great news as this is now almost certainly woth more than it was 6 months ago :-)

Maybe they were listening to you last comment Bilzo:

https://news.sky.com/story/debt-laden-saga-turns-to-lazard-to-shore-up-balance-sheet-13017395

Superdry store was rammed today. Selling very well but most stores in town were rammed today

Sharecast - "We are now buy-rated on the UK motor sub-sector as pricing and Ogden tailwinds put us circa 17% ahead of Admiral FY24E consensus earnings per share whilst we are circa 7% ahead of Direct Line (LON:DLGD)’s FY25E consensus OPBT due to continued motor margin recover to a NIM of 11%," it said.

Citi (NYSE:C) said its own motor claims inflation index points to material improvements since 1H23 as it sees claims inflation at only 5.5% in October following material decelerations in damage related repair costs and improvements in repair cycle times.

"This points to a much better starting point for claims inflation in 2024E compared to +12.7% we estimated in December 2022 and is ultimately positive for 2024 margins," it said.

Citi hiked its price target on Admiral (LON:ADML) to 2,941p from 2,057p.

At 1100 GMT, Admiral shares were up 3% at 2,699.68p and Direct Line was 2.6% higher at 189.25p.

https://www.sharecast.com/news/broker-recommendations/citi-double-upgrades-admiral-to-buy--15392676.html

Nice article Correy thanks for the analysis ...

CITIGROUP raises Admiral from a SELL to a BUY and raises price target from 2057p to 2941p

CITIGROUP raises direct line Iinsurance price target from195p to 225p.

Both Admiral and direct line share prices rise today ... and Saga well ....

Maxter, nice to see sales doing well. should translate to good numbers eventually

Aspers we wonder why you post here too.

what is nice and steady is the fact that the UAE investor has increased his holding by another 1%

Very good sales in the southampton store this weekend. some lines have run out of popular sizes. Looks like jackets are selling very well and tills are busy.

Info on other stores would be welcome

Hi

It looks like we have passed the upper Aspers-Billzo line, (130p)

But to be fair we came very close to the lower Aspers-Billzo line first.

Have no idea how you would check concessions unless again you check websites for sold out in popular sizes

Just to back up my opinion here is article on xmas performance:

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2022/12/superdry-secures-80m-refinancing-deal/

Utterlyclueless,

let me give me my opinion to your questions:

Is there any brand value in superdry?

Yes as they have already done 2 licensing deals, one for east asia and one for India etc. Each license deal worth more than the market cap of Superdry. Also circa £600 M sales per year of a premium priced product.

The stores always look empty when I walk past them

Can you tell me which stores these are please? The southampton store was empty literally during summer period upto about 3 weeks ago. Now they are quite busy and seem quite popular at the moment. Not like Primark though

are any products that are gaining sales momentum?

I would say Jackets are Superdry's key product. I have visisted again this week and there were 3 people trying on jackets at the same time. Their stores have pretty much stuffed themselve with a huge number of different jackets this year. More than last. Their jackets were their key seller last year and they have picked up on that.

So the key to look out for is if it is difficult to buy popular sizes of their jackets in a months time or so, would be the indicator that Superdry did well this xmas.

All my opinion of course and would like to hear how busy other superdry stores are across the country

Just been reading up on that ... Saga was lucky that there wasnt a death or serious damage to the ship?

This should have a positive read through for Saga:

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1032266/direct-line-says-rising-prices-underpin-strong-growth-in-motor-arm-1032266.html

Went to local superdry today. Very busy and lots of people buying and trying on jackets. I think Superdry have figured out this is something that they sell well. Even bought one myself - last one in medium for that range (the windbraker jacket in beige). Had no intention to buy a jacket but it just looked too good. Very promising as the store was barren September and October. Would be interested if other people have seen similar things in their local superdry.

On the back of this have decided that this is a buy all the way up to 70 to 80p. Just my opinion