Member Info for simx

If there is a no vote IDS have threatened administration for the loss making part of the business responsible for fulfilling the USO, ie letter delivery. These are uncharted waters. Separation will be difficult, but at this stage one would assume the company have a legally solid plan ready to be implemented. The administrators will continue to operate the USO to the best of their ability and will still have cashflow, but under current circumstances this will continue to be loss making. The primary duty of the administrators is to make this part of the business economically viable.
The USO needs a huge number of people to fulfil and it is currently failing because it's scope of 6 days a week delivery combined with strike action means it is too ambitious when set against the income it generates. The current deal offered to employees will be withdrawn whilst the administrators try to plot a course to viability/profitability. They will request a reduction in the USO which if/when granted will reduce headcount and costs. The current deal offered by the company says no compulsory redundancies. This will be revoked under administration allowing for many thousands of compulsory of redundancies to be made to attain viability.
It's difficult to guess what the CWU's approach will be if administration becomes a reality, but their credibility with their members will have been badly damaged by a no vote. Belatedly they have come to a realisation that the situation is desperate, administration will be brutal, and have told members to vote yes for the deal. So, once they have seen the medicine prescribed by the administrators to attain viability, will the CWU call for strike action or work with the administrators?
Ward balloted for strike action on wages and t's and c's, wages to increase by the rate of inflation, around 9% at the time. IDS barely budged and the CWU accepted 10% over 3 years, and RM just pushed through many of the work practices they wanted to change. Management have out manoeuvred the CWU throughout this dispute. The CWU are fractured and on the brink whilst management seemingly appear to be in control and content with the possibility of administration and the separation of letter delivery from RM; happy to step back and let the administrators come to their own conclusions as to what is required to save the letters part of RM.
Until the vote is in this is all conjecture, but I'm of the opinion that IDS will be happy to see the recurring issues of the CWU and USO being forced to conclusions under administration.

If special administration only applied to the letters part of the business it would be great for IDS. The administrators aim is to rescue a viable business. RM isn't viable at the moment but it could be and i believe letters can be profitable. Recent stamp price rise may help here. RM will still have cashflow, probably not enough to cover costs unless changes are made to headcount. Change to the USO is the obvious target. Administrators also have the role of giving a business breathing space from creditors.
As I said earlier a request from the administrators to change the USO would be looked upon more favourably than one made by the company, whose motives for making such a request may be viewed with more suspicion. If the administrators said the business will fail without a change in the USO, then it will change.
If Rm does become viable during administration, it may even be passed back to IDS as a profitable business.
For the CWU membership all faith in the union would be gone and I imagine many would rip up their cards. Other members would be lost through redundancy, and the workforce would see striking as a double edged axe and be more thoughtful about the consequences of strike action.
D.K. keeps buying. He's clever and rich enough to have payed for the best advice to navigate through this. I think he would like to own the whole business, letters included if the administrator can make the changes necessary. This business should be thriving and increasing market share and the union should be pushing this vision to their membership. Instead Wards's whipped them up to a lather, covetous of money spent on past dividends and using that as a motivating factor for the strikes. Shocking really when a man with 100k+ mouths to feed loses touch with reality. It's disgraceful that the company is where it is. The unions approach farcical, inept and and contemptuous to their members. Predictable too, which is why IDS and DK, who certainly 'talk' have been ahead with their strategy every step of the way.

Ollie, this from you a few hours ago:
'The fact that of the matter is that the administrator would be responsible for ensuring that a universal postal service is provided in accordance with the standards set out in the universal postal service order and simple mathematics dictates that the business would need a certain amount of delivery OPGs in order to meet it's obligations.'

There's no chance there won't be a letter delivery service. There's every chance it will be reduced.

Anger, Just been thinking along the same lines re: consequences of administration.

If there's a no vote, and RM goes into administration the USO would have to be maintained by the administrator until they found somebody to take it off their hands... as if that's going to happen. Whose going to want to try and turn around a company losing money every day and still in dispute with a reluctant workforce?
Posties are saying they can't cope with the workload, mails often late and RM could be fined for missing QoS targets, though I doubt there will be any fines as they would only make RM's viability even more precarious.
As things are, RM being squeezed by the USO on one side and the CWU on the other, can't be resolved by the administrator in a way that would comply with the current USO whilst also making the business able to stand on its own two feet. Responsibility for financially maintaining the USO ultimately would fall to the government, which they really really don't want. It would be an absolute can of worms and a potential political and media sh*tstorm.
Why would Ward have made such a volte face, it's 180 degrees at warp speed for him, and there's certainly something up.

Letter delivery can't be allowed to totally fail, but I can't see the USO continuing in its current form much longer. It's debateable whether stamp price increases will be enough to turn RM back to profitability, but it's pretty obvious that the burden of a 6 day USO needs to be reduced to 5 or even 4 days asap. If the administrator were to demonstrate it was needed to ensure survival of a mail service it would probably be granted, and combined with higher stamp prices could stabilise RM.
Dave Ward has been playing a lousy game of bluster and brinksmanship with IDS, and has certainly had a serious reality check. IDS, the group would still be a profitable business without RM
If Ward is worried about redundancies and lost subs maybe it's because he's been told that the administrators primary job is to ensure the company continues to trade. Maybe he's been told that administration will be much more brutal, that the CWU's intransigence and high staff numbers are are unaffordable and a 4 day USO a possibility?
Maybe IDS and DK have played a blinder and knew what the end would look like a year ago?

@seen_it, the buyer could have got these shares after the market closed for 10.98'ish. Instead a 12.5% premium was paid. There's something I'm not understanding here, whcih is why I suggested the possibility of a typo. I do however like the idea that it's a sign the sp is moving north sharpish.

Maximus, this made me p*ss my self, still laughing,
"workers have written to the World Socialist Web Site from around the country describing the “prison like” conditions in their workplaces".

@denby: 1,119,181 Buy, ordinary trade, at 1,229.2p. when the sp is 1092p. This was a buy at 137p above the current sp.

Agreed, I'd be selling at that price, but would still like a rational explanation why someone would be prepared to pay so much? I'm wondering if its a display error? Any thoughts welcome.

31-Mar-23 12:59:58 1,229.205 1,119,181 Buy* 1,092.00 1,093.00 14m O
This trade just went through, current sp 1093, trade price 1229.2, bought for 130p more than sp! Anyone have an explanation? The last time sp was at that level was may 2022.

Newdealz, there were two other trades for £4m at 2.13 this afternoon at 230.7 pence per share, 12p higher than the sp at that time! I think they were marked unknown, but at that price I'm assuming they were buys. Is D.K. making another move?

Oligarch, £370m would cover the 400 million euro bond 2024 repayment. And this extra £370m income would be year on year with no costs attached to it.

Anger, these stamp price increases are happening from 3rd April. Got to pay the wage bill and provide a better service, and one day give holders a dividend.

Results for year ending 2022 state 3,714 million letters delivered. Price for 1st class are increasing by 15p, and 2nd class up 7p. Not sure what the proportion of 1st and 2nd class letters is of these 3,714 m letters, and volumes are declining, but a (speculative) guess of an average 10p increase per letter would with current volumes would increase revenue by £370 million. I'm sure more knowledgeable people on this board can pull these numbers apart, but it still represents a significant boost to the bottom line. Any thoughts?

13:30, Initial US jobless claims up by slightly more than the consensus. May suggest FED's interest rate hikes are starting to cool the economy and by inference, inflation. If this is the start of a trend then pressure for further rate hikes will be reduced.
https://www.fxstreet.com/economic-calendar

Apologies, but the data timed at 15:00 isn't displaying . Very annoying.

Didn't display as I hoped so here's a link:
https://www.fxstreet.com/economic-calendar/united-states

Here is some of todays data from US. I would interpret this data as the US economy and inflationary pressure cooling. This should take the pressure off interest rate increases. The market liked it. Hope it displays as formatted:

Time Event Actual Dev Consensus Previous
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6
15:00 USD Factory Orders (MoM)(Nov) -1.8% -1.30 -0.9% 0.4%
15:00 USD ISM Services Employment Index(Dec) 49.8 -0.20 50.2 51.5
15:00 USD ISM Services New Orders Index(Dec) 45.2 -4.85 58.5 56
15:00 USD ISM Services PMI(Dec) 49.6 -3.23 55 56.5
15:00 USD ISM Services Prices Paid(Dec) 67.6 -1.24 71.5 70

@Anger, is Wards meeting with 'major' shareholders still going ahead? Please let it happen and be recorded, comedy gold.

12th April 2022 Vesa released RNS informing of share aquisition at around 330p. I think his January 2022 purchase was around 430p. He'll almost certainly wait until the January purchase price has lapsed re its effect on the price he would have to pay per share if he were to make a takeover bid. However, he will also be aware that by April confidence may be returning to the markets and the causes of todays depressed markets could be unwinding. CWU strike will probably also be dead in the water by then which will be a big positive for IDS sp. If he does intend to make a bid these factors are certainly going to influence Kretinsky's timing.

Kretinsky upping his stake and Dave wards fantasy filled document released at pretty much the same time. I think we have an answer regarding Wards nervousness. He's had it.

Agreed Maximus. Ward has already lost. If strikes don't work on Black Friday and Christmas, then they aren't going to work in january, february, march, april.... . Problem for Ward is that this dispute is as much about maintaining the cashflow from CWU members as anything else which has compromised his approach.