Member Info for simx

JB absolutely correct regarding the deliberately misleading way he's written this. I think most of us were initially uncertain about what the situation was on first read of Wards statement. No disrespect meant to posties, but amongst any group there will be a high percentage of people who would be misled by it. It's ambiguity with intent to confuse, but I think it will backfire because people will see through it, many of them CWU members. By now many CWU members resolve will be being tested, and some will see this for what it is, a lie. Putting their livelihoods at risk on the words of a man out to deceive them who as you say made it appear management co-wrote the proposal, and then reneged on it. His behaviour is beyond the pale. Telegraph article showed the unity of management. When the dusts settled I reckon that Wards more likely to have gone than Thompson.

This is really peculiar behaviour from Dave Ward. He's either opened the whisky 5 days early or he's desperate, because he knows he's a one trick pony, checkmated by the £1.7 billion war chest that isn't a war chest. But everyone knows it is a war chest. He's had the arrogance to write the joint statement with zero concessions which he must know will be rejected. The attempt to bounce this with a 2 day notice period adds to it's pointlessness.
He must have a reason for this, however 'out there' it may be. Perhaps this is an attempt to add another trick to his repertoire, win the media war and public opinion? If so he's going to be hugely disappointed , because the one thing that can't be argued against is that all management are totally up for winning this battle. Maybe more strikers are returning to work, or he's realised that strikes in January will have a fraction of importance compared to the strikes that management have already seen out. Something is making Ward nervous. Did I mention the £1.7 billion war chest?

@Angersharkz, I think the telegraph article says it all regarding where we are now. Management are united and have the support of £1.7 billion which translates to being able to withstand strike action for a very long time. They are taking CWU's strikes targeted at the most profitable days on the chin. Once we're through to the new year and volumes drop off strikes will be far less damaging, and more posties will have returned to work clearing any backlog. Dave Wards a one trick pony with no strategy. The next strike ballot will be very revealing and in the meantime the commitment of many strikers is crumbling.

Reading the article I don't see any sign's of Management weakening. For a while I've been waiting to see a united front from management, there it is, Thompson's certainly not on his way out, plus £1.7 billion war chest. It's an absolute commitment to winning the dispute and remodelling the business. Has this always been part of their strategy?; mutual antagonism was anticipated from the beginning, draw out the strike CWU helped with that, then when the strikers are beginning to feel the pinch and more than a trickle are breaking the strike, hit them with a show of unity, commitment and the power of a lot of money to back up your hand. This could be a strategic masterstroke and will certainly demoralise some of the strikers, with less money and homes to heat in Siberian temperatures. The managements not for turning, once again Dave Wards been outmaneuvered.

Here are the figures. Pretty good:
Wednesday December 14 2022 Actual Previous Consensus Forecast
07:00 AM
GB
Inflation Rate YoY NOV 10.7% 11.1% 10.9% 11%
07:00 AM
GB
Inflation Rate MoM NOV 0.4% 2% 0.6% 0.7%
07:00 AM
GB
Core Inflation Rate YoY NOV 6.3% 6.5% 6.5% 6.6%
07:00 AM
GB
Core Inflation Rate MoM NOV 0.3% 0.7% 0.5% 0.6%

@scamp, I think this is the trade you're talking about:
25-Nov-22 17:01:33 245.19893 4,108 Buy* 241.00 241.10 10.07k O
I think google use the last trade of the day not marked as unknown as the closing sp price. In this case it's a BUY of 4108 shares and an anomaly rather than a reflection of the end of day sp. Have a look at the share trades page.

Interesting JB, Qube research taken a new position of .54% and citadel up .12%. Maybe they think sp has topped out and are anticipating turbulence as the CWU and management confrontation continues to be deadlocked. RMG's plans for a remade remodelled business are going to be driven through but I doubt it will be plain sailing.

Anybody read the Times article saying Govt. has rejected IDS request for USO to be reduced to 5 days per week? I've seen the headline but not read the article as I am not a subscribed. If so further details would be useful.

@Anger, don't forget the ****up when the CWU had to forgo a couple of their planned strike days because the paperwork wasn't correctly formulated. Tragic for the CWU membership that their leaders couldn't even get that right. As stated by many others the biggest losers will be those who lose their jobs whilst DW continues to draw a very fat salary. Easy to be bellicose and idealistic when the consequences of your actions don't affect you.

@beetle. The 125 refers to 12 strike days, and the 5 refers to note 5 below.

JB, shorts look for momentum then amplify and control it. Noone expected zero progress after so many days of talks, and the content and tone of the CWU release suggest arbitration is going nowhere. SP rose with the negotiations because no one believed DW would commit hari kari but he is, in slow motion. Tomorrow will be interesting trying to pick the bones out of nettle soup.

@Anger, I'm happy to be corrected. So to be clear, there's no reference to fair market value in the takeover code. Not being deliberately pedantic, just seeking clarity.

I thought the price was either the highest price he paid in the last 12 months or fair market value, whichever is highest. Kretinsky could easily reduce the highest price he paid in the last 12 months just by letting the clock run down for 6 months. Fair market value may be the basis for valuing the company. GLS is predicted to make 380m Euros profit this year, with high single digit growth year on year. Got to be worth 3-4 billion euros. Add to that RM's value, though I have no idea how to value RM's assets and liabilites, although goodwill has taken a hammering.

@Dowsie, I believe the uso is something that Kretinsky identified very early on as an obligation which severely hampers RMs profitability and unfairly allows competitors to dump the very expensive last mile of mail delivery onto RM. This is not a level playing field and he will have many angles of attack and levers to put before the government who will be sympathetic to his perspective. The uso will not disappear but it will be reduced as mail declines, addresses increase and it becomes increasingly loss making in its current form.

Pretty much nailed on that VESA will make a bid for the company, not sure that he will asset strip, but will rationalise assets to fit his plan. Kretinsky will have a lot of leverage with the govt. to change the USO and streamline operations. Government will let him manage the business as he sees fit as long as he fulfils a reduced uso, and he will make a success of it. Why asset strip when he has a readymade cash cow and the conditions falling into place to milk it for many years? Asset stripping is a one off payoff. He already has experience of this type of company and knows how to make it work. From the beginning he always had a plan.
CWU are incompetent, a barrier to progress and kretinsky will tell them how the business is to be ran and anyone who doesn't like it can go, but those who stay and get onboard with his vision can expect a much better future.
Many CWU members will be in despair with the latest display of their unions failure to competently manage their end of the relationship with their members who are losing money every strike day, damaging the viability of their employer. For many members the CWU's negligence and poor performance in this dispute will be reason to cross a picket line, especially if they are mortgage holders.

This article in DM gives a good description of the of the CWU ****up and immediate effects:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63446176
The conclusion has to be that management are still streets ahead of the CWU and have much better legal advice. CWU are voiding the ground beneath their own feet with their incompetence and have actually destroyed their own strategy, which was to strike. I can't understand how they can **** up the legal paperwork to allow strike action, membership will rightly feel the same way. Members pay a financial cost to withdraw their labour, and in these times the sacrifice is even greater.
CWU general secretary Dave Ward said: "We recognise the deep frustration felt by many members over this decision."

He's framing this to CWU members as a decision. Except it isn't a decision as he only had one option and so one choice, which is to cancel the next six strike days. It's a complete humiliation and a consequence of his own incompetence.

@Teslo, if Dave Ward has said he wants to take down Hunt and the Government then it explains why he has never suggested what an acceptable % pay rise would be, and rejected acas mediation. If he seriously intends to do what he said, then his intent will be to create a crisis in RM and spin the story to show the public what nasty people run RM and it's the government's fault. His actions so far suggest that he could actually be thinking that. Sidelining Pullinger because he didn't want any contact with VESA; sometimes informal chats between the right people do move things along, things are said when minutes aren't being taken. He has behaved in the manner of someone who didn't want a problem solved, rather let it get worse. I don't know who in the CWU decides how long to strike for, but Wards opinion must carry some of these decisions. If he is an absolute dogmatist fuelled by hatred of the Tories, he has the power and position to force a crisis and job losses are just collateral damage when you're fighting for a cause.Scenario in Dave Wards head: tories in chaos, economy stuffed, I'll do some inspirational talking full of lies, then I order the posties to take parliament.

Phunt, my answer would be to accept the numbers in the update put out by RM because if they are false the FCA would hold management to account with very serious career ending consequences. Hounddog has worked in this field and so his post is probably the most dispassionate and authoritative. This year's profits are a product of this year's costs versus earnings. Nothing to do with last years.
You agree that change has to happen and would accept change if you were given 5%. Very reasonable. The problem is that the CWU treat change and pay increase as two separate things and I really don't get that. I can only surmise that the CWU managed it this way because they want this strike as they are annoyed about what happened to the covid windfall. Lost jobs mean nothing to the CWU, and far from protecting jobs, they are the enemy of the workers, with every strike day creating more redundancies. They have no plan, no vision or desire to make RM what it should be in the future, just bog things down, live in the past and tell management how things will be.
Everybody in the country is suffering because of Putin's war, but for some reason postal workers deserve to be insulated from this reality. The capital cost per parcel of the new parcel hubs, which are working at nowhere near capacity declines as more units are put through, reducing the per parcel cost. They were built on the premise that this company will grow. CWU has a different approach, the more they can target strikes at the most profitable days the better. This is perverse 18 strike days almost £500m? Wake up workers, the union approach will destroy your livelihood, and one day you will experience that dreadful feeling that you were pawns in a game played by imbeciles who hadn't even bothered to read the rules.

Phunt, it doesn't matter what the profit was, that was last year. £1m loss per day is happening now and as far into the future as the current dispute allows.
The CWU don't have a plan to deal with the current challenges and create growth. Imagine if RM were able to outcompete competitors and take 15% market share off them, like the boost covid gave us, except every year instead of just a one-off bonus. This is something the workforce would share in and benefit from. Any job losses today would be made up by job growth in a successful expanding business.
The business is clearly in trouble; what kind of masochist would think that sticking the boot in is going to somehow help things? So far that's the only evidence of a plan I've seen from the CWU. The future can be better, every job I've had I have had to fit the requirements of the role, not the other way round. It is vital that the workforce adapt, and the CWU should be facilitating this. RM's future could be great, and they should be stealing market share. Why can't the CWU accept and facilitate that possibility?

Recent Quotes from yesterday's news releases:

The CWU said the company was "holding postal workers to ransom for taking legal industrial action against a business approach that is not in the interests of workers, customers or the future of Royal Mail".

CWU general secretary Dave Ward said his members "face the biggest ever assault on their jobs, terms and conditions in the history of Royal Mail".

"The public and businesses also face the end of daily deliveries and destruction of the special relationship that postal workers and the public have in every community in the UK."

All the CWU have got is emotive language. Absolutely cringeworthy and loaded with self-entitlement. There is no future for Royal Mail until the CWU fossils realise that they have competitors that are cheaper with far lower overheads and flexible workforces. Change has to happen and costs slashed in order to compete. Instead the unions plan is to take a course of action which is immensely damaging to RM, and to CWU members. For the CWU leaders socialist dogma appears to dictates their 'rationale', and history has shown time and again that following a dogma to the nth degree never turns out well, unless, as with the CWU leadership, there's no chance that you will face the consequences of your actions. No doubt there will be some initial pain for the workers but if they get on board I've no doubt that RM, with the investments they have made can provide the highest quality service for the public and the best terms of employment in the industry for themselves. If they don't then this will become an absolute car crash for them as the business losses spiral due to strikes and the resultant loss of confidence amongst the public whether their parcels will be delivered.