The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
fyi
https://twitter.com/aidanbishop70/status/1254943969718333442
Shareprofits Q&A with Aidan on May 8th
When potential new investors visit this forum, they get a poor impression from the long chains of insulting arguments.
Also, when we get to a stage where we have lots of really useful information posted here, lemon or bottom pick an argument and it all gets buried under a bun fight. That's probably their intention, so we just help them by responding.
Just filter them. We don't need a positive post at the top of the board at all times.
I didn't write the articles Dnd, you'll have to complain to the Metro, the Telegraph and the ministers who've made the proposals.
Lockdown isn't going to be abruptly ended, it will be gradually reduced. Restaurants are a perfect place to start this process. Fewer tables to ensure some separation between people. The restaurant bar is closed - diners order drinks form the waiter only. You pay at your table, then leave. All the time you've only been relatively near a few people. Compare that to the Tate Modern crush of visitors or Legoland queues. Restaurants won't open as we remember them until the Pubs open, and that will be ages away. In the meantime they'll open with restrictions and they'll need a service like BigDish to guide diners to eat at less common times of the day.
Both articles below are reporting restaurants likely to open ..
* before public transport gets back to normal
* before sporting events restart
* before weddings and funerals can have large groups attending
* before department stores open
* before gyms reopen
https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/20/traffic-light-system-may-see-hairdressers-clothes-shops-opening-may-12581177/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/19/britain-could-start-easing-coronavirus-lockdown-start-may-according/
We'll likely have to wait until at least May 25th though.
"When restaurants open they will have less tables so less need to offer discounts"
This is exactly wrong.
Because they'll have fewer tables, they'll have an even greater need to encourage diners to eat at different times fo the day. They'll do this by discounting the quieter times. I'll eat at 4pm for a big discoount instead of 6:30 when everyone else wants to eat.
In a restaurant, people will generally remain seated in an environment with enforced distancing between tables. This is quite different to a busy pub. This is why restaurants are likely to be in the amber phase of lockdown easing and pubs in the red.
you wrote "0.79p...nothing has fundamentally changed since then". Actually, the delivery/takeaway trial has gone live. Also, the price was down for macro reasons - all stocks were down, but all have stabilised back upwards since then. There were fears that restaurants would fold due to financial pressures, but all sorts of goverment loans, lifelines and schemes will protect the majority. That's three good reasons for it to have stabilised at this higher level :)
I'm personally not planning to slice any profit until we've reached 7.2p, the level the American investor came in at.
+Sam, remember to research beyond the forum before you decide to invest. I'm personally invested up to my eyeballs, as are I assume RT and Tanya, so we have a particular interest in seeing you buy some. I try to be balanced in what I write here, but I am heavily biased towards the buy side.....and for good reason ;)
I think restaurants are likely to be included in the first wave of lockdown easing. People are craving to be in each others company. In a restaurant, with some tables removed to maintain a little distancing, people remain seated for the duration, so are only near a handful of people. It's the perfect setting to allow people to begin to get together again. Compare that to milling about in the Tate Modern or queuing for the log flume at Legoland. Restaurants / cafes also comprise over 100k small to medium size businesses and require lots of currently furloughed staff to run them (expensive for the government). To me it's a no-brainer that they'll open (with a little enforced distancing) early in the process of easing lockdown.
They'll be required to have fewer tables to allow strangers to more safely dine in the same area. This means they need to encourage people to dine at non-standard times. This therefore means they need BigDish to yield managed diners to different time of the day. +Sam, I think this will be come quickly apparent and could be as soon as early May.
In the meantime, takeaway / delivery trials continue in Bournemouth and London. I noticed a template takeaway venue appear in Bath a couple of days ago, so that location could be next. Positive news on this front could see the share price fly. Long term, if they do it well, this feature will bullet-proof this business against future lockdowns in the event that CV19 returns in waves.
JSmith, you wrote "That could mean only limited amount of people in the restaurants at once". I agree with that prediction. Restaurants have reopened in China with this social distancing enforced, lowering the number of diners that can be seated at once.
What's needed is a yield managment system, to redistribute the load of diners, so that they eat at different times of the day. Perhaps encouraging them to eat at 4pm rather than 6:30pm by offering a large discount. Very much like the way EasyJet vary their pricing based on flight poularity or how Ocado charge different prices for delivery slots to even out their delivery workload.
When restaurants start to reopen soon under these conditions, whichever solution is first (or already established) and best at managing diner yield will do very well.
When I first spotted this on the 2nd Apr, you could see multiple Bournemouth restaurants configured for takeaway, but not yet bookable. Today I noticed that venues are bookable! (This may have been the case for days, but I've only just noticed.)
Come on Bournemouth investors, order some takeaway and help turn this trial into a national rollout!
The 'restaurant quality' delivery option is inspired. The trial of this service looks to be ongoing in Bournemouth (+ the single London location).
Just eat bring 'takeaway quality' food to your home. To join Just Eat it costs £699 (+VAT) up front. For every order, Just Eat take 14% +VAT plus a 50p admin charge. I wonder what the costs will be for the BigDish service?
Going to pay a little less attention to this over the next few weeks / months. Will count occasionally, but not daily, unless something happens with the take away side of things.
We got to 630 last week. Dropped to 622 over the weekend. Back to 624 today.
This is a hold for me for now, but interested in buying more Apr 6th, once I can get cash into my ISA.
Pre-virus, revenue wasn't a focus yet, so a reduction in this tiny revenue isn't big news. Dish are in an acquisition phase, signing up enough restaurants to justify significant marketing. With the right support from the government for business, employees, renters etc, then we can continue to sign restaurants up through this crisis, and it looks as though that support will be there.
Quite a bit of chatter in the media about Stock market closures. If markets close for an extended period and re-open once an end is in sight, then the climb will be incredible. Those who are out, looking to buy back low, will miss out.
Vaccine trials start in the UK in April. An antibody test will dramatically change the shape of our outbreak (flatten/shorten it) compared to Italy / China etc. Temporary universal credit may be announced. The government may create even better safety nets to save businesses / jobs in the hospitality sector. Any of these could happen and would be received as excellent news by the market, and particularly impact this share.