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It does seem a shame that this forum has been over run by bitter and twisted either patrols, or ex patrols.
I am an ex patrol, and I retired when the retiring was good. Yes I was fortunate when I sold my Share Save AA shares I got 60p a share, yes I did lose. However I managed at a later date to buy back in at 15-16p a share, then resold at 40p or there abouts. I may have balanced any losses, but that was that.
The interesting thing is though, should The AA have stayed as a member owned society?
Also the issue in my mind that really needs answering is how SAGA ended up with a fleet of cruise ships, and The AA ended up with a muli billion pound debt?
When the debt is £3-£4 billion beer tokens, what difference does £350 thousand make?
Yes ok, it might make funding the debt slightly easier, but wouldnt it be better in the long term for The AA to stay on the stock market, and fund this themselves.
Roxbury house, yes you are right The AA does make good money, and the debt has been reduced.
Yes this share will tend to go up, from where it is, but untill The AA starts paying dividends, it wont go up sharply.
I think it needs to be treated as a long term investment.
I think James Bond is partly right, the everyday hand tools, ie screwdrivers and spanners etc are of a reasonable quality.
What really isnt good is the recovery equipment they are issued with.
The AA does have a good future, its just this massive debt.
Mcgrimes, that is what I said.
As I have said, I cant see anything much happening to the SP until the debt is substantially reduced, or arrangements are made to pay dividends.
What I am trying to say is, that I do not think much will happen until there are inroads into the debt.
Roxbury, I tend to agree with you, at this level yes sp could dip back down to 15p, but provided The AA stick to its plan of debt reduction, if the buy out doesn't happen, then the sp will start to rise.
If the buyout does happen, ofcourse the sp will go up, but I don't think it will be much of a rise, not until something serious happens with that debt.
If the take consortium pay the debt off, and clear it completely, it would be interesting to see what happens to the sp, and whether or not they start to resell shares.
Personally I think any spare funds that are available should be going to reduce the debt.
That will ensure the longer term future of The AA.
Profit is only ever any good if it is reinvested directly back into the company, and not paying out in unaffordable amounts in dividends to shareholders.
Nlondon, I think you will find that's what I said.
Roxbury, probably you are right, but I would neither bet my pension, nor my home on it!!!
That Lokomo, is the 64000 dollar question, and if I knew the answer to to it I certainly wouldn't post it on here lol.
James Bond, that assertion of yours about why SAGA and The AA merged, is reasonably accurate, in my honest opinion, and yes SAGA as in debt, and struggling. At the time SAGA also had, what I would call American very aggressive style management, however that is political, and not really open for discussion on this forum.
it seems odd to me, that after a couple of years SAGA has paid off its debts, and bought two expensive cruise ships'
so The AA is straddled with about £4 billion of debt where it came from, who knows, but its there, this wasnt an issue because bank loans were arranged, the repayments of which were affordable, provided AA patrols each got about 50 new, yes 50 new members each year. Ofcourse this never really happened, and the very high dividends that were being paid, along with the high (relatively) interest rates, and then Mr Mackenzies altercation that progressed to his dismissal for gross misconduct, it was reported in the newspapers. At about this time, some, or all of these loans were renegotiated at much lower interest rates, and with a new business plan, that with the interest saved, and money saved by not paying any dividends, would go towards reducing the debt. This plan, possibly the new plan, mentioned by Mr Flibbles is working, because the debt has been reduced.
I am not a financial whizkid , but I assert that my version of events, is as, far as I know reasonably correct.
will The AAs SP fly away, yes, quite probably once the majority of the debt is paid back.
Am I telling everyone to buy, no, ofcourse I AM NOT.
Rover I can't answer questions like that, because quite simply I don't know.
I apologise for the number of my replies, I really did think I had to reply to some of the points outlined by ex AA staff, and try to explain why a lot of ex patrols appear as ungrateful wretches, and I hope it has become slightly clearer
There are other reasons for this within the patrol force, but they are internal and political staff issues, which to be honest I would rather not discuss on a learned forum such as this.
What I really would like to know, and all joking aside about Saga, funnily it was The Saga management team that ran that partnership, I really would like to know quite how a £1.7 billion sale goes to a multi billion pound debt.
Roxbury, The AAs issues go back decades. It was originally a company that was wholly owned by the members, and not allowed to make a profit, so any operating excess was invested back into The AA. With an awful lot of hindsight I wonder if that would now be the better position for the company. Anyway, in about 1999 Centrica purchased The AA for £1.1billion, each and every member was given a bribe of about £300 I think.
Then in 2004 Centrica sold it to CVC/Permira. Tim Parker was bought into run the ship, oh wait, ships come later. This sale fetched £1.75 billion, also Centrica had sold off quite a few assets, including a rather nice training centre near Nottingham.
This consortium didn't work too well, and Tim Parker dissapeared back into retirement.
Then a a new consortium was brought in and the whole thing was combined with that holiday Company Saga. It is a popular belief amongst AA staff at the time that the sole purpose by this consortium was to Bail out SAGA, this indeed seem to be the case, as SAGA were in trouble, but when the AA was floated, SAGA sailed away with a fleet of new cruise ships, while The AA flounders along with a massive debt.
Mr Flibbles your history isn't quite correct, the owners of The AA at the time of its flotation on the morning of 23rd June 2014, were Charterhouse, CVC, and Pirmera. This consortium of 'greedy venture capitalists' at the time of its flotation sold all their holdings within The AA, so as The AA weren't trading shares on the stock market, how can there be any history of share price, or dividend levels. I refer us back to this article. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-2665758/amp/AA-share-price-values-firm-1-4bn-makes-stock-market-debut.html
Mr Flibbles, thanks for the detailed reply. Yes you are right about the debt at that time.
However the previous Chairman, a certain Mr Mackenzie who was sacked for gross misconduct, and his board of directors had a policy of very high dividend payouts which held the share price at an unrealistically high level. During his time on the board, nothing much was paid off of the debt, and not much investment made.
Until significant inroads into the debt are made, possibly 60% to 70% i can't see the share price going much above 50p.