Member Info for TheTrotsky

i'm increasingly of the view that we, and all the other countries affected by the new us tariffs, should call trump's bluff.

it's quite clear from what he and other people in his administration are saying that they don't expect the tariffs to be a long term issue; they expect countries to come to the negotiating table and agree to new trade agreements favourable to the us instead. trump thinks he can do this because he holds all of the economic cards but what he can't control is the us public's reaction to further increases in consumer prices (the us is not currently as self-reliant as trump would like to make out and us alterantives can't be "switched on" at a flick of a switch). if we allow that pressure, together with the inevitable concerns of republican legislators potentially facing mid-term elections against a background of rising prices and an economic slow down, to build then trump's attitude may start to change dramatically. he needs deals. despite what he might appear to be saying he really doesn't want a prolonged tariff war with all the implications that would have for us consumer prices (the optics would become increasingly bad the longer a tariff war lasts and, like trump, the us electorate is short on patience - i struggle to see trump persuading a lot of his political supporters, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, to silently acquiesce to increasing prices for 6-12 months, let alone longer. one of his poisonous minions (a pompous, self-important, arrogant, pea**** promoted way beyond his pay grade) was "interviewed" on newsnight last night (he was so demeaning i wouldn't have blamed victoria derbyshire for simply cutting him off) and it was clear from his contradictory statements that he fully expected the tariffs to only be a very short-lived inconvenience (nobody else in the room had the "intelligence" to understand this, including fellow republicans who were "mistakenly" complaining about the impact on their constituents). he was simply a nazi in a suit as far i was concerned (not unlike hitler's fawning subordinates); a thug masquerading as an intelligent human being.

as an aside, trump probably expects the uk, for example, to now forego the £0.8bn digital sales tax, much of which would simply flow back into the us treasury's coffers. personally, i think that we should actually do away with uk corporation tax altogether, even potentially payroll taxes, and introduce a uk sales tax across the board instead. sales are far more likely to have a geographic location than profits in this electronic age and are far more difficult (not impossible) to manipulate than profits.

Until the tax rebate is banked nothing is guaranteed unfortunately. As a shareholder, I'm not disputing that GSF is entitled to the tax credits under the letter of the law but Trump is increasingly showing himself to be no respector of the law.

I still think that GSF will receive the tax credits (although entitled to the tax credits following the commisioning of the US assets, I'm not aware that GSF has actually yet received the tax credits) and will be able to trade them for cash (because it would hurt too many US-based businesses if Trump reneged) but, until that time, nothing is 100% certain.

The MMs are being totally opportunistic. ZTF already has a manufacturing facility in the US and was already in the process of expanding it to meet US demand long before Trump took office. The new US tariffs should have little, or no, impact on ZTF once its expanded US prodcution facility comes on line (it's expected to be commissioned in early H2 2025).

Lytham, Pathetic. All you can do is attack my moniker, which actually has nothing to do with the eponymous communist leader's political beliefs. If you think you can trust Trump and/or Musk then you obviously have been asleep for the last few months/years. Neither of them can be trusted and certainly not with UK defence. Even Trump doesn't appear to trust Musk - too erratic even for him - and that's saying something. My thinking isn't clouded. Your's on the other hand seems to be stuck in a fairytale fog.

In light of the fact that Trump seems willing to rip up conventional trade agreements, it does beg the question of whether he'd be willing to go one step further and renege on IRA tax credits. He's already shown that he's quite happy to throw businesses and markets into turmoil. I wouldn't be surprised if closed the two Houses for business; he seems to be quite happy to circument their approval. All hail the dictator-in-chief!

Have you actually bothered to read the rest of what I said? Namely:

1) SpaceX is not currently involved in conventional defence contracting;

2) FTC's defence and commercial businesses are interwined (difficult, in not impossible, to unbundle);

3) It's questionable whether Musk would be considered a fit and proper person to run a UK defence contractor;

4) A bid by SpaceX therefore likely to be vetoed by the UK government on security grounds;

5) The UK government may also not want a strategic UK technology business to fall into outright foreign ownership;

6) A bid by SpaceX would likely reduce FTC's addressable satellite communications market (SpaceX competitors would seek to use alternate suppliers) and reduce future potential economies of scale; and

7) SpaceX unlikely to be willing to compensate existing shareholders for these "lost" opportunities

BAE would be a far better fit:

a) Fewer, if any, regulatory hurdles;

b) FTC's business would complement BAE's existing sub-contracting, space businesses; and

c) A sale to BAE would likely to be able to elicit a higher price than one to SpaceX because it would be less likley to curtail business opportunities and allow for greater economies of scale

Although an acquistion by SpaceX may be very compelling for SpaceX (to block its competitors), it's less compelling for existing FTC shareholders if SpaceX isn't willing to stump up the additional premium for those "lost" opportunities that a sale to SpaceX would likely entail. A sale to SpaceX would also be likely to drag on longer (regulatory hurdles) and be less certain of approval.

FTC and SpaceX aren't a good fit. People are taking vertical integration to extremes. SpaceX uses lots of different chips in its satellites for many different purposes and doesn't own any of the chip manufacturers that I'm aware of.

FTC's defence work would probably predicate SpaceX from buying FTC and give the UK government a potential veto. You may not have noticed but Musk is hardly the flavour of the month at the moment and I don't think that the UK government would (currently) consider him to be a fit and proper person to be running a (critical) UK defence contractor or, at least, they shouldn't given his recent pronouncements. It would also probably put the kaibosh on any potential orders from other satellite operators. Is SpaceX going to compensate FTC's shareholders for the reduction in future potential orders or the reduced economies of scale?

BAE would be a much better fit. It already has a large space division which acts as sub-contractor on many different projects and wouldn't tread on too many toes. It also has many large manufacturing sites in the US.

Trendz, They could but their satellite roll-out would grind to a halt in the meantime. It's a symbiotic relationship, they need FTC's chipsets and FTC needs SpaceX's orders. It's a total cluster fck. It's UK tech.

Having said all that, FTC already has a manufacturing site in Salisbury, Maryland!

We will just charge SpaceX and tell Musk to take it up with his mate; it's not as if SpaceX currently has an alternative.

Also, potentially, some profit taking before 05 April to utilise annual CGT allowance

Presumably some concerns about the impact of tariffs

It's all to do with accounting conventions. Distribution, selling, marketing, website and similar costs, which tend to be much higher for online businesses, aren't included in cost of sales and are therefore excluded from gross margin caclulations. You clearly need to get some new specs ;-)

There's nothing to technically stop you accepting the offer and selling your share in the open market beforehand, bizarre as that may seem. I've done it before now.

They will need over 90% acceptance for the offer to go unconditional. The market tends to always assume that the offer will proceed until it doesn't. The price does seem to have edged up slightly this morning which might seem to suggest that the market thinks that an increased offer might be in the offing but I'd be surprised. Unlike some offers that have been made for other REITs recently (CARE and HEIT), BidCo has already pitched its offer at above the most recent NAV and I doubt there's much scope, if any, to increase the offer further but we can wait and see.

40% is well short of the 75% needed for the cancellation to obtain approval. All is not lost by any means.

I do love now they always say that it's "in the best interest of shareholders" when what they really mean is that "it's our best interests" ;-)

DOM is currently valued at £1.1bn whereas DPP is valued at £84m. Although I believe that DPP is currently undervalued and am a long-term shareholder, I'm not sure that it is as undervalued as some might think.

The Poland/Croatia market is smaller and less lucrative than the UK market. DOM currently has c1,300 UK stores whereas DPP, following this acquisition, expects to have 150 stores by the end of FY25 and 190 by the end of FY26.

DPP had 113 stores in Poland at the end of FY24, plus whatever new stores have been opened in the last three months, and has now acquired a further 90 stores through this aqcuisition. It would appear that a lot of store consolidation is now on the cards. Assuming that DPP still expects to continue to to open additional new stores between now and the end of FY25, they would appear to be looking to shed north of 70 of the enlarged estate following the acquisition! That doesn't sound right to me but that's what they're saying:

"Following the Acquisition, with a combination of organic and pizzeria 105 converted stores we aim to end the year with approximately 150 stores, 20 more than previously communicated. In 2026, the Group aims to add another 40 stores, bringing the total to 190 by year end."

I was rather surprised by the low level of acceptances to date given that BidCo is offering to buy the shares at a premium to the estimated NAV at 31 December 2024.

I think that's all fairly standard.

The bid can't proceed until the offer goes unconditional (the bidder has acceptances for >90% of the issued share capital) and, as such, that date is currently unknown for certain but is expected to occur on, or before, the Unconditional Date (the 60th day following the publication of the offer document i.e. 6th May, given that 5th May is a Bank Holiday). Payment for the shares is then expected to occur no later than 14 days after the Unconditional Date.

It's normal takeover practise to allow the bidder to extend the offer period in the event that they haven't quite reached the 90% requirement by the Unconditional Date (up to the Long Stop Date, 6th September, if required).

In the event that the offer goes unconditional, then those shareholders who hadn't accepted the offer previously are then encouraged to do so at their earliest opportunity and they are usually paid out no later than 14 days after they accept the offer. Once the offer goes unconditional, BidCo can then proceed to have the shares in BBGI de-listed but they can't force the remaining minority shareholders to sell. So, as such, the ball is entirely in the court of these shareholders to determine when and if they get paid for their shares (if they don't accept the offer, they don't get paid).

Whe

My read on this is that when a group is interested in more than 30% but less than 50% of the issued shares at admission then an offer obligation arises if any additional shares are subsequently acquired post admission. In this instance, the shares owned directly together with the shares that now appear to have been owned/controlled indirectly amounted to c43% of the issued share capital at the date of admission. Therefore, Sara's may not only have a potential liability to the shareholders in the current litigation but could also have broken the Takeover Code by acquiring additional shares post admission.

Not to pre-judge but, if the above is proven to be factually correct, then Sara's position as CEO would appear to be toast and she could be facing a potential custodial sentence in addition to the financial consequences of losing the litigation.

That said, this does not, on the face of it, appear to have been an attempt to artificially overstate the value of the company (instead, it appears to have been driven by simple greed) and, in theory, the company share price ought to start to recover once the shock has subsided, albeit that Sara may now be convicted of fraud to boot. However, it's never a good look when a company's CEO is facing potential fraud charges and I wouldn't be at all surprised if BIG now felt compelled to organise a more detailed forensic audit to check that there hasn't been any financial skulduggery too. To the uninitiated, the accepted honesty of the CEO and other senior executives is the cornerstone of any audit. They oversee all aspects of the business and are in a fairly unique position of trust within the organisation. If senior executives connive to fabricate financial transactions off the books then, if organised properly, they can be virtually undetectable by normal audit procedures (simply because it would be physically impossible, and financially prohibitive, to check and trace all transactions, assuming a paper trail does actually exist).

I think that the manufacturing facility is key. Mithai are quite different to the types of cake CBOX normally sell and require a different skill set to make; they are a vibrant mix of colours, coconut, honey, spices etc. It would have been difficult for CBOX to develop them in-store alongside their normal cake offerings. They're not "fresh cakes". They generally have a longer shelf life and are intended to be stored and given as gifts to hosts/guests like, say, a box of biscuits but, unlike biscuits, they tend to be soft and luscious; my abiding memory of eating Mithai was biting into a ball of sponge and honey just oozing out. This deal enables CBOX's franchisees fo sell them without having to make them in-store.

As regards the properties, I wouldn't be too surprised if CBOX entered into some form of sale and leaseback arrangement of the freehold stores (this could even involve CBOX selling the stores and franchisees leasing them back from the purchaser). I'd currently expect CBOX to retain the freehold of the factory but, perhaps, take out a modest LTV loan if required.

It appears that Sara Murray could be wearing one of the company's electronic monitoring tags before too long ;-)