Member Info for wealthtrasfer

I think the comment re the disconnect is spot on JG. Look at the company presentations, website and recent actions (such as acquisitions etc) and there is little hint of anything untoward going on here. The market and shareholders are seeing it differently and the company seems to be brushing it without sufficient regard.

Genuine Question if anyone knows the answer: Why aren't the BoD or II's not jumping all over this and making plays to stop the slide. I just don't get it!

Carrington - Directors not trying to support he share price is not so worrying as they never have so its business as usual !!! There seems to be no awareness or interest from the BoD to do anything to stop the slide. They don't care or are not inclined to make any efforts or they are quite happy with it - which one is anyones guess

Unfortunately only thing weighted to H2 last year was bad news. H2 2023 was forecast to recover and deliver ave £205m adjusted but then didnt. Argument for poor H1 in 2023 was US School Bus waiting for Q3 contract repricing on 40% of rev (taking total re-priced to 80%) and UK bus repricing from July ie G3 again. H1 this year we have 80% of US Bus repriced and all of UK bus yet H2 is being weighted, why? the only thing to reprice will be 20% of school bus of which only the final quarter will count, so its not going to make much difference. Q1 update stated 'lost days due to snow' caused the lower than expected performance of US School Bus which will be recovered fully in Q2? not sure why or how? do the kids go to school on weekends to make up for lost snow days? I don't think so! anyway, we will see but I think its just a another fudge that the board think will be forgotten by H1 report. In the AGM I would like to know how much they paid for Canary Bus and why they bought it and how that will add more value than reducing debt or starting a share buy back with the money or why they thought it okay to spend precious cash on a vanity project!

Simplywallstreet at 81p today. Quite a range of useless forecasts, I must be doing something wrong if these clowns get paid for their views! Not very hard to predict something or forecast something when it’s already happened. Await ‘positive’ news if the pigs are flying.

JG - MCG have clearly struggled to get attractive terms for US School Bus which is why its been casually glossed over and pushed out to end of the year. Typical of this board. All guns blazing last year for sale process early in new year etc.... then casual spin and delay.. no truth. The bad news is endless and energy destroying with this company. Garat MUST go and be replaced by someone with credibility and urgency. Nothing but everything has changed with this share and as you say " a very poor choice". The board has removed all confidence and credibility of the company recovering and cannot seem to turn things around. The answer is clear and has been for some time in my view. Sell off the UK as its a millstone. Float ALSA in Europe and float School Bus and Transit (WeDriveU) in US. Bingo !!!! quick return to full value. Why do they not do something more radical, they seem happy to manage into oblivion, plodding away with business as usual, buying low return bolt ons in Portugal and Canary Islands whilst the share price tanks over debt concerns. You couldn't make it up. Its diabolical.

Paddy - lots has changed since started buying: Dividend not restored as expected, increasing earnings to reduced debt organically (not happening), cost management too slow, now have to sell off NA Bus - delayed, board no longer trusted due to repeated errors, inflation taking longer to subside, interest rates high, etc. etc. etc. Many things have changed which is why we are now here. Plus the prospect of dropping out of the 250 to compound things. This really hasn't gone as expected, hoped or it had potential to do. Obviously macros hit things hard and that is not possible to avoid, however board has been poor and not helped.

Francisco Iglesias Campos for CEO

1970’s here we come. Starting July 5th.

Article on BBC worth a read. Highlights challenges and costs with running a local bus network. Hopefully West Midalns follows up with their desire to take control of the transport network and buys Mobico assets and then we bid to franchise to operate with no risk on capacity/routes. Win - Win. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clke3g03rljo

Liontrust dropped 1.5% yesterday. Wonder who picked those up?

A really important day today, recovering and holding above 66p.

Although the threshold reporting shorts are not significant by normal volumes they are in terms of the free float.

If the market continues to believe that the worst is over for inflation / interest rates then an environment where we have a key shareholder adding and shorts reducing, competing for an ever reducing amount of shares on offer, may see this recover strongly.

MCG does tend to drop and recover in exaggerated leaps largely due to the lack of free float. Lets hope that this continues. Agree with Prowler that historically the next test could be 80p-100p if inflation expectations are met next week.

Ian - think that was last years Eurobond

Purchase figure and structure seems to be a mystery. Remember seeing 3rd party report around £60m/£70m. A £6m deposit probably supports that too.

Read the annual report, that will keep everyone quiet for a while ;) all the info you need is in there!

HV - thanks for the HSBC numbers, they are more where I would be if not being so pessimistic. I went particularly conservatively on the valuations of US and UK, especially US given the current low margin recovery but would agree with the HSBC number if profits return as expected for 2025.

My understanding was also that 50% of the Hybrid equity was priced into the overall debt numbers at £1.2xB with the remaining £250k coming in 2025/26? I hadn't factored an admin cost so useful to consider thanks.

So I think the numbers still stack up.

Anyone else think it would make sense to bring German Rail into ALSA rather than under UK bus. ALSA looking at rail contracts in Spain, also possible future tie up with Evolyn?

Better management and better understanding of the European transport industry/network.

If all else fails, break it up. Value sum of the parts:

ALSA - enough to wipe out all debt

US School Bus = £500m (conservative low end or more if fully turned around)

US Transit and Shuttle (inc. WeDriveU) = £300m low end

UK Bus = £100m low end

UK Coach = £150m low end

German Rail = £0

= £1.50-£2.00 ps

Anyone got significantly different valuations to these rough numbers?

We could do with clearing the Hybrid and I think then we will be back on

The hybrid is 28 from memory at the discretion of the company The only thing that happens is that 50% of the hybrid is recognised as debt instead of equity in 25 or 26. But basically no issue with hybrid or debt. Only problem could be the covenant gearing, if EBIT gets any worse.

Poker - the wider market and Macros are nothing to do with the BoD but where the share price is today is a great deal to do with the BoD. Again today, compare MCG performance with its peers. There is a a discount being placed on MCG's performance. A large part of that is to do with the BoD and how they have managed the last couple of years in particular. How they have managed the commercial aspects of US, UK and Germany has been poor. They are pointing out that the contracts in place largely have protection from cost pricing but the numbers being produced now just dont support that.

Theres always a reason why something doesn't materialise as promised. Take latest US school bus for example... School year start 22 had 40% of contracts re-negotiated at 10% rise, last year 13% for another 40% (most of the last 20% this year). Routes back to 97%. But revenues not grown and profits non existent. They should have been up 20%+ but no, because of some snowy days. No detail on that, just same as usual, no science, no data, just excuses that cant be verified. Then the same old line, that this will be recovered by end of Q2. Well lets see, but likely it will disappear just like the many other promises. I just think these are don't have a handle on whats going on outside of Alsa. They must have signed up to some awful and restrictive terms on medium term contracts. I don't have much confidence left.