paul1945
19 Dec 2017
Sold just thought I would get out at a small profit no special reason
gamesinvestor
29 Nov 2017
Home Emergency Sold To Homeserve, for an undisclosed sum :-[link]
Johandesilva
09 Nov 2017
User awards Some of the fruits of the transformation project:[link] have done some real transformation that benefits users. The KPI will be totally measurable and should provide a great forward thinking platform for ex-Uber Mr Breakwell to try and grow the company while paying off the debt. This was £4 not long ago and nothing much in the numbers has change. I have a target of £5 per share within 3 years, an upside typically found only by high risk AIM companies.
tomhawbuck
05 Nov 2017
Re: AA srticle from today's Sunday Times A good read and some interesting snippets. Have they thought of going into the boxing or Mixed Martial Arts business?
Bill1703
05 Nov 2017
AA srticle from today's Sunday Times Full text below - nothing much we didn't know, but a few interesting snippets:"In the wood-panelled bar of the five-star Pennyhill Park hotel in Surrey, a group of executives were locked in heated debate. It was late in the evening of July 24 and the AA’s senior management had finished a gruelling day of strategy meetings where talk had turned to a possible merger of its insurance business with rival Hastings.Suddenly Bob Mackenzie, executive chairman of the roadside-assistance group, lost his temper with Mike Lloyd, who heads the AA’s insurance division. The 65-year-old landed blow after blow on his younger colleague in a frenzy that was captured on the five-star hotel’s security cameras. “It was like watching an elderly kitten hitting a bulldog,” said a source who had seen the footage. Mackenzie was sacked a week later. Friends have claimed he was suffering from work-related stress at the time and taking the anti-anxiety drug diazepam — which he then mixed with alcohol.Three months later, the AA’s shareholders are still puzzling over the fallout from the incident. Shares in the 112-year-old company — set up to help motoring enthusiasts avoid police speed traps — have dived by 30% since the encounter. A new management team has been installed led by Simon Breakwell, who co-founded the travel website Expedia and helped bring Uber to Europe. Yet investors have struggled to pin him down on his plans. Could there be a sale of AA Insurance, which accounts for nearly 14% of the group’s profits? Why was Mackenzie so angry?For now, the AA says an insurance sale is off the table, but insiders insist there are discussions about the business “partnering” with another company in future. If it does hive off the insurance business, what are the prospects for the rest of the empire? The improving reliability of cars has contributed to a steady decline in breakdown-recovery work. For a company with a market value of £1bn and a debt pile of £2.7bn, a stagnating core business looks like a problem. An expensive IT revamp has been delayed and investors are bracing themselves for further costs.Meanwhile, Mackenzie has not left quietly. Since his ousting, he has sent a legal letter claiming unfair dismissal. The AA in turn is attempting to claw back £1.2m in bonuses — not for punching an executive, but for an unrelated alleged altercation with a member of the public.“We are not getting any detail on what is going on or what the plan is to revive the AA,” said one investor. “There is a lack of clarity from the AA on future cost programmes, which is frustrating shareholders,” added Calum Battersby, an analyst at Berenberg bank.Breakwell has inherited a company at a crossroads. The roadside-assistance business is by far its biggest division, accounting for nearly 80% of revenues. Yet the problems run deep and it is not just that cars are more reliable; there is more competition, too, with insurers increasingly bundling breakdown cover into their policies. AA’s insurance business has only a 2% market share in motor policies and 3% in home cover — but it is growing. According to one analyst who met Breakwell last month, the new boss is planning to plough the company’s cash reserves into the insurance business. The reason is simple: AA stock is trading at 10 times earnings, whereas insurers are typically on about 13 times.The company has had a patchy corporate record in recent years. It demutualised in 1999 through a £1.1bn sale to Centrica, the owner of British Gas — with its 4.5m members getting a one-off windfall payment of £240. From Centrica’s perspective, the deal was part of a plan to diversify into a broader range of services. Five years later, Centrica came under pressure to go back to basics and sold on the AA for a £740m profit to private equity giants CVC and Permira — which in 2007 orchestrated a mega-deal to merge the AA with Saga, the insurance and leisure company focused on the over-50s. Renamed Acromas, th
Kool Keith
24 Oct 2017
Re: AA want MacKenzie £1.2m bonus ... Hi Bill, I'll let you off, after all you've been busy keeping my faith in WTB.I wasn't aware of the possible merger with Hastings, could this be revisited or do you think AA will be better off increasing their insurance business on their own?
Bill1703
24 Oct 2017
Re: AA want MacKenzie £1.2m bonus back... Good work KK, was going to post this myself.The following snippet caught my attention in particular - not sure that I'd heard the detail of the altercation before: "Mr Mackenzie left the company during the summer after a row in the bar of a country hotel with Michael Lloyd, the head of its insurance arm, turned into a physical conflict. It subsequently emerged that Mr Lloyd and other members of the AA's board were keen to explore a merger of its insurance business with Hastings, a listed group - a move opposed by Mr Mackenzie."
Kool Keith
24 Oct 2017
AA want MacKenzie £1.2m bonus back! [link]
Johandesilva
19 Oct 2017
Customer Service: Anywhere, anytime capability of The AA is winner with judges Customer Service: Anywhere, anytime capability of The AA is winner with judges 8/10/2017 in Fleet News Award Winners[link] also includes video)
Intellectual Amateur
17 Oct 2017
Volume?! What IS going on with this stock? Monday 16 October volume was: 13, 218, 659!!! With the exception of Tues 26 Sept (vol 11,920, 066), that is way, way above anything remotely normal. I am perplexed, to say the least.We've had the results (average), new CEO - who has bought heavily, various downgrades - yeah, ok - have we simply got a lot of speculators just spinning these shares around trying to make a few pence within the day's trading boundaries? Does somebody know something that we obviously don't?As previously posted, I am a "Holder" until at least April 2018 - whatever happens - but I just have to say this is one of the strangest stocks that I have ever held.The basic resistance seems to be 155.00 with a range up to the occasional day of 170.00. I guess it jumps around within these bands until there is some "new news" or until the year-end results?I'll just sit & observe the peculiarities of the AA!Thanks for all the insight chaps - you guys know better than me, that's for sure!All my best regards - IA.
paul1945
12 Oct 2017
buy Just + @ 154.77 hope near bottom
LK Hyman
12 Oct 2017
Re: Citigroup Ups Stake Games,Hollo .... has Chuck Prince come back to Citigroup?"As long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance".LKH on the flybridge a wunch of bankers
gamesinvestor
12 Oct 2017
Citigroup Ups Stake [link] up to 7.49%Games
gamesinvestor
04 Oct 2017
Re: Martin thinks .... If the CFO buys 100,000 (£166K) shares and he already owns a fair chunk (£1.76M) he must be highly confident about the financial status of the AA. Either that or he's an eejit.This article on his appointment is worth reading. With a degree in history, he's probably not your typical CFO and is predominantly known for his history in dealmaking.Having already historically spent 10 years associated with the AA perhaps he's looking to offload the AA again.[link] seems to stand to reason, given that the AA changes hands more times than my car breaks down.Games
gamesinvestor
03 Oct 2017
Re: Martin thinks .... I'll stay in and collect the divi on Thursday and if it goes to 150 after that I'll add some more.Games
