Please allow me to add my voice to this throng. I too have been on and off the board at various times and investing and trading this shares since 2009. Currently I hold, nominally, in excess of 9.2milion shares, not my peak holding but as the current tradable value is nil, it is a significant exposure. It is imperative we build the group to a substantial holding block..Laffer has done terrific work, with some abuse, in getting the ball rolling, but we need to be more assertive and push on. Last night I posted comments based on email correspondence I exchanged with AB - and, as encouraging as this is..we have been hoodwinked at least once already. I also had correspondence with MA via his daughter (her note, and I have no reason to suggest otherwise) indicated a very severe illness...MA is no spring chicken. I am keen to track down Horacio Furman, and Denis Human - why did Human leave? What oversight role did / is Furman playing? Mark Wainwright too needs to be held to account along with the auditors. So I'd like us to get 25% equity into the group and push for a shareholders' director on the BOD....Pie in the sky perhaps - but I'd rather win than die, and if we are to die, i am not going quietly
I took this positively..after all, he could have ignored my mail completely, or just said "we don't comment on rumours"
He dismissed it as "complete rubbis"
I had correspondence with AB over the weekend..I asked him about prepack rumour..
Omg..we can post here directly again..
I have spoken with AB three times...I remain hopeful...then again, I was hopeful under MAs leadership
The other smoking gun is interest rates. Tesco are operating with c£6bn of debt...refinancing this should rates rise will be pretty much disastrous
Tesco's problems are permanent and structural. Many commentators attribute their historic success to Clubcard. This is confusing cause and effect. Tesco performed because they created a much bigger national footprint than their competitors. Today they have about 3x more stores than JS or Asda. The trouble is they expanded via bricks and mortar. the success of their own on line business shows how unnecessary these fixed assets are today. So they are being attacked from all sides. Their international business outside Asia has been a litany of failure. And now at home Aldi and Lidl with deep private pockets are expanding stores rapidly, Walmart (asda) are coming into Tesco's Southern heartland..remember that every time a new non Tesco store opens, roughly 30p of every £1 they take, comes straight from Tesc. So Tesco are too big to buy anything else. They are saddled with a huge property portfolio and because of sale and lease back arrangements, used to release cash to fund international expansion, they are also facing a staggering annual rental bill. They are under price and margin squeeze and despite calls from some quarters to cut prices more aggressively...those calls feel like medieval barbers calling for a bloodletting. Asda, Aldi, Lidl are in for the long game and have very deep pockets and aren't reporting figures every quarter. Tesco failings today were yesterday's strengths and sadly a few Manchester United football shirts from Mike Ashley isn't fixing this any time soon. The best hope for shareholders is a China-led takeover of Tesco. All this bad news, and I hadn't even got around to mentioning Amazon or Alibaba.