Just bought this at 64.75 pence,feel free to comment..

still buying. up from 8.01% last month!



Avis Europe PLC
27 May 2005




27 May 2005

Avis Europe plc ('the Company')

The Board of Directors of Avis Europe plc received notification on 27 May 2005,
pursuant to sections 198 - 202 of the Companies Act 1985, that Fidelity
International Limited (FIL) and its direct and indirect subsidiaries, being
non-beneficial holders, now hold 54,460,395 ordinary shares in the Company
representing 9.30% of its issued ordinary share capital.

Conspiracy theorists are probably right

If you analyse the volume of large parcels above 1m which have changed hands since 4 Jan05 and allowing 50 % double counting to cater for shorting.......
Then
At least 60% of the 25% AVE "free market" shares is now in the hands of Big Boys with 1m to 14m each
ie ....the genuine "free market" is probably down to around 60m shares
and

Also
Its quite a smart move to cancel a dividend when you own 60% of the Company (and have the support of another 15% of the shareholders in exchange for inside info)
...This leaves D`Ieteren with 40% of AVE retained dividend

There can only be one reason why Fidelity continue to accumulate stock when their informal contacts within AVE are telling them in advance that the next RNS will be bearish

.........There is a bid in the pipeline this year either Cendant or D`Ieteren buying out the last 40%

100p still looking good ........

great synopsis! 100ppppppp

Assume current ownership.... as in previous post
D`Ieteren 349.3M
Share Options etc 4.0M
Fidelity 54.5M
Franklin 45.2M
Total 453.0M

If we only count individual trades above 200000 shares since 4 Jan 05
Approx 135M shares have changed hands
We can safely assume that even allowing a generous 60M for shorting
....and since the sp has actually been rising not falling since Jan this is more likely to be an overestimate
Then
There must currently be individual holdings exceeding 1M totalling at least 75M
with no individual holding breaching the 3% disclosure limit

Added to the above this means that around 528M out of a total share capital of 586M is now in the hands of people more inclined to" Accumulate" rather than "Dispose" of their holdings
It also strongly suggests that the MMS are the only Big Traders left in the free marke and have been for a considerable number of weeks if not months

And looking forward we can assume that

When the MMS Buy it is likely to be a stock accumulation exercise on behalf of a principal or possibly and more rarely on their own account
And

When the MMS Sell it is likely to be a stock transfer exercise to the principal

However for a smooth stock transfer from MM to principal at a previously agreed price requires two circumstances to be aligned
1 The MM has accumulated a big enough parcel to transfer to his principal
2 The free market price has entered the bid offer spread range needed to process the transfer without looking odd
This seems the only logical explanation for large parcels changing hands in a thin volume market with negligible impact on the bid/offer spread

Otherwise

The chronic shortage of stockshould would have resulted in a wildy fluctuating free market with an sp all over the place despite relatively small trades

100,000 lifted at 67. nice

4% gain today thats better.

not overly concerned here. tells you something that these have held in well over the last 2 weeks. committed to them still!

Same here prop,keep the faith.

Lovely jubbly

the sp is falling
.....artificially of course as the market has long since been cornered
... the MMs are in control and are now trying to hoover up small holdings on behalf of the big boys
The only news worth focussing on is the RNS on Fidelity increasing their holding

Just bought some more at a great price

On 14 March 05
Avis brand owner Cendant announced integration of their Avis ( non Europe and Asia ) car rental business into their global Hotel and Vacations businesses
The integration is being done to generate cost efficiencies and provide a platform for future global synergies
As a direct consequence the Avis CEO and Cendant representative on the Avis Europe Kevin Sheehan has left Cendant and resigned from the AVE Board
Meanwhile AVE majority owner D`Ieteren has acquired a US windscreen replacement business thru their global subsidiary Belron
Belron`s new acquisition would benefit from closer links with Cendant`s Avis US business

Since this March press release by Cendant
And
Looked at from a PR standpoint
some rather obvious and positive stock market announcements seem to have been deliberately suppressed by all 3 parties
D`Ieteren
has not commented on the potential to link more closely with Cendant in the US
One would have thought this was on obvious synergy to mention after the acquisition was done and dusted
Neither Cendant nor AVE
have commented on whether the Cendant integration exercise will be extended to identify cost savings to both parties in Europe and Asia
And Kevin Sheehan
has not been replaced on the AVE Board
Why ?
When you consider that
D`Ieteren own around 60%
Around 15 % of AVE is the hands of Fidelity and Franklin
And at least 10% of the remainder is in the hands of 4 or 5 big buyers who wish to remain anonymous
Large parcels exceeding 1m shares were changing hands at 70 to 72p just before the 25 May EGM when one could reasonably expect some nervous sellers to be about and MMs to hoover up at Dyson pace on behalf of Big Buyers
Since then the sp has drifted downwards with MMs providing regular stimulus by trading 100 to 200 shares at 5min interval on days when little business is being transacted by real people The current sp of around 64p is therefore artificial
The obvious conclusion to draw is that good news about AVE which could tend to raise the sp is being deliberately avoided while news about tough trading conditions etc is being deliberately played up in order to let these greedy big buyers acquire the last 15% thru an hovering up exercise worked in conjunction with the MMs
Hence there is a Cendant bid in the pipeline with only the timing in doubt

HELL OF A POST...you have certainly been working on this hard.

i will do a bit of digging as well...

Well well

Deutsche Bank AG have declared a 3.43% interest
with Fidelity holding 9.30%
Franklin holding 7.71%
D`Ieteren holding 59.60%
Total 80.04%
80% of the declared ownership is now in the hands of 4 owners

Allowing 4m shares for share options
this leaves a free market of not more than 112m shares
And
given the sheer volume of tranactions exceeding 1M shares in recent months
A minimum of at least a further 60M shares are being held by at least 4 big buyers none of whom hold more than the the 3% threshold of 17.6m
Probably MMs holding to sell on to one of the big 4 at an agreed commission
What does this mean for the little man
Hang on in there the sp is going to rocket in the next 6m

you can't argue with the maths...

my concern is that there is a seller out there who may keep reloading. will watch and maybe buy more....

Prop

Can`t believe any of the current big 4 owners would seriously contemplate selling and reloading AVE in a big way

D`Ieteren holdings were bought at an average of around 100p-110p
Fidelity holdings were bought at an average of around 80p
Franklin holdings were bought at an average of around 87p
Deutche Bank holdings were bought at an average of around 65p to 70p


These holdings represent 80 % ownership
Hence
1% of AVE stock sold by these guys is equivalent to 4% of the residual free market
(and that assumes there are no other big owners .. which is very unlikely)
They therefore can`t dump shares without an sp catastrophe and a big loss
Indeed this is another reason why there must be a bid is in the offing
Fidelity , Franklin and now Deutche Bank have bought into AVE thru MMs who are quite happy to hoover up small parcels on their behalf for an agreed commission
Thats why every 10 days or so you see big parcels of exceeding 200000 shares being processed as deals when they are actually transfers between the MM and his principal
And
These movements are happening without any noticeable change in the bid / offer price
So
To sell and reload requires a MM do the reverse

ie sell off massive amounts of stock in dribs and drabs without seriously affecting the sp
This cant happen because if you think about it
The MMs can only hold manipulate the sp if they are in a position to buy and sell in roughly equal volumes
They can only buy if the have the security of a Principal`s order behind them
If they can only sell the sp will collapse

the thing is though that this is an order driven stock and not MM controlled so you are right to a point. at the moment there is a seller reloading 50/- at the offer when lifted (obviously not today, too thin!)

of course there may be orders out there being fed into the mkt.

saying this i agree that something is going on and i suspect that the stock is being held down (in lots of 50/- which is insignificant) to keep control of the price so a buyout/takeover/MBO may be at the 80 ish level as opposed to 100p.

interesting conspirital stuff with more than a hint of the truth!

There have been a fair number ( 20 to 30 ) days since Jan 05 when there has been an "order driven" trade ( buys and sells) of 100 sometimes 200 shares every 5 mins all day
80% of the trades have been tiny on these days
When you look at the Broker codes responsible for these tiny deals they are the same people more or less who jump in now and then with deals exceeding 500000 and sometimes 1M AVE shares
From a dealing cost standpoint these tiny trades are only cost effective if they are broker to broker where the commission by agreement will be non existent This is despite being recorded as "order driven" trades
Why are they doing this ?
It may simply be to steer the sp into a range where they can transfer accumulated stock to their Principal at a previously agreed price pretending it is a real time deal when in fact it is prearranged
In any event
when 80% of the Co is in the hands of 4 owners the sp of the remaining 20% is irrelevant when a bid is being contemplated
I can`t see D`Ieteren selling AVE at a loss although I would expect a side deal benfitting the Belron acquisition in the USA

The weaknesses in the D`Ieteren position is that they have
used up 19 yrs of their 50 yr licence to the Avis Brand and probably need to renegotiate an extension over the next 5 yrs or so
They certainly could not afford to be providing working capital indefinitely to a business which is not self funding
AVE need restructured to reduce its cost base This is possible if aligned to other global Cendant businesses but probably impossible if aligned to other global D`Ieteren businesses
My money is on 100p to 110p some time after the Share Premium resolution is endorsed by the courts in early July 05

Morning nice to see blue numbers at ave.

From Avis Europe Website

Shareholder Composition

Shareholder Composition for Avis Europe as at February 2005.

Majority Shareholder 59.7

Institutional Holding 33.2

Private Individuals 3.5

Directorial Holding 0.2

Other 3.4

Total 100.0 %

Since Feb 2005 Fidelity have added 1.3% , Templeton 0.7% and Deutche Bank probably around 1% These owners now account for 19% out of 36% of the business
held by Institutions
Also if the Institutions have been of the same mind since Jan2005 then these holidings additions have come at the expense of holdings by "private individuals" and "other" suggesting that these now total not more than 5% which will include employee share schemes

Assuming the Institutions are in "buying" not "selling" mode the "free market"
is now not more than 4 to 4.5% or 25M to 30M shares in total
This represents a chronic stock shortage and may explain why a 0.25p sp price increase can be caused by a buy order for 20000 worth of shares

i agree, there is a seller around that may be overhanging the stock a little. i would love to have a go and try and lift him.

Prop
If you feel brave

and trust your fingers to press the right button...........

Place a buy order for 500000 shares just to see what the sp would be .........
I betcha it would be over 70p
Then hit the cancel button immediately.......