Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

fred - would the labour party be a better entity if it wasn't married (ball and chain) to the unions?

Cynic,.


I guess 30% is fine!!!!!! 8-)

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It didn't have to be sold.

Management was improving and could have been improved more.

It would have been possible with a sensible approach by both management and workforce to come to a "sensible deal" based on increased short and long term profitability.

I will wait and see. My bet there will be a drop back in price after next week, but when NY settles their budget that it will move up to 500 mark.

Labour had a very pally relationship with Murdoch previously. You seem to have endless left wing fantasies.

OBC,

It did need to be sold. It's a crap business which needs massive investment so it can compete in more lucrative sectors. There's no point in being sentimental about it as, hopefully, the new investment will allow it to modernise and prosper.

And the price, and whether or not it's been flogged off cheaply? No, it hasn't been sold off at a cut-price - the premium just goes to show what a good job the guys running the book have done.

Gotta say that I'm not too keen on having Jimmy Saville's head on the new 1st class stamp though.

:o)

If the business does badly then we are lucky to get rid of it. If it does well and makes a profit then we can tax the profits. If you add the money we have for selling it then its win win.

The problems will start when the beancounters take an axe to the workforce, as they surely must.


What will the price of a stamp rise to?

Will they maintain universal delivery?

What service will go first?

And if you want to compare the sale of the Royal Mail to what the one-eyed Scottish Monster did with the the nation's gold, here are the differences.

Royal Mail

Cameron sought advice.
Cameron listened to the advice,
Cameron acted on the advice.

Gold

Gordon Clown sought advice.
Gordon Clown didn't listen to the advice.
Gordon Clown ignored the advice.

MaxK,

If they go on strike, sack 'em. They're probably all Bozzers anyway.

it doesn't much matter whether or not RM had to be sold; the decision, right or wrong, was taken to do so
for myself, I can't say I was much enamoured with the present (late?) set up, though it's debatable whether or not it will improve under new management

as for the price, i wouldn't have any idea where to start on pricing anything like that - or much else for that matter - and i dare say you are in the same boat ...... therefore to say with infallible hindsight that the price should have been say £4.00 or a little more is pretty disingenuous

that said, i would agree that £3.30 looks strangely low (with hindsight) for something that was studied at length by so-called experts, and that £3.75 would probably have been the right sort of level to ensure success

Perhaps the problem with Royal Mail over the years is that it hasn't had any competition and I always think that good businesses thrive on competition. Added to that now there is so much business conducted over the internet by email etc.. A large part of the mail I get each day is junk mail - some of it addressed to " the householder". Demand for the service is going down and prices are going up.

Cyners,

You don't get it, do you? You price something according to what you think you'll be able to sell it for because somebody else will be happy to buy it at that price.

Barclays and BoA (or whoever it was) thought they'd be able to sell it at between £3.00 and £3.30 a share. They did sell at that price. They were right. It's got fuck all to do with being cheap or expensive. It's about matching perceived buyers with sellers in the market.

They seem to have balls it up.

I did some work on one of the privatisation IPOs in the early 80s. It is an extremely difficult problem. You have to value the assets, the turnover, estimated profit, goodwill, the business potential etc. When you have a figure that involved a huge team of people, you then have to come up with a range of possible prices. The one I worked on was done mainly by a very large firm of accountants using a lot of computing power for modelling various scenarios. The final price was a success as far as uptake, but all the left wing loonies moaned and moaned about it.

So the Nu owners took into account the pension provisions?

The new owners are just the shareholders. The pension is complicated. It would take a few pages to explain it. Essentially, the government has absorbed the current scheme, which is closed to new members. After privatisation a new scheme will be started. The government is then responsible for the pensions of the members of the old system.

Strong demand for the controversial privatisation of Royal Mail prompted the government to explore whether it could extract a higher price for the postal operator, but key institutional investors signalled they would drop out if they had to pay more than 330p a share

the cynical might suggest it was succumbing to blackmail, though Hilary would claim just as fairly that the price was what the market would bear

Where has the self-appointed bulletin board guru - gf - gone, just when we need his sage words of wisdom here. Font of all knowledge - have you been devoured by a shark in your fish pond or are you just trying to chat-up the local slapper? :-)

eating or being eaten by worms at the bottom of the river perhaps
better chance of that than hearing words of wisdom from that quarter

Hays,

You seem by your postings to be "Jack of all trades, master of none".

Lucky you parents were born before you.

------

Royal Mail.

With 4 daughters and a wife to apply for shares, we got more shares than I expected.

It was a complete balls up and if your estate agent sold your house for 37.9% less than the market valued it for you, you may wish to lynch that estate agent,


That is one good reason for taking the Hairy one's opinions with a pinch of salt.


================


Again it is a failure of competence by an inept government and will count against them at the next GE.

Especially when Cameron and the Hairy one try to present the sell off as a "success".

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Whether the price goes up or down the public will see it as a failure.

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DB4

Don't describe yourself as a slapper, and keep off the streets. You never know there must be somebody who may fancy you.