Results out soon in August.

Broker recos look very bullish and why not on a P/E of just over 6 to 2011.....

Thomas Cook Group PLC

FORECASTS 2010 2011
Date Rec Pre-tax (�) EPS (p) DPS (p) Pre-tax (�) EPS (p) DPS (p)

Panmure Gordon
02-08-10 BUY 319.00 27.10 11.30 338.00 28.70 12.40

Exane BNP Paribas
02-08-10 BUY 116.00 26.62 10.75 319.00 28.87 11.66

Numis Securities Ltd
02-08-10 ADD 324.20 27.60 11.25 357.10 29.90 11.81

Oriel Securities
02-08-10 BUY 330.40 28.40 11.40 363.50 31.30 12.10

KBC Peel Hunt Ltd
30-07-10 BUY 301.06 25.22 10.75 313.36 26.23 10.93

WestLB
30-07-10 SELL 28.81 11.52 29.91 11.96

Shore Capital
30-07-10 HOLD 312.00 26.50 11.80 347.00 29.50 13.00

Charles Stanley Securities
15-06-10 HOLD

Evolution Securities Ltd
11-02-10 None

Investec Securities [R]
09-02-10 BUY 327.00 27.30 11.74 352.23 29.39 12.49

Fyshe Horton Finney Ltd
25-01-10 BUY

Collins Stewart
24-12-09 BUY

Nomura Research Institute
25-09-09 RED

2010 2011
Pre-tax (�) EPS (p) DPS (p) Pre-tax (�) EPS (p) DPS (p)

Consensus 316.42 26.98 11.36 342.50 29.39 11.96

1 Month Change 1.07 -0.22 0.01 3.43 -0.14 -0.14
3 Month Change -11.92 -1.09 -0.05 -11.79 -1.00 -0.44


GROWTH
2009 (A) 2010 (E) 2011 (E)

Norm. EPS 2.76% 0.38% 8.92%
DPS 14.03% 10.80% 5.26%

INVESTMENT RATIOS
2009 (A) 2010 (E) 2011 (E)

EBITDA �574.90m �589.69m �613.90m
EBIT �372.50m �420.55m �447.05m
Dividend Yield 5.38% 5.96% 6.27%
Dividend Cover 2.62x 2.38x 2.46x
PER 7.10x 7.07x 6.49x
PEG 2.57f 18.55f 0.73f
Net Asset Value PS -240.80p 224.47p 240.43p

What goes on in the "private area"?

Doesn't mention the "private area" here Fred!

Store review

Thomas Cook, White Rose shopping Centre, Leeds

The store is on the ground floor of the shopping centre, opposite an Argos and near a Sainsbury’s, M&S and Primark.

The first thing you notice is there is no window. The front is open, with a large globe on a wooden stand in the centre at an easy height to spin.

One patch is so worn from jabbing fingers – parents showing children where they live – that most of England, Wales and lowland Scotland has worn away.

There is seating to one side of the entrance.

Beyond the globe, to the right, there is an ‘advice bar’ with high stools and touch-screen tablets and brochure racks to the side. To the left is a row of consultation desks, with a central aisle leading to a foreign exchange counter at the back of the store.

There is a good balance of seating, browsing and consultancy areas, with space to move around.

The first advice bar has four tablets on it. Next to it is a lower, quick-transaction desk with a PC, phone and card terminal; beyond that is a second bar with stools and PCs, phones and card-payment terminals.

Behind the five conventional-style consultation desks is a lounge area with comfortable, high-backed bench seating around a long table, with a wide touchscreen and card terminal at one end. Here staff deal with family and group bookings. Manager Dominic Hosley says: “We’ve had 17 lads around the table.”

It’s Friday, 2pm: four desks are busy. Two people are talking to Dominic, four looking at the tablets, three standing talking to another staff member, five at the foreign exchange and two more walking in. The store is buzzing. Dominic greets everyone saying: “We won’t keep you a moment.”


What the staff think
“I wasn’t apprehensive about the change. It was really exciting. The store was old; it looked tatty. It took a few days to adjust. We were all sitting at our desks waiting for people to come in. Now, unless I’m with someone or on the phone, I’m up greeting people. We go to any desk to make a booking – we don’t have a desk for a shift. I prefer the advice bar because you’re next to the customer. The only thing I find is there is nowhere to put my phone book. Dominic [the manager] likes everything tidied away.”

Emma Raikes, 13 years at the store

“It’s lovely to get a new shop and good for the company, but a bit of me did think ‘how is this going to work?’ It doesn’t appeal to every customer at first, but once they’ve sat down it works really well. All the younger customers like it. You see families with children playing on the tablets. I’m now more relaxed at the advice bar – you and the customer can both see the screen.”

Kealie Tordorff, 14 years at the store

“I started seven months ago. I did a week’s experience in a quieter store, but I prefer this – it can get really busy.”


Customers' views

A retired couple, the Murrays, are looking at a tablet. Anthony Murray says: “This is attractive to young people, but to older people it’s off-putting. I’m old-fashioned: I like someone to talk to. Older people find a tablet tricky.” Yet he adds: “I’ve done my research at home on a PC.”

As we chat, two young women sit down – each at a tablet – then pick up brochures from the racks behind and browse. One of them, Becky, says: “These are easier to look at.”

Becky likes the store. She says: “It’s bright and more modern.” Her friend Ashton says: “I’m more likely to come in. You don’t have to wait for someone to help you. You can look for yourself.” Becky adds: “It’s the globe that does it for me. You can swish it.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Shop manager: it’s all about interaction

Manager Dominic Horsley, who has been involved with the new store from the early stages, says: “The shop is not much bigger than it was, but it was intimidating before. Interaction is a big part of the new store. It’s all opened out so we can welcome people.

“We want to create movement through the store. The globe attracts people in and there is always someone to meet and greet.

“When we’re busy we have a queuing service. We take a mobile number and call when someone is free. We manage the flow.

“We’re not pushy, but we always greet people. One lady looked at a tablet for two hours, then came in the next day for an hour, said ‘Right, I’m ready’ and booked. We’d never seen her before.

“We sell what’s appropriate to the customer. We’ll say, ‘I don’t think that is right for you’. We don’t just say, ‘You’ll love Magaluf’. The store is all about the customer. If people want to be left, they’re left. But we don’t assume people don’t want anything.

“We had a lady come in for foreign exchange. We got talking: she had already booked to New York. It wasn’t a Thomas Cook holiday, but she spent up to £600 with us on excursions.”

The store is open into the evening. “Everyone works flexible hours,” says Horsley. “I’m lucky I have an amazing team. The atmosphere is fantastic and the weekends amazing. The store is 100% about the team and shop‑floor management.

“I’ve worked 14 years as a consultant and manager and been here three years. I can’t imagine going back to the old store.”

Still in uptrend. Currently 119.25p. Still holding.

Heave and its over the bar!

Ireland's aviation regulator has emerged as a surprise contender to buy into one of the largest shareholders in Britain's air traffic control operator.

Thomas Cook, TUI and Lufthansa are expected to sell out their positions in The Airline Group, with Virgin Atlantic possibly selling up to half of its stake. That would leave British Airways and easyJet among the carriers which continue as economic stakeholders in NATS.

Rothschild, which had previously been advising the Airline Group, is now advising the carriers which are exiting the group.

A number of pension funds from Canada, 3i, the private equity group, and overseas air traffic controllers such as DFS in Germany, are all likely to bid for the selling airlines' stakes.

Made it Fred - that was exhausting, now stay there this time!

Morgan Stanley reiterates overweight - target 150p

Bought back in at 82

Of course you did! ;o)

123p. On the move again.

Headlines like this certainly help the travel business;

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/393762/Bargain-holidays-in-the-sun-as-European-resort-prices-plunge

hmmm having a problem again at these levels trying to break out.

Itl do it at some time but how long is the question.

Anyone know when the update is?. Would be barmy to short it now.

Starting to look interesting doodles. If it goes over 128p for 48 hours another buy in my book.

Doodles must be on holiday.

gf, don't know when the update is except that it's expected sometime in May. Been on holiday doing some gardening today !

Oh right doodles. Must admit the hedges etc have buds on them.

OHHHHHH NO.

Might clear 130p today hopefully......and stay there!

Thomas Cook Group launches 24/7 rapid response social media listening lab
Press Release: Thomas Cook Group – 2 hours 58 minutes ago.. .

LONDON--(BUSINESSWIRE)--

Building on its already strong digital credentials, the new Thomas Cook Listening Lab, coupled with a specially trained social media listening team, has been launched to learn from customers’ social sentiment, improve marketing strategies, and build stronger customer relations.

Building on the company’s already strong digital credentials, and as part of its omni-channel approach has taken its social media listening to the next level with the implementation, of what is to be believed, as a travel industry first, a bespoke 24/7 social media monitoring facility. The Thomas Cook Listening Lab, using a specially trained social media listening team will provide real-time global brand reputation management, listening in over 180 languages about “chatter” around their brands. The team will identify social ‘brand champions’ and who the company should be interacting with socially to help increase sales. Data will also be collected that will be used for future marketing campaigns and to provide insight on how to heighten social brand awareness. The facility will aid in crisis management, provide real time comparison of competitor brands, and importantly, listen to all customer sentiment. The facility also features tools to engage with customers directly through countless social media channels. The Listening Lab and its team have already proven to be an effective instrument in changing customer sentiment and responding to customers’ queries.

“We were the first major high street travel agency in the UK to offer online bookings, last year we had 310 million visits to our websites, ThomasCook.com was labelled #5 travel/e-travel site in 2012 eDigital Research Best Site benchmark and just this month our new mobile website was said to ‘set the standard’ and received a 10 out of 10 by travel technology consultant Paul Richer,” said Harriet Green .“As we expand our digital capabilities, my vision for Thomas Cook is to be the leading online tour operator and to have the highest share of bookings online. Our Thomas Cook Listening Lab will allow us to better position Thomas Cook as the leading travel authority by listening and monitoring customer sentiment, enabling us to discovering useful and valued information about our customers. The Listening Lab will further help our customer services team to better engage with our customers in active dialogues, and provide relevant, fresh and valuable content to key audiences.”

“Being proactive and having to monitor thousands of social mentions a day can be difficult and time consuming, but with the Thomas Cook Listening Lab, coupled with social media listing experts, we are able to see and resolve social concerns with our social media customer care team,” said Jonathan Roberts, Global Head of Social Media for Thomas Cook Group plc. “Monitoring is also instrumental in Thomas Cook’s success, whereby the real-time data collected through social media is ‘key’ in all future marketing, PR and advertising campaigns. We can also quickly see what is being discussed in real time about any of our major competitors or our own marketing campaigns, television adverts or product launches, and within hours, our marketing teams can create additional sales messages, and then direct fans via social platforms to learn more about special offers or holiday packages. Through the Listening Lab we now have the ability to target a specific customer base, for example if we want to target people in London who have recently tweeted, “I need a holiday”, we now have the tools to reach out to those people and make an informed pitch based on their online social profile; revealing their age, gender and likes and dislikes.”

The Thomas Cook Listening Lab has been created and is managed by Chapel Social (http://www.chapelsocial.com/), a division of Chapel PR and Marketing, to specifically monitor all of Thomas Cook’s 60+ global brands, in real-time across all social media platforms. The facility features six large monitors, contains specially designed computers, with speakers, and a video conferencing camera that allows for meetings with regional marketing teams and to help coordinate with teams at live-location events. There are four additional desktop systems for the purpose of social engagement with Thomas Cook’s customers. The larger monitors show real-time tracking with various data visualisations and dashboards, aided by a variety of software integrated into a platform ideal for Thomas Cook’s social media listening and engagement needs.

-END-

Get on board the train is about to depart.