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

Barclays Capital Overweight 110.65 - 224.00 Reiterates

Shore Capital Hold 110.65 - - Downgrades

Numis Hold 110.65 135.00 135.00 Reiterates

Ahhhh right, cheers.

Blimey - stopped in a blink @111.3 +5 - waiting to re-enter!

http://www.cityam.com/1416997632/harriet-green-told-conference-last-week-thomas-cooks-transformation-absolutely-not-done

Thomas Cook chief executive Harriet Green has resigned, saying her work at the travel firm "is complete".
Shares in the travel company plunged more than 20% in reaction to the news. The company also warned of tougher market conditions in the coming year.
Ms Green will be replaced by chief operating officer Peter Fankhauser, who will take over with immediate effect.
Harriet Green joined the company two years ago when its share price was 14p. It closed on Tuesday night at 139.9p.
Ms Green said: "I always said that I would move on to another company with fresh challenges once my work was complete. That time is now."
As expected, the company reported a 44% jump in earnings before interest and tax to £323m ($507m) for the year ended September.
However, it warned that growth in the coming year would be slower due to a tougher trading environment.
'Huge shock'
Ms Green's decision to step down took the markets by surprise.
In a tweet, BBC business editor Kamal Ahmed described the news as a "huge shock".
Shares were trading around 110p on Wednesday morning. In March they reached a high of 190p.
Brenda Kelly, chief market strategist at IG Markets, said: "The resignation is bound to have a negative effect.
"But there are other problems out of Thomas Cook's control. Over the last few months the market has not looked so good - with the weaker UK currency and a struggling eurozone all having a negative effect."

Analysis: Kamal Ahmed, Business Editor
The travel industry has gone back to one of their own.
Harriet Green - new to the travel business - took over Thomas Cook when it was on its knees, fixed it at a whirlwind pace and has left, I am sure, earlier than she thought she would.
Her replacement is a travel sector veteran who has been at Thomas Cook for 13 years, including when it suffered its near death experience in 2011. Before that he was at Kuoni.
Although Ms Green has always made it clear that being a long haul chief executive was not for her (she told the BBC last year "I generally think [chief executives] spend far too long in the same business") her abrupt departure points to some tensions in the business that could not be reconciled.
The chairman, Frank Meysman, said this morning that Thomas Cook now moves into a "fresh phase" where the strategy put in place by Ms Green is executed by her successor. "Everybody has their qualities," he said this morning.
That suggests that the board felt that the new chief executive, Peter Fankhauser, is better suited to running the business.
Investors are voting with their wallets over the departure of a chief executive who saw the share price rise by nearly ten times in two years. Since the announcement of her resignation at 7am, the shares have collapsed by more than 20%. Chief executives who transform businesses are clearly valued.

Company rebooted
Thomas Cook underwent a thorough reorganisation under Ms Green that reflected new trends in the travel business.
"Her great achievement was to restructure the company, realising that having so many Thomas Cook outlets around the country was based in history not reality," said Ms Kelly.
"She recognised that people were going on line and looking for deals, that holiday booking tradition was different from Thomas Cook's heyday in the 70s and 80s.
"It meant huge closures here in the UK and in Ireland, but those difficult decisions meant getting to grips with what's happening today in the travel market," according to Ms Kelly.

BBC Business

We all know that booking holidays are mostly done via internet, makes you wonder how high street shops can compete. For instance, I checked out my xmas break on line to get an idea of cost. Then went to Thompson/thomas cook shops, neither had flights available from my local airport yet moneysupermarkets had thompson and easyjet flights available which have been duly booked and hotel booked via "Booking.com". Sorry but it's got to be done.,.

Last one today :- Credit Suisse Neutral 113.70 137.90 225.00 148.00 Downgrades

Transition of CEO and Board change dates

RNS

RNS Number : 1215Y
Thomas Cook Group PLC
26 November 2014
 
26 November 2014
 
Thomas Cook Group plc
 
Transition of CEO and Board change dates
 

Further to the announcement earlier today that Peter Fankhauser has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Thomas Cook Group with immediate effect, the following information is given in respect of the changes to the Board:

·    Peter Fankhauser has been appointed to the Board as of today; and
·    Harriet Green will step down from the Board on 31 December 2014.

There are no disclosures to be made pursuant to paragraph 9.6.13R (1)-(6) of the Listing Rules.

Website disclosure: a statement required by section 430(2B) of the Companies Act 2006 has been placed on the Company's website: https://www.thomascookgroup.com/category/corporate-news/

I think she has departed to sharp, to sudden announcement . I hope its not like Mr Leahy leaving Tesco . Time will tell.

Something isn't right dreamcatcher, that late RNS sounds like an attempt at damage limitation.

Future bad news in my honest opinion.

More than £350m wiped off Thomas Cook after chief Harriet Green steps down
Harriet Green could qualify for long-term share awards worth as much as £8m at today's prices despite her shock departure from Thomas Cook

Harriet Green has presided over a 829pc increase in Thomas Cook's share price
From Telegraph.co.uk
By Nathalie Thomas, and Graham Ruddick8:05PM GMT 26 Nov 2014

More than £350m was wiped from the value of tour operator Thomas Cook on Wednesday after the surprise exit of chief executive Harriet Green after just two-and-a-half years in the role.
The 173-year-old holiday company stunned the market with an announcement that Ms Green, who has presided over a 829pc increase in Thomas Cook’s share price during her tenure, would step down on December 31.
She will formally leave the company on June 30, after going on gardening leave from January 1.
Although analysts had been expecting the ambitious turnaround specialist to head for the exit at some stage in the next 12 months, her departure comes significantly earlier than expected.
Just last week she told a conference “we’re absolutely not done” in reviving Thomas Cook following its near collapse in 2011.
Simon French, an analyst at Cenkos Securities, said: “While we expected Harriet to depart at some point in the next 12 months, the timing will unnerve the market.”
Frank Meysman, Thomas Cook’s chairman, insisted the decision had been taken “unanimously with the full board” and Ms Green was “totally in line with that decision”.
Ms Green is understood to have been mulling her departure for several weeks after receiving approaches from a number of large corporates in need of her turnaround skills.
It is expected that Ms Green will return to the City in another big role, potentially at a FTSE 100 company. She is believed to have received approaches from several retailers, in particular.
Ms Green, who did not take part in media and analyst calls on Wednesday, said in a statement: “I always said that I would move on to another company with fresh challenges once my work was complete. That time is now.”
The tour boss, who received almost £2.9m in pay and benefits last year, will be treated as a “good leaver” by the holiday company and will still qualify for long-term awards, worth more than £8m at today’s prices, even though she will be leaving a year before the first of her lucrative share plans had originally been due to vest.
In a statement on Wednesday night, Thomas Cook said she could still qualify for a maximum of more than 7.1m shares under two long-term share plans, which will vest on June 30 next year, although she will not receive a performance-related bonus for the 2013/14 financial year or for 2014/2015. The share plans are subject to performance criteria.
Ms Green also has 251,266 bonus shares under a deferred bonus plan, which will vest after March next year.
Mr Meysman said he was glad Ms Green’s awards would be “substantial” given her achievements at Thomas Cook. When she joined in 2012, Thomas Cook’s share price was just 14p and the struggling company had a market capitalisation of £148m. During her tenure, the share price rose to more than 130p, leading to a market capitalisation of almost £2bn.
Ms Green has been succeeded by Peter Fankhauser, a travel industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in the sector, who was last year promoted to chief operating officer at Thomas Cook.

What next for Harriet Green of Thomas Cook?
As Harriet Green and Thomas Cook part ways, it’s only a matter of time before the next challenge.

Thomas Cook's value rose from £148m to just shy of £2bn under Harriet Green

From Telegraph.co.uk
By Nathalie Thomas, and Ben Marlow8:22PM GMT 26 Nov 2014

She departs in the same way she arrived. When, in May 2012, a then beleaguered Thomas Cook announced that it was pinning all of its fortunes on Harriet Green, the boss of FTSE 250 electronic components company Premier Farnell, the appointment was greeted with surprise in some quarters.
Ms Green, also a non-executive director of BAE Systems, had built up a strong reputation as a turnaround specialist but this was her first job in the travel industry. Several potential candidates had been associated with the challenging role of returning the world’s oldest tour operator to health, but Ms Green’s name had not been one of them.
Two-and-a-half years after her surprise arrival, Ms Green’s departure was even more of a shock.
Shareholders and analysts were not foolish enough to believe that the woman who had achieved such a formidable and rapid transformation, that her work became the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, would stick around forever.
But many believed she would still be leading what she herself liked to describe as the “leaner, fitter, better” Thomas Cook next year, not least because she was on a lucrative three-year, long-term incentive plan.
In an interview with The Telegraph in May this year, Ms Green said she was planning to stick around even longer: “I’ve always said that I’m going to stay six years. If you don’t fix stuff in six years, you should be fired anyway.”
Just last week she echoed those comments at a conference: “You can’t do a transformation on this sort of scale in a year or two years. I usually say it’s about six years… We go to the City next week with our second year of results and to show if and how the company has become fitter and better and we’re absolutely not done.”
Her abrupt departure, revealed alongside full-year results, sent the shares tumbling 17.69pc to 113½p, although part of the fall was attributed to a warning in the results that growth in 2015 would be “more measured”.
“This comes as a significant surprise,” Barclays analyst Patrick Coffey said of Ms Green’s departure.
Neil Dwane, chief investment officer for Europe at Allianz Global Investors, Thomas Cook’s 12th biggest shareholder, said: “The management change is a surprise, although Harriet is known for turning things around not sailing the ship forward, so perhaps she felt this was a good time.”
Thomas Cook’s chairman, Frank Meysman, emphasised the decision “was taken unanimously with the full board” and sources pointed to the fact that Green had already lined up her own successor. However Ms Green’s absence on Wednesday from media calls and a presentation to City analysts did little to improve the chaotic and hasty appearance of the announcement.
Asked if the parting was acrimonious, Mr Meysman said cryptically: “All CEOs are different. One of the arts is to work together with everybody [no matter] how different they are. Being different doesn’t mean acrimony. That is the point I wanted to get across. She was totally in line with that decision which was taken unanimously with the full board.”
Sources close to Ms Green told a different tale. As an energetic turnaround junkie, who gets by on as little as three-and-a-half hours sleep, she had always been hired to do a fixed job, to get Thomas Cook on to a sustainable footing before handing the reins over to someone else with years of experience in the travel industry.
Other large corporates in need of a similar, rapid transformation, had come calling, including several retailers. Once her contractual obligations to Thomas Cook are worked through, an announcement on a new post will be forthcoming, one source said.
Despite her recent public comments suggesting that she could be at Thomas Cook for another couple of years, Ms Green said in a statement: “I always said that I would move on to another company with fresh challenges once my work was complete. That time is now. I wish all of the team at this re-energised company continued success, as they move to the next phase of the company’s development.”
Both sides were eager to point out that, even if the timing came as a surprise to the outside world, the succession plan was drawn up a year ago.
In November 2013, Peter Fankhauser was promoted to chief operating officer for his part in successfully overhauling Thomas Cook’s problematic UK business, a new role that effectively meant he was chief executive in waiting. Fankhauser was chosen by Ms Green.
The nature of Wednesday’s announcement may be more chaotic than Ms Green, who famously cold-called Meysman to tell him “you need me” when he was looking for candidates to take on the challenging Thomas Cook job, may have hoped for.
But of at least one fact there is no doubt: under Ms Green’s tenure Thomas Cook’s share price soared from 14p to more than 130p, raising the company’s value from £148m to just shy of £2bn.
She may be gone from Thomas Cook, but it is only a matter of time before Ms Green will be back.

Harriet Green's good enough to land another top job soon
The departure of the Thomas Cook chief executive shocked the markets, but she will be back

Thomas Cook needed someone like Harriet Green to turn the business around
From Telegraph.co.uk
Allister Heath By Allister Heath10:30PM GMT 26 Nov 2014

So Harriet Green is out at Thomas Cook, the company she dramatically turned around, after just two years. The news stunned the City on Wednesday and combined with a warning about the future outlook sent shares in the firm tumbling.
A ferociously driven and hard-working executive, Green characteristically conducted an interview with a journalist at her gym in a London hotel, at 5.30 in the morning. Her need for sleep – or indeed lack of it – was reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher.
Her biggest mistake was to start hinting at her eventual departure and to emphasise that she was a turnaround specialist, rather than a long-term consolidator – and that eventually prompted the board to ask when this would be. She probably would have liked to leave in six months’ time, after having lined up another top job; but the board precipitated the change.
The big lesson here is that once these kinds of conversation start, they tend to spiral out of control. It doesn’t matter how good one is, signalling however obliquely that one intends to leave one day has a nasty habit of backfiring.
Her successor Peter Fankhauser is a travel veteran, which makes a lot of sense. Somebody like Green was needed for the turnaround phase; somebody like Fankhauser makes more sense for the next phase of the company’s recovery. The new structure will also be more collegiate.
As for Green, she will go far. Despite the remaining problems at Thomas Cook, she created immense value for shareholders. She will be back, sooner rather than later and almost certainly in spectacular fashion.

There's a rumour it could well be Tesco...

there's a fair number of dogs out there who could use her ruthless expertise

7 Nov Panmure Gordon TP: 188.00 Buy
27 Nov Barclays... TP: 122.00 Equal weight
27 Nov Citigroup TP: 140.00 Buy

Note the difference between Barclay's ratings yesterday and today:
26 Nov Barclays... TP: 224.00 Overweight

Nov 27 latest: Credit Suisse: Neutral - TP: 170p (up from 148p yesterday).

Must admit I was burnt a little on SBs, but double share holdings on drop and bought back Sb + plus a few more at 108.

Not sure whether stupid or whether I am lucky.

Looking at future FDs (guess work) I think or hope I will be lucky, until the next RNS.

I hope I am not going to ask, "why?".

Berenberg Hold 119.20 119.20 165.00 130.00 Downgrades