Mike / Anyone,

The Regus story seems to become more fascinating by the day.

Briefly, if I understand the situation correctly, Evil Kneivel aka Simon Caukwell has called Regus a short from January, when it was about 10p.

Since then regus has gained in value, and is now worth 38p, with Simon calling it a short as it continually increased. Regus have complained to the FSA about Simon's comments, and I believe, threatened legal action.

His interest is in their accounts, and whether Regus are in receipt of payments from a company called Alchemy, which I think they have declined to comment on!

The really interesting bit (IMHO) is that two of the biggest holders of Regus are spreadbetting companies! This means of course that the rise is price has been driven by speculators trading on margin, rather than solid buying of the shares.

My question is what happens (or is likely to happen) next?

It would seem that if the margin speculators decide to bail, the spreadbetters will have to offload into a reluctant market, and that could cause it to fall of a cliff.

I have been considering a fairly large short, as I cannot see RGU climbing much higher, so could control with a reasonable stop loss, and surely the risk is limited from here?

My question is to Mike, and anyone else that has an opinion, what do you think will happen?

All replies welcome, as I can see this as an opportunity in the making.

probably the best way to answer that is to advise you to read the advfn thread, it is by no means clearcut
alex

Alex,

I have, and I agree with you,it's not clearcut, although I currently sit in the "it's going bust" camp.

I was just wondering what Mike thought, I'd be surprised if he wasn't up to speed on Regus, and hopefully will have an informed opinion. He also has some city connections, and may have heard some decent rumours.

Are you the same Alex I met at GNI last year?

Regards,

Andy.

Interesting thoughts in The Sunday Telegraph today, just scroll to the bottom.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2003/06/08/ccmm08.xml&menuId=243&sSheet=/money/2003/06/15/ixfrontmarkets.html

Andy; No real knowledge/information but notice from The RNS, Cantors have been in the market again. Who could it be for,previous bidder?

On 6th June 2003 we received notification in accordance with the Companies Act
of the following:

Cantor Fitzgerald Europe has an interest in 93,716,000 ordinary shares in Regus
plc as at 3rd June 2003, being 16.02% of the issued share capital of Regus plc.

a real conundrum and no mistake.....havw traded 4 times in the last 4 months and won every time. would have made a lot more if i had held my original position, but thats life. my last buy was 17p ish and i wouldnt want to push my luck if still holding.

Mike,

well I'm absolutely amazed that you haven't heard of the Regus situation, it's surely the talk of the city?

I believe that london spreadbetters own up to 30% of the company, and the free float is virtually nil!

Cantor's are buying to covder in the market their net long positions, and teh share has doubled on this speculation, as it's been driven up by people trading on margin.

EK still reckons it's a short, and you have to ask what will happen when people start closing their longs? Who will mop up those millions of shares coming onto the market?

EGM was this morning
Anyone know what was asked or said, or where I can find out?
thanks
alex

alex,

It seems that referring to the ADVFN thread is our only choice!

Sad, because I thought that AM would have better results than this.

They only seem to be interested in their traders, yet in this case surely regus could be traded?

Andy FWIW - says short to me, run up on hot air - house of cards - would you 'invest' in RGS?


ST

ST,

No I agree with your comments, will probably short tomorrow, with a fair stop loss just in case!

I really can't see RGU climbing much more, in fact i'm surprised it's got so high.

I bet old EK is adding to his short position!

Cheers