International Distributions Services - IDS - Share Chat

Yeah I was meaning more in the example given of a remote no addresses location where nothing is mapped and there’s no infrastructure. They may not even have a postman.

Maybe use what3words then and not que tresas palabras :joy:

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India, parts of the US, Hong Kong, much of Africa, and so on.

You tell someone your location in English (If the person can even understand that word) then it can easily end up being translated at some point and your location is lost.

Not as easy for a human to remember.

Think of it as DNS for the postie… DNS is how you as a human remembers the website you want to browse to… Instead of remembering one of the IP addresses used by your site. I.e. You remember www.bbc.co.uk instead of 123.456.789.001 (for example)

With what 3 words you remember dogs.gravy.tree as opposed to 52.00098 - 50.758696 (for example)

Not good news…

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Analysis on the UK Investing Reddit:

Pros

-Pension Surplus

-NAV per share 498p

-Competent Management (Rico Back)

-GLS (A gem of a company which is worth at least £3 per share)

-Low Debt

-Lots of potential in the parcel network, study network

-Great Brand reputation

-Parcel Revenues up

-Low Carbon Emissions (Blackrock proved this by increasing their stake to 5%

-Large Institutional Holdings

-Progress on 5 year plan (example, semi running Parcel Hub in Warrington and Automation is up to nearly 30%.

-Rico Back has skin in the game. Topping up twice within the last 3 months.

-International Exposure: GLS operates in Europe & North America operating under different profitable brand names.

-Ambitious strategy with a very capable CEO who is taking on the Unions

-USO review later this year (could go down to 4 days) which would make a huge difference.

-Hugely undervalued at 175p

-Huge potential.

Cons

**-**The Unions: Terry Pullinger and the CWU are very arrogant and do not want any change. Instead, demanding an hour off the working week, increased wages, no USO review and they strongly oppose RMG becoming a parcel company.

-Low Productivity: Posties are self-entitled and lazy.

-PIL is projected to be loss-making in the UK next year.

-PIL is leeching off of GLS.

-Upcoming Ballot, most likely a yes for strike action

-Low earnings

-High Shorts

-Falling Letters

-USO, massive laggard. Who receives letters anyway, particularly 6 days a week? Pointless.

-Fierce competition. Hermes opening a big parcel centre soon, aswell as Amazon taking business.

-Unions scaring away customers from signing contracts

Conclusion

This is my back of an envelope analysis of Royal Mail. I’d love to hear some thoughts. I have 20k in at 220p and the reason is because Back will defeat the unions, he is proceeding with his plan and once redundancies are made accompanied with the three automated parcel hubs in full operation, Royal Mail will win contracts and become a force to be reckoned with in the parcel sector. Their update the other day was not half bad. Back is looking to get that USO down hence the forecast scare imo.

Royal mail action: Buy sub 200p or put in the watch list and see how his plan goes. Long term hold here.

(credit: Alaninvestor reddit user)

I’m not sure still. Sure the price looks cheap, but after Brexit, Amazon might get free reign (or not, of course).

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I sold out of RMG. My reasoning matches that of the post above but I think the unions have too much power over it. They’ll drag the Royal Mail out of existence and use it as a tool to blame the Government.

I’m with Codf. I won’t invest as they are a dated organisation with dated methods and held to ransom by the unions. As is often the case in their fights for better rights and pay they see large lay offs, employees made to work harder and in turn the unions want more. My Dad worked for them for 20 years. I’m not convinced their share price will recover. I can see it falling and then failing and then sold off to a rival who will end the power of the unions and then whip it into shape.

I want near instant returns for my investments. Todays shares and tomorrows must have, not dying firms that may recover some of yesterdays losses and probably won’t.

Remember Buffet - failing businesses are rarely turned around.

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Thanks to Alaninvestor. Nice breakdown of the company, I learned a few things.

I wouldn’t buy it because I don’t see how Royal Mail can compete with other delivery companies who aren’t burdened with the unions and the universal service obligation.

Can the CEO just sell off the profitable parts of the business, and then abandon the rump to inevitably be renationalised when it fails? It’ll be a political scandal, but how else do they recover?

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Email is still free.

The only winning move for the boss of Royal Mail is to divest all the good businesses, become head of those good businesses, and allow the universal service rump to fail and get bailed out.

Everyone’s getting stuff delivered online, Royal Mail still flailing about.

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Royal Mail is very good at letter delivery and sorting, so the drop in letters (less marketing spam due to GDPR, bills are paid online) has really hurt them.

It does have an international business called GLS though, focused on parcels. That business is going the other way.

Not sure where the share price will go, but there is value to GLS (there is money in the banana stand, in a way).

Admittedly, Royal Mail was hardly first class even before the onset of the pandemic. Full-year revenue rose 4 per cent but UK profits have fallen more than 90 per cent in the past five years. Operating profits in the year to March slipped another 40 per cent to £117m. Compare that to international division GLS, where operating profits rose by almost a fifth. The rationale for a break-up is simple: GLS is worth at least the group’s £1.6bn market value. Czech billionaire investor Daniel Kretinsky’s decision to add to his stake may bolster the cause.

Source Royal Mail: sorting problems

That’s not surprising. I’ve lived in a bunch of places around the world and the Royal Mail is unfortunately by far the worst postal and delivery service that I’ve encountered (in Western countries). I can’t see a scenario except for government intervention, where the RM will not lose most or all of market share to foreign competitors.

But if they upped their game in the parcel business wouldn’t they be a formidable force? There is no other delivery company with as much reach in the UK and accessibility to parcel drop points as Royal Mail does.
Just wondering.

Sure, but that’s a massive ‘if’. They had decades to up their service but haven’t done anything. :man_shrugging:

I send low thousands small parcels out each year and without fail Royal Mail are consistently better than anyone else at the price. There are better tracking systems out there but at a higher price.

Having said which RM clearly needs to improve its parcels handling to automate more.

I agree - I know that negative feedback is forcing some companies to choose RM over cheaper competitors. If they re-integrated Parcelforce into one complete service they could become a delivery powerhouse again.

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I think RMG are very under valued. They have £5196M net assets & are making significant cost savings. Lets say they take a £425m hit due to recession which they are mentioned. I would rate these as being worth 520p a share, with these assets.

The market is clearly rating their situation as worsening but I see these as under valued. I bought a couple of times on Thurday when they fell.