First Group: General Discussion

[markie73]

I wouldn't trust anything on a First blind! Well they gave away their dedicated fleet of yellow school buses to other depots over Summer with Country Lion vehicles turning up on the routes those were running. I assume to avoid starting an annual contract when they won't have a depot in the town by the end of it.

Well it was running empty (yeah I know a number of First Northampton services in the town can be like this!!) and dragging along behind was a Stagecoach decker running the gun across the cock hotel junction on a school run as well...

Like you say given the fact they have seid bye bye to the First Student buses, unless this run was a one off this is very strange...

 

[winston270twm]

I have taken everything that has been said and I aspect some of the point, remember the aim of the game for first was to raise £100million to help of debts, I and im sure many others will agree it been extended to also cut loses, and also somehow reduce the amount needed for new money to be used on new rolling stock First is still having a real problem getting rid of all Non DDA buses.

When it comes to odd, further alone we are with the sell the more likely the odds will get cut for other depots. The starting odds are very high but let keep Leicester as EG, 40/1, possibility at this moment of time is not very high, I think other will agree. Even First has started the process will take alot longer even until end of 2013 financial year? to get a decent buyer. Why Sell Leicester the now for £4million when in 18months you could sell it at £8m. The odd would have come down over that period just like with the dogs/horse etc at the start high odd, closer to the time odd sky dive.

I have listened and here are the new lower odds, which are linked to what been said above: and there are the most likely place first would sell off. It does seem some people are also proper betting men

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First in Northampton:
* Evans: for it to close down,
* 5/1: For the Depot to be sold off

First Edinburgh
As it stands, there has been some strong talk that a number of interested parities are sniffing around, of course this could mean nothing but with this information
* Livingston EVANS:
* Musselburgh: 12/1 This year, 15/8 for next year sell.
* Scottish borders: 11/4
* Larbart and Stirling: 25/1

London Depot
Go ahead has said it would like to get increase it operations in London but could winning contract be the better option? stagecoach was also suppose to be during Dagenham depot but pulled out over the price. London depot would make a better choice to get rid as it could pull in another £10million easily

* Any London Depot 6/4

First Ipswich
Not big depot but after looking at the Fleet list and some of the recent service changes this could be classed as another underdog depot. Alot of P and R reg stock, nothing that stands out as a cash cow bar the park N ride which could be lost. How much will it cost to replace alot of the fleet even with T, X, reg which is also needed else where?

* 7/4 for a Sell off
* 18/1 for close down

Redditch and Kidderminster
New talk has appeared about these depots. I have my doubts since the CC/OFT will be sniffing around these depots. Im trying to think who would but it out? also said depots must be the ones that are causing the company to be in the Red. Fleet not bad but is there spare cash to make it better? I doubt it.

* 15/8 for a Sell off

First Cornwall
Its been a rather bumpy ride this year, after its gain new council work etc, but strikes and continuing loses are not helping, but who would want to buy it
Or could it just lose its council work and just stuck to its pure core work?
* 11/4 for a sell off

First Berkshire There has been some talk about the operations around this company. Important facts, its first biggest profit company. The fleet is now not as bad as other place above or even below, while the routes do use older stock could it be another Wigan area? I have doubts since new stock keeps appearing and its been said NEW stock is on the way shortly which should kill off S & T reg buses. Dart 52 plate from London could be drafted in to replace older X reg darts. Unless someone else knows anything else? BUT just this week a solo was repainted in the new livery. Main reason why this is higher then Leicester? because it has older stock and will soon need replacing.

* 6/1 : Sell Off

First Leicester
Fleet is 100% DDA, the network is suppose to be doing great, why waste time, money and effort on a place which does not need it? Many places higher up in this list which needs first attention. But if the above cant make the full amount then something else has to go, and what better than a smaller network which is shared with someone else?

* 8/1: Sell Off

Irish Aircoach
Is the network looking vulnerable at the moment? Some people seem to think so but there also the battle with the publicly owned coach company bus eireann. So there could be a possibility there too, well remember first spent €16.5M for it in 2003:

exchange rate in 2003: €1 = £ 1.44
Today rate is €1 = £0.8043

£13275900, just to get back what there spent. Could First get that at this moment of time? has Eire economy pick up enough? Will Bus Eireann be sold off? could first with a same amount of money make it better?

What other issues are there? Can anyone else say what there are?

* 25/1 for a sell off over the next 14 month...

Fun:
* First York: 50/1
* Aberdeen 100/1
* Manchester , Yorkshire, Glasgow No1 : 200/1

I would have thought that Leicester is worth far more than £4 or even £8 million, it's a profitable operation is an urban area, with a fairly recent purpose built depot.

First Northampton has already sold off the depot & now leases it back, been mentioned on here previously

First London: Go-Ahead already operate 23.54% of the London bus market, the maximum allowed is 25%. First Capital North garages at Lea Interchange & Dagenham account for another 3.50% which would push Go-Ahead well over the max 25%, Dagenham would account for an additional 1.10% on its own but would leave Go-Ahead very close to the max, so they couldn't win any further tenders

First Ipswich:
Highly unlikely it would be considered for a sell off when First have instigated a bus war with council owned Ipswich Buses. Definitely can't see it being closed down

 

[robertclark125]

When we're on about Northampton, there is a possibility that the fleet could be sold to Stagecoach, and the OFT allows the deal without referal. The evidence would seem to suggest that First is running down the operation, and indeed it has been scaled back over the years. This could be considered by the OFT, who may rule there are doubts about First remaining in a position to compete.

A precedent has been set by the OFT, when it cleared Stagecoach's acquisition of Cavalier Contracts in 2008. The OFT recently told me that it cleared the deal partly on the basis local councils had no concerns, but also on the fact there was no evidence that Cavalier Contracts was showing a long term committment to operations, and indeed were running down operations, or making little investment.

So, using the same theory again, there would be a chance the OFT could clear the deal, on the basis that First are not showing much interest in Northampton, and that the fleet doesn't see much investment.

However, it would probably be cheaper for Stagecoach to do a firesale, as East Scotland did with Kelty Coaches in 2009. Basically agree to take on the drivers and the routes, but no vehicles, premises, or cash changes hands.

 

[F Great Eastern]

I will do a post up outlining issues with Aircoach operation later, as I spend quite a bit of time in Dublin in my job.

 

[TheManWho]

I'm not too sure about a London depot being sold to be honest, and would personally lower the odds.

First London (East) recently won the contract for route 425 and (currently) interworked route N551 from Go Ahead London and the N550 from Stagecoach London. Lea Interchange also has some pretty hefty contracts on the 25, 26, 30 and 58 plus the W14, W15 and W16, most of which which still have 6 years to run- that's assuming they get the 2 year extension on all of them.

On the other hand, 4 of Dagenhams are curently out to tender (165, 179, 252 and 365) with new contracts due to start in September 2013, which probably put off bidder(s) previously. First could, of course, put in bids which increase the profit margins at Dagenham which would keep it safe from sale.

However, anything is possible in TfL land, and First could end up losing all 4 routes, especially as competition for bidding has increased since Go Ahead purchased Blue Triangle.

I would have thought that Leicester is worth far more than £4 or even £8 million, it's a profitable operation is an urban area, with a fairly recent purpose built depot.

First Northampton has already sold off the depot & now leases it back, been mentioned on here previously

First London: Go-Ahead already operate 23.54% of the London bus market, the maximum allowed is 25%. First Capital North garages at Lea Interchange & Dagenham account for another 3.50% which would push Go-Ahead well over the max 25%, Dagenham would account for an additional 1.10% on its own but would leave Go-Ahead very close to the max, so they couldn't win any further tenders

First Ipswich:
Highly unlikely it would be considered for a sell off when First have instigated a bus war with council owned Ipswich Buses. Definitely can't see it being closed down

 

[markie73]

When we're on about Northampton, there is a possibility that the fleet could be sold to Stagecoach, and the OFT allows the deal without referal. The evidence would seem to suggest that First is running down the operation, and indeed it has been scaled back over the years. This could be considered by the OFT, who may rule there are doubts about First remaining in a position to compete.

A precedent has been set by the OFT, when it cleared Stagecoach's acquisition of Cavalier Contracts in 2008. The OFT recently told me that it cleared the deal partly on the basis local councils had no concerns, but also on the fact there was no evidence that Cavalier Contracts was showing a long term committment to operations, and indeed were running down operations, or making little investment.

So, using the same theory again, there would be a chance the OFT could clear the deal, on the basis that First are not showing much interest in Northampton, and that the fleet doesn't see much investment.

However, it would probably be cheaper for Stagecoach to do a firesale, as East Scotland did with Kelty Coaches in 2009. Basically agree to take on the drivers and the routes, but no vehicles, premises, or cash changes hands.

So Northampton could end up the same way as Bedford then? i.e 'Bedford Syndrome' as Stagecoach has a huge presence in that town with only a few routes being eaten up by Grant Palmer Buses etc....

 

[MK Tom]

When we're on about Northampton, there is a possibility that the fleet could be sold to Stagecoach, and the OFT allows the deal without referal. The evidence would seem to suggest that First is running down the operation, and indeed it has been scaled back over the years. This could be considered by the OFT, who may rule there are doubts about First remaining in a position to compete.

A precedent has been set by the OFT, when it cleared Stagecoach's acquisition of Cavalier Contracts in 2008. The OFT recently told me that it cleared the deal partly on the basis local councils had no concerns, but also on the fact there was no evidence that Cavalier Contracts was showing a long term committment to operations, and indeed were running down operations, or making little investment.

So, using the same theory again, there would be a chance the OFT could clear the deal, on the basis that First are not showing much interest in Northampton, and that the fleet doesn't see much investment.

However, it would probably be cheaper for Stagecoach to do a firesale, as East Scotland did with Kelty Coaches in 2009. Basically agree to take on the drivers and the routes, but no vehicles, premises, or cash changes hands.

Fair points, but I think the OFT would consider a sale from First to Stagecoach to be restricting the competition between Stagecoach and everybody else (namely Uno and Country Lion). It would create a super-powerful Stagecoach with total capability to drive everyone else out of town (no pun intended). Perhaps they already have that power but that's the line I think the good old Monopolies Commission will take.

 

[cainebj]

99.9% chance that the OFT would refer the case to the CC if Stagecoach bought Northampton. Even if the LA and locals expressed no concerns, they'd take into account the loss of competition and also the fact that both Uno and Centrebus have expressed interest in First's operations. If it was clear that no other operator had an interest in all or part of the operations then they'd clear it, but that doesn't apply to this case. (Same situation as First Barnstaple, they'd offered to Stagecoach without opening the offer to other operators, with some of the larger independents in the area expressing their interest in all or part of the operation in the OFT's investigation so the OFT wouldn't clear the sale due to it reducing competition while competitors had serious interest).

 

[overthewater]

I would have thought that Leicester is worth far more than £4 or even £8 million, it's a profitable operation is an urban area, with a fairly recent purpose built depot.

It was just a rough not true figure just to help explain things

I'm not too sure about a London depot being sold to be honest, and would personally lower the odds.

London as said it anything could happen, I dont think the odd could get lowered?

 

[tbtc]

I'm not too sure about a London depot being sold to be honest, and would personally lower the odds.

First London (East) recently won the contract for route 425 and (currently) interworked route N551 from Go Ahead London and the N550 from Stagecoach London. Lea Interchange also has some pretty hefty contracts on the 25, 26, 30 and 58 plus the W14, W15 and W16, most of which which still have 6 years to run- that's assuming they get the 2 year extension on all of them.

On the other hand, 4 of Dagenhams are curently out to tender (165, 179, 252 and 365) with new contracts due to start in September 2013, which probably put off bidder(s) previously. First could, of course, put in bids which increase the profit margins at Dagenham which would keep it safe from sale.

However, anything is possible in TfL land, and First could end up losing all 4 routes, especially as competition for bidding has increased since Go Ahead purchased Blue Triangle.

Then again, you could argue that the best time to sell a London garage was after securing some long contracts (so that the buyer knew that they were inheriting some stable revenue etc)

 

[winston270twm]

Then again, you could argue that the best time to sell a London garage was after securing some long contracts (so that the buyer knew that they were inheriting some stable revenue etc)

If Dagenham & Lea interchange are still up for sales I would have thought that Stagecoach is most likely buyer, other interested parties could Abellio (Ned Railways), Metroline (ComfortDelgro) or London United (RAPT)

 

[F Great Eastern]

Irish Aircoach - What other issues are there? Can anyone else say what there are?

These are the main issues that are effecting the company, there are others, but these are the main ones;

Falling passenger numbers at Dublin Airport
Out of the seven routes ran, five of them only have licenses that permit them to carry passengers to and from the airport and not to/from intermediate stops. This means they are solely reliant on airport passengers. Passengers at Dublin Airport are now at 18 million per year, when a few years ago when the company was heavily profit making, they were around 24 million per year, which clearly reduces demand.

Illegal competition from taxis on Airport routes
On the same five routes they're facing illegal competition from taxis who act like bus services. Taxis go around Aircoach bus stops and try and fill their taxi with passengers from a few bus stops, who then they split the taxi fare with, of which will work out to be slightly cheaper than the bus per person. Normally making up some story about the bus having broken down and that the passenger needs to use the taxi or they may miss their flight, residents are well use to this, but tourists are reguarly caught out. Actions taken to deal with this are offering online booking with discounts and promoting it on LED displays (if someone pays in advance, they won't pay again for a taxi) as well as heavily promoting return tickets to those at the airport who are tourists. Of course this poaching only effects those going to the airport and the measures taken have helped reduce this a little, but i'd estimate they're losing at least 150-200 passengers a day due to this practice by taxis.

Airport Route Competition
Aircoach face competition with Dublin Bus on the airport route from the City Center via Dublin Bus Express route 747 (€6) which competes with Aircoach (€7) using standard double decker buses. Aircoach have five routes serving the city and a much more extensive network overall. The 747 only serves the city center whilst Aircoach serves much of South Dublin. At Dublin Airport a "Travel Information" desk which appears to be a generic information desk is actually a commercial outlet for Dublin Bus and Irish Rail. Despite the fact many places on the south of the city can be reached by five Aircoach services directly and more cheaply in a lot of cases people will always be directed to use either route 747 for destinations in the city center and a change to another bus there. Despite fare increases virtually everywhere each year, the Dublin Bus 747 route price has not increased for around five years which has clearly pushed margins at Aircoach who need to keep their fares low. Also there is a route 16, which is a regular non express bus from Dublin Airport to Ballinteer via Dublin City Center, this is much cheaper (2.65) but much slower than 747 or Aircoach. Aircoach have a seperate route to Ballinteer that bypasses the city center via the motorway, again can only take traffic to/from airport, which is much quicker, but more expensive.

Intercity Route competition
With Airport passengers down, Aircoach has focused more on intercity routes rather than just focusing on airport bound passengers. launching two routes with just three stops. Firstly you have Dublin Airport - Dublin - Cork which faces competition from the much more expensive train and a curious partnership between a state operator and a private operator up against them. You can read more here about the cunning strategy behind such partnership and what is ultimately an attempt to try and get Aircoach out the marketplace. The other route is Dublin - Dublin Airport - Belfast which has been a fairly tough sell as they face competition between a partnership of Irish Rail and Northern Ireland Railways and another one of Bus Eireann and Translink, two partnerships of pretty much monopolies. Aircoach recently it is believed went to court to get allowed in Europa Bus center in Belfast.

Fleet Issues
Aircoach don't have the ideal fleet. The vast majority of it is leased on certain length agreements which means vehicles that are not ideal are hanging around. Just before the recession they ordered 19 tri-axle 51 seat Jonckheere SHV's on lease for the then bursting at seems airport routes to add to 20 two axle 44 seat Setras. The Joncks are the best coach I've ever been on. Sadly the demand isn't there for such vehicles on airport routes anymore, and they lack toilets for the three hour non stop Cork route. So they're big, long, expensive, fuel hungry vehicles which are wasted on the airport routes and not suited to intercity routes. With no coaches with toilets in the fleet and Aircoach turning to intercity routes to try and turn the business around, they got Cymru to send in six owned ex National Express coaches with toilets. Trouble being these vehicles spec wise are nowhere near that of what Aircoach vehicles traditionally have been, which has tarnished the brand tagline of 'Travel in Luxury'. You then still have the issue of displaced leased vehicles being left over that need to be paid for without really earning much cash.

Summary:
All of the above led to Aircoach, which traditionally made a couple of million profit a year for the last few years, last year making a loss of around 600k. Since then nothing has really changed, other than losing a contract at Belfast Airport. The only bright patch is the Cork express route is doing rather well, but prices have had to be reduced to 9 single 18 return (previously 15/22) From Dublin to Cork and 15/25 from Dublin Airport to Cork (prev 18/28) due to competition and this seems to be the only route that is doing really well.

The reason First bought Aircoach up was the prospect of widespread deregulation in Ireland which has not happened some eight years later, with the operation needing serious investment and taking some short term losses to turn it around, which First are in no position to really make , the Irish economy still struggling, airport users down 25% and Stagecoach rumoured to be interested in acquiring Irish Citylink, with Citylink itself having been rumored to have tried to buy parts of Aircoach up, it'd be no surprise if Stagecoach got their hands on this arm of First as well.

Fleet condition, staffing issues, fleet presentation, commercial awareness and route and timetabling design and operational performance is actually where this operation is very well run. Sadly despite having these strengths which many other First divisions lack, it has more than it's fair share of problems.

 

[MCW]

in other words a dead duck.

 

[overthewater]

Could deregulation in Ireland still happen any time shortly? It might be wise to slash the odd to 10/1 for this!

 

[F Great Eastern]

in other words a dead duck.

I wouldn't say it's a total dead duck. They've been quite unlucky to a degree in that when they ordered those Jonck's they were very much needed and seemed a good investment. If anything, they were too keen investing in vehicles (opposite to the rest of First) if they played it a little more conservative they'd have ordered 2/3 less. Also with hindsight they'd have specified them with toilets, but remember at the time Aircoach was an almost fully airport coach operation with Intercity routes a very small part of the business. The bigger focus on intercity routes was a direct result of the recession after falling demand on airport routes.

When the leases for such vehicles are up and they can start to get the fleet more suiting of the needs and therefore bring the cost base down, that will help, plus airport users are starting to pick up a tiny bit which will help. However it will be a few years before the operation can get back to the level it once was, but I think as the economy improves there will be no reason why the company can't be successful again. However if First are willing to wait it out for that to happen and to bankroll the company and continue to invest in it until that point is the million dollar question. They may just prefer to cash in and cut their losses even if it means selling for much less than they bought it.

Could deregulation in Ireland still happen any time shortly?

The (previous) government have entered contracts with Dublin Bus, and non commercial Bus Eireann services until December 2014. Therefore it's highly unlikely that anything will happen before then.

Private operators can apply for licenses for routes at any time, as long as they don't conflict with public companies own routes. As you can imagine there are very little gaps in the market.

 

[MCW]

I wouldn't say it's a total dead duck. They've been quite unlucky to a degree in that when they ordered those Jonck's they were very much needed and seemed a good investment. If anything, they were too keen investing in vehicles (opposite to the rest of First) if they played it a little more conservative they'd have ordered 2/3 less. Also with hindsight they'd have specified them with toilets, but remember at the time Aircoach was an almost fully airport coach operation with Intercity routes a very small part of the business. The bigger focus on intercity routes was a direct result of the recession after falling demand on airport routes.

When the leases for such vehicles are up and they can start to get the fleet more suiting of the needs and therefore bring the cost base down, that will help, plus airport users are starting to pick up a tiny bit which will help. However it will be a few years before the operation can get back to the level it once was, but I think as the economy improves there will be no reason why the company can't be successful again. However if First are willing to wait it out for that to happen and to bankroll the company and continue to invest in it until that point is the million dollar question. They may just prefer to cash in and cut their losses even if it means selling for much less than they bought it.

Very true that, tied in with the fact that no one really knew how bad the recession would be in Ireland, I totally agree with what you say.

we shall see how first go with that one. In mind as you have said, that it has potential to pick up again might make it a keeper.

 

[radamfi]

Was Great Britain style deregulation ever likely in Ireland? I always thought that full deregulation was only ever considered for the Expressway network and London-style tendering was possible for Dublin urban services. If First thought that deregulation was very likely, to me that seems very badly informed.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Aircoach was purchased by First in 2003 and around about the same time ComfortDelGro (Metroline) bought out another operator to form what is now Irish Citylink and there was the rumour that Stagecoach, amongst others were also interested in getting involved as well.

Why? Throughout 2003 and early 2004 the then transport minister announced plans to open up 25% of routes to the private sector. Up until this point there were barely any private operators in the state, Aircoach and Citylink were two of the biggest and they had 4 and 3 routes respectively and only carried airport or intercity passengers. Just over 95% of the transport in the country was run by Irish Rail, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus who were all subsidiaries of state owned Coras Iompair Éireann.

Because of the history of such operations and the dominance, this made unions much stronger than in pre-dereg UK. So the union reaction was to simply carry out all out strikes which could bring whole cities and possibly the whole country to a halt. There were strikes and even a threatened seven day strike. The inital strikes meant hundreds of thousands of people could not travel to work, their studies or anywhere by public transport as there was no alternative operators. This gave the unions a strong position and in the end the government caved in as the public didn't care about the fact of the arguments about private vs public operators, they did care that they could not get to work however.

So what has changed? Well Irish Rail are still the only rail operator and Dublin Bus are the only city bus service operator in Dublin. Bus Eireann do have limited competition on city routes in Galway and a couple of routes in Cork, whilst there is much more competition on intercity routes from private companies. Still only state companies can run PSO services, which is what all Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann services are apart from the Bus Eireann commercial intercity network. I'd say the state companies have just under 90% of the market now, still a big share and even if deregulation was to happen, there is nothing to say that the same protests and strikes won't happen again.

 

[overthewater]

I think there have a better chance now since well, There could go on strike but said new companies could just new services and employ new drivers. Also the number of people working is alas much slower.

 

[Ivo]

Sorry for the slow responses, but a couple of notes for you:

First Bath and Bristol: 200/1

I was surprised to see 'West of England' being used as the branding in Bristol a few weeks ago, albeit only on one route. To me, that is too generic if the aim is to promote a local identity. This half-hearted approach may indicate that a sale in this part of the country isn't being ruled out.

There are no plans to sell Bath and Bristol, unless said plans are so underhanded that even senior managers in the area aren't aware of them. The rest of Somerset is considered unlikely, but not a definite dead duck like the city pair are.

The West of England branding is used to refer to what was once known as Avon (i.e. Bristol, Bath, W-s-M, Yate etc).

 

[radamfi]

The West of England branding is used to refer to what was once known as Avon (i.e. Bristol, Bath, W-s-M, Yate etc).

So this branding is not being used in Taunton, Weymouth, South Devon or Cornwall?

 

[Ivo]

So this branding is not being used in Taunton, Weymouth, South Devon or Cornwall?

Weymouth is definitely Wessex; I have seen this. I don't know about Devon & Cornwall, because although do have a few buses in the new livery I haven't seen any local branding as yet (I would expect it to say Devon/Plymouth/Cornwall though).

Taunton theoretically could say West of England, but I be surprised if it said anything besides Somerset.

 

[swifty]

Taunton theoretically could say West of England, but I be surprised if it said anything besides Somerset.

Prepare to be surprised! Taunton based 60918 was the first bus in the First BSA area to be repainted.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bltc37/8142099317/

 

[winston270twm]

Weymouth is definitely Wessex; I have seen this. I don't know about Devon & Cornwall, because although do have a few buses in the new livery I haven't seen any local branding as yet (I would expect it to say Devon/Plymouth/Cornwall though).

Taunton theoretically could say West of England, but I be surprised if it said anything besides Somerset.

Cornwall is First Kernow

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29197902@N06/7836714890/

 

[radamfi]

I would have thought it would be better to use separate brandings for Bristol, Bath and Weston similar to that used on the original Badgerline livery. West Yorkshire use different brandings for the individual towns despite a fair number of vehicles travelling between towns.

 

[winston270twm]

I would have thought it would be better to use separate brandings for Bristol, Bath and Weston similar to that used on the original Badgerline livery. West Yorkshire use different brandings for the individual towns despite a fair number of vehicles travelling between towns.

I agree, the idea was meant to be localized brandings, West of England / Wessex isn't very local with the areas that they cover

 

[Stonesourscotty]

With all the talk of First Northampton dont Trent Barton have a 49% stake in this Operation?

 

[winston270twm]

With all the talk of First Northampton dont Trent Barton have a 49% stake in this Operation?

I think you may be getting confused, Trent Barton (Buxton Depot) & Centrebus (Bowers Operation) have been merged to form a joint operation called High Peak buses in Buxton (in the Peak District)

http://www.highpeakbuses.com/Pages/default.aspx

 

[overthewater]

Do we believe we will get news of one more sell of soon? Ie before xmas? It would make since for any company taking over since there have a clean swap for new year,

 

[winston270twm]

Do we believe we will get news of one more sell of soon? Ie before xmas? It would make since for any company taking over since there have a clean swap for new year,

Who knows.... stock market announcements are more likely on a Monday morning, but can also come at any time. Corporate news does generally tend to dry up on the run to Xmas....