- Jet2 executive chair Philip Meeson sells £22m in shares under his own name and another £5m from a trust bearing his name
- Company reported higher half-year operating loss as services came back over summer, but customers remained wary of travelling again due to changing government restrictions
As travel slowly returns, airline share prices have bounced around, with optimism and Covid-19 case rates swapping focus each week. The most recent dip came as Germany, the Netherlands and Austria raised the alarm over rising Covid cases, with lockdowns of varying degrees put in place in each of those countries.
This worsened outlook and the greater prospect of the pandemic determining another winter’s travel options hit airlines hard, with the majors like British Airways-owner IAG (IAG) down about 10 per cent since the first week of November.
Aim-listed Jet2 (JET2) has a slightly different focus to the other London-listed carriers bar Tui (TUI), given the lion’s share of its business comes from package holiday sales. As of 18 November, its outlook for the coming months was positive, with seat capacity only down 11 per cent compared to the 2019/2020 winter period. This update also included a widened interim operating loss as customer demand did not meet expectations. The airline's load factor, effectively how many seats are filled, fell from 69 per cent in the first half of last year to 57 per cent this year because restrictions kept more wary travellers on the ground.
It was right after this half-year results announcement that executive chair Philip Meeson sold £22m in shares, as well as another £5m from an entity called the The Philip Meeson 2019 Settlement, of which he is a trustee, but not a beneficiary. A spokesperson for the company said the sale was consistent with his “historic sales of small amounts of his holding from time to time”. Meeson, who bought what turned into Jet2 in 1983, still owns 20.18 per cent of the company.
Like Ryanair (RYA), Jet2 has used the forecast demand in travel for 2022 to pitch itself as a Covid-19 recovery story. While it’s hard to imagine 2020-level restrictions coming back, the past week has shown it’s not completely off the table. Hold. AH
Saga chairman splashes the cash
Shareholders who regularly grumble about directors not putting their money where their mouth is can find little fault in the actions of Sir Roger de Haan. The Saga (SAGA) chairman has forked out the best part of £1m in share purchases after buying 341,415 shares at an average of 293p a piece in one of the more noticeable directors’ deals of the week.
With the share price currently near to multi-year lows, Sir Roger’s timing looks like a relatively shrewd bet given that a combination of greater regulatory clarity, deleveraging over the next few years and a return to some sort of economic normality is likely to float Saga’s share price higher than one of its cruise ships. The regulatory clarity follows the phasing out of so-called “price walking”, where premiums for customers who auto-renew their insurance, or at least fail to change providers, are automatically charged progressively higher rates. While the industry was understandably less than enthusiastic at first, the certainty that pricing models, and in some cases whole businesses, had to change to reflect the demands of a new regime has offered insurers considerable operational clarity.
It is fair to say that Saga has not had the easiest time over the past 18 months, with the pandemic leading to the sight of cruise ships rusting away in sheltered coves around the coastline. While far from a happy situation, at least the retiree-focused company had other business units that were able to take up some of the strain from its suffering holidays division, particularly its broadly successful insurance arm. In pure valuation terms, Saga is reasonably priced for an insurer with a share price barely 0.6 of net asset value – well below the three average of 1.1 times NAV – so it lands well within bargain basement/value trap territory. JH
Buys | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Company | Director/PDMR | Date | Price (p) | Aggregate value (£) |
Argo Blockchain | Peter Wall (ce) | 16 Nov 21 | 1,426 (ADRs) † | 101,268 † |
Argo Blockchain | Sarah Gow * | 16 Nov 21 | 132 | 52,800 |
Audioboom | Michael Tobin (ch) | 17-18 Nov 21 | 1,009 | 38,325 |
British Land | Loraine Woodhouse | 17 Nov 21 | 526 | 24,862 |
Card Factory | Tripp Lane | 11-12 Nov 21 | 53 | 107,008 |
CMC Markets | Euan Marshall (cfo) * | 18 Nov 21 | 241 | 33,743 |
Conduit Holdings | Richard Sandor | 4-12 Nov 21 | 447 | 40,240 |
Golden Prospect Precious Metals | Malcolm Burne | 17 Nov 21 | 46 | 23,125 |
Greatland Gold | Shaun Day (ce) | 16 Nov 21 | 15 ** | 54,375 ** |
Henry Boot | Tim Roberts (ce) * | 17 Nov 21 | 278 | 98,690 |
Hyve | Mark Shashoua (ce) | 18 Nov 21 | 107 ** | 35,557 ** |
Insig AI | Richard Bernstein (ch) | 16 Nov 21 | 49 | 24,625 |
International Consolidated Airlines | Alberto Terol | 15 Nov 21 | 164 † | 58,938 † |
ITM Power | Andrew Allen (cfo) | 16 Nov 21 | 400 ** | 75,000 ** |
ITM Power | Sir Roger Bone (ch) | 16 Nov 21 | 400 ** | 25,000 ** |
ITM Power | Simon Bourne (PDMR) | 16 Nov 21 | 400 ** | 50,000 ** |
ITM Power | Graham Cooley (ce) | 16 Nov 21 | 400 ** | 250,000 ** |
ITM Power | Martin Green | 16 Nov 21 | 400 ** | 36,000 ** |
ITM Power | Katherine Roe | 16 Nov 21 | 400 ** | 20,000 ** |
ITM Power | Rachel Smith (PDMR) | 16 Nov 21 | 400 ** | 50,000 ** |
John Wood | Adrian Marsh | 15 Nov 21 | 199 | 49,750 |
Kainos | Tom Burnet (ch) | 18 Nov 21 | 1804 | 250,125 |
London Stock Exchange | David Schwimmer (ce) | 18 Nov 21 | 6,680 | 334,000 |
Petrofac | Ayman Asfari | 15 Nov 21 | 115 ** | 27,351,237 ** |
Petrofac | Sami Iskander (ce) | 15 Nov 21 | 115 ** | 250,000 ** |
Petrofac | Rene Midori (ch) | 15 Nov 21 | 115 ** | 74,739 ** |
Petrofac | David Davies | 15 Nov 21 | 115 ** | 27,476 ** |
Qinteiq | Neil Johnson (ch) | 15 Nov 21 | 266 | 132,997 |
Rotala | Robert Dunn (PDMR) | 16 Nov 21 | 28 | 28,250 |
Saga | Roger de Haan (ch) | 16 Nov 21 | 293 | 999,998 |
Sells | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Company | Director/PDMR | Date | Price (p) | Aggregate value (£) |
Barclays | Laura Padovani (PDMR) | 16 Nov 21 | 196 | 587,664 †† |
Computacenter | Kevin James (PDMR) * | 12 Nov 21 | 2,764 | 30,402 |
Jet2 | Philip Meeson (ch) | 18-19 Nov 21 | 1,100 | 21,990,295 |
Marks & Spencer | Paul Friston (PDMR) * | 16 Nov 21 | 235 | 58,795 |
Mortgage Advice Bureau | Ben Thompson (PDMR) | 19 Nov 21 | 1,333 | 733,150 |
NatWest | Bruce Fletcher (PDMR) | 12 Nov 21 | 219 | 52,162 |
Personal Group Holdings | Ashley Doody (PDMR) | 15 Nov 21 | 368 | 40,008 |
Tatton Asset Management | James Knights (PDMR) | 17 Nov 21 | 590 | 25,075 |
TBC Bank | Nikoloz Kurdiani (PDMR) | 18 Nov 21 | 1,609 | 160,900 |
Vaalco Energy | Bradley Radoff | 15-17 Nov 21 | 282 † | 564,004 † |
Wizz Air Holdings | Jozsef Varadi (ce) * | 16-17 Nov 21 | 4,709 | 2,118,950 |
*Spouse/Family/Close Associate. ** Placing / Open Offer † Converted from € / $ †† Disposal of Shares by Solium Capital UK Limited in its capacity as administrator of the Barclays' nominee service. |