Langton Capital – 2025-09-08 – Trading, jobs, delivery, Merlin, DOM, EG Group, Parkdean, G4M & other:
Trading, jobs, delivery, Merlin, DOM, EG Group, Parkdean, G4M & other:A DAY IN THE LIFE: I find heuristics, in the sense of the shortcuts we all use to understand things without having to really understand them, very interesting. They save time, they’ve got us where we are, we aren’t extinct and we’ve managed to cope but, in the modern environment, they can often point us in the wrong direction because, with 200,000 years as Anatomically Modern Humans behind us, we’ve only got three or four thousand years of ‘civilisation’ to moderate our behaviour. And ‘civilisation’ is a subjective phrase but, if we’ve spent 200 millennia thinking in twos and fours and tens, we shouldn’t be surprised that, in some societies, the word for every number over ten is ‘many’. Hence, whilst I can understand the relationship between an ice cube, a snowball and a snowman, if you tell me that the largest iceberg floating around the South Atlantic weighs a trillion tonnes, the weight of some five million large cruise ships added together and tell me that it has already been melting for forty years old, it will blow my mind. Which is why lotteries are so tightly regulated. Because the ten million to one chance of winning a million pounds for a one pound outlay isn’t the bargain it sounds. On to the news: LANGTON EMAIL: The Free Email is now written in short form. Extended versions of many stories (after the ellipses) are in the Premium Email. Reply to this email if you would like to upgrade. Prices for the Premium are £395 for one subscription, £695 for multiple, £995 for very large subscribers, all plus VAT. Or sign up for easy in, easy out monthly option per subscriber HERE https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=87YUG2Z5W7PSN PUBS & RESTAURANTS: Trading: CGA has updated on trading across the UK’s largest hospitality companies for the weeks to 9th and 16th August saying that sales have tracked inflation. They were up, on a LFL basis, by 2% in the first of the reported weeks and by 3% in the second. Both numbers are slightly behind inflation, the latest number for which is the 3.8% recorded for CPI in the year to July… • See premium. Reply for sample or to upgrade. Single £395, multiple £695. Limited time offer: PayPal alternative monthly £25 + VAT per sub. Easy in, easy out. Jobs market: The latest employment survey by KPMG and the Recruitment & Employment Confederation has reported that the number of job-seekers has risen at its fastest rate in five years. It says companies are holding back because of ‘weak confidence around the economic outlook and concerns over costs…’ • See premium. Reply for sample or to upgrade. Single £395, multiple £695. Limited time offer: PayPal alternative monthly £25 + VAT per sub. Easy in, easy out. Delivery: Uber warns that ‘new legislative requirements could have an adverse impact on our business’ when it says that a crackdown on illegal ‘gig economy’ workers could push up the cost of delivering takeaways, reports the Telegraph… • See premium. Reply for sample or to upgrade. Single £395, multiple £695. Limited time offer: PayPal alternative monthly £25 + VAT per sub. Easy in, easy out. Tube strikes: There will be limited (or possibly no) service on a number of London tube lines this week as members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union voted earlier for strike action after nine months of negotiations didn’t achieve the outcome they desired… Other news: Shrinkflation. The Guardian reports that shrinkflation has impacted Toblerone, Quality Street and Mars’s Celebrations confectionary weights in time for Christmas. The Guardian quotes Andrew Moriarty, a cocoa expert at commodity analysts Expana, as saying that ‘though raw material prices like cocoa butter have come down nearly 45% [in sterling terms] over the last 12 months, they remain substantially higher than in the years prior to 2024.’ COMPANY NEWS: Domino’s Pizza has announced the launch of CHICK ‘N’ DIP from Domino’s, which it calls ‘an exciting and innovative new chicken sub-brand designed to capture a share of one of the fastest growing markets in casual dining and help drive further growth for the core UK & Ireland Domino’s business….’ • See premium. Reply for sample or to upgrade. Single £395, multiple £695. Limited time offer: PayPal alternative monthly £25 + VAT per sub. Easy in, easy out. EG may switch from Starbucks, where it is the largest single franchisee in the UK, to Costa, reports The Times… • See premium. Reply for sample or to upgrade. Single £395, multiple £695. Limited time offer: PayPal alternative monthly £25 + VAT per sub. Easy in, easy out. Portobello Pubs & Bars has announced that it has reopened two of its ‘flagship freehold Brighton pubs’ after major capex schemes. Chair Mark Crowther says his team is ‘now working on plans for further investments in Portobello’s London pubs and bars estate.’ Starbucks in the US reports that it is receiving positive feedback on its US outlet redesign programme. The project is aimed at bringing back a ‘coffeehouse vibe’ to the units… HOLIDAYS & LEISURE TRAVEL: Parkdean, which is Britain’s biggest holiday parks operator, is in talks to secure additional financing firepower from a US investment giant, Centerbridge Partners, Sky News reports… • See premium. Reply for sample or to upgrade. Single £395, multiple £695. Limited time offer: PayPal alternative monthly £25 + VAT per sub. Easy in, easy out. Holiday company Minoan reported on Friday that it notes an article published on Newsit as it relates to Cavo Sidero in the Sitia Peninsula, Crete. It says ‘the article is a reminder that the relationship between Minoan and the Foundation is at breaking point and highlights the risks facing the Project and DAGG LLP should the latter’s Non-Binding Offer find support from creditors and shareholders.’ It says ‘DAGG LLP has informed the Company that it is aware of the Foundation’s stance and is still seeking to advance the Non-Binding Offer disclosed in Minoan’s RNS of 15 August 2025.’ The latest RSM Hotel Tracker suggests that ‘the UK hotel sector benefitted from a bumper July, boosted by the Oasis reunion, with occupancy, room rates and profits all exceeding the previous year for the first time in eight months…’ Property company Vastint has said that it is putting a hotel portfolio of Marriott International-branded hotels in the UK up for sale at a price of around £500 million. Travelogix reports that business travel activity between the UK and US fell by 25.7% in H1 this year. Spend is said to be down a lesser 7%. The Times reports that ‘Universal Studios’ plans to build Europe’s biggest theme park in Bedfordshire could be scuppered by Britain’s antiquated water system.’ It says that the proposed park could ‘increase Bedford’s daily demand for water by up to 50 per cent after its scheduled opening in 2031.’ OTHER LEISURE: G4M’s share price rose by 37p or 14% on Friday on the back of the group’s AGM-sanctioned profit upgrade. The shares have flirted with both £1 and £10. Whilst not optically cheap on the current forecast of around 12.1p for the year to March 2026, betting appears to be on a good Christmas and, with momentum currently favourable, more upgrades to numbers down the line. Motion JV Co Limited, which trades as Merlin Entertainments, has reported full year numbers for the 52 weeks to 28 Dec 2024 to Companies House. Merlin reports revenue some 3.2% lower at £2.06bn (FY23: £2.13bn). The GP% has remained relatively stable at 81.4% (FY23: 81.7%) meaning that gross profit in absolute terms slipped to £1.68bn from £1.74bn in the prior year. Costs have unfortunately risen such that EBITDA has slipped to £540m from £649m in the prior year…. • See premium. Reply for sample or to upgrade. Single £395, multiple £695. Limited time offer: PayPal alternative monthly £25 + VAT per sub. Easy in, easy out. The BBC reports that the board of Tottenham Hotspur says its owner has “unequivocally rejected” two expressions of interest in the club and that it is “not for sale”. The Telegraph reports that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is ‘gearing up to open its first physical store in London to boost interest in its virtual reality (VR) headsets and glasses.’ Gaming Realms has reported H1 numbers to end-June saying that revenue rose by 18% to £16.0m. The company reports PBT of £4.2m, up 19%… The EU has fined Google €2.95bn after finding that it abused its power in the ad tech sector, where the decision is made as to determines which adverts should be placed online and where. Google says ‘there’s nothing anti-competitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.’ FINANCE & MARKETS: The US Labour Dept reports that the US jobs market weakened in August when employers added just 22,000 jobs. The unemployment rate ticked up from 4.2% to 4.3%. The Halifax reports that UK house prices rose in August. The increase was less than that recorded in the same month last year and the annual rate of house price inflation slipped to 2.2% in the year to August down from 2.5% in the year to July… RETAIL WITH NICK BUBB: • See premium. Reply for sample or to upgrade. Single £395, multiple £695. Limited time offer: PayPal alternative monthly £25 + VAT per sub. Easy in, easy out. |
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