Saga share offer

Humberstone27

When you get to my age, its not the bogy man that worries me, but I can assure you that I didn't make my decision in blind trust.
I take it you are not a Saga customer?
I have had my motor insurance with them for 4 years, because they have always been cheaper. This year however I had a cheaper quote from another company, then Saga not only matched it but knocked a further £1 off the premium, so they were again cheaper. I am still with Saga.:j

le_loup

Oh, but I am a customer ... but I will not be an investor.

jimjames

Humberstone27 wrote: »

It doesn't take much of a rise in the share price or the share dividend to beat the interest paid by the greedy Banks on savings & Isa's currently 1% or 2% per year.

It doesn't take much of a drop to realise you now have 30% less than the amount in your savings previously.

If you are seriously buying Saga shares to get a better rate than bank savings and have no other shares then I repeat my previous comments that I think that is crazy.

If you want better rates you can get 5% from current accounts or over 4% from equity income funds. At least with funds your money is spread over many companies so you are not tied to the fortunes of just one company.

I just hope you are not back here in a few months complaining how much you have lost buying shares, but good luck.

MABLE

Very good article in the DT today regarding this IPO. It seems the retail investor is chasing the share not the big institutions. Personally I can find a better place to put my money than in an overpriced insurance company.

innovate

I don't invest in individual shares because I don't like the chore of having to follow the fortunes of one or more given companies. But if I did invest in individual shares, not a penny of my money would go into Saga, for just one single reason: their highly inefficient customer acquisition policy.

In about 2005, I made the mistake to order a Saga holiday brochure. I never bought a holiday from them, and I managed around 4 years later to stop them sending me copious amounts of weighty holiday brochures every couple of months. What I never managed to stop, and what I have given up trying to stop now, is their unforgiving flow of offers for any sort of insurance you can think of - car, life, health, home etc etc etc. The only reason I open their frequent envelopes now is to shred the page with my address on. The rest goes unread into the recycling bin.

So, for nigh on 10 years, they have not noticed that, regardless of the tonnage of marketing bumph they bombard me with, I have not spent a penny with them. I am sure they haven't singled me out but are pursuing plenty of others in the same way. The longer they keep sending me stuff that I never asked for, the more unlikely I am to ever buy anything from them - not just because I don't like being pestered but because I know who in the end is paying for this Marketing extravaganza.

So there is a company with products that carry a large Marketing overhead, and with a Marketing department that seems to have a bottomless customer acquisition budget. Inefficiency if I have ever seen inefficiency. And these are just the immediately visible inefficiencies. I am sure there are a lot more, and that the company would eventually bleed themselves dry of capital unless they changed dramatically. Their paying clientele can't be stupid/rich enough for very much longer to pay the prices that are pre-loaded with huge Marketing expenditure, and other excesses that are no doubt integral to Saga. Consumers who buy things because they are branded Saga, rather than providing value for money, must be dying out, literally.

I suppose you could argue that the company is a good buy since new Management could weed out all those inefficiencies and make the company significantly more profitable. But that presupposes that there would be new Management, and I doubt that.

Paperweight

So much criticism of Saga. Some of it just silly and some of it considered. However, I just can't believe that they will upset their loyal customers by letting the offer flop and I also believe that, once listed, the institutions will buy in order to have the correct weighting of Saga shares. So I am going to ignore you all and buy anyway. Fingers crossed.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

can I just come back in, I asked the original question.

I am not a Saga member, so will not get any bonus shares, was hoping for a quick kill, but missed out on Royal Mail as well, as applied for too many, so won't bother this time.

Anyway, good luck to all that go for it.

jimjames

Paperweight wrote: »

So much criticism of Saga. Some of it just silly and some of it considered. However, I just can't believe that they will upset their loyal customers by letting the offer flop and I also believe that, once listed, the institutions will buy in order to have the correct weighting of Saga shares. So I am going to ignore you all and buy anyway. Fingers crossed.

You can't say you've not been warned. I don't have any view on saga. I do have a view on people investing who have no idea what they are doing and the risk they are taking.

Saga have absolutely no control over the share price once it is trading. If you really don't understand shares then you shouldn't be buying. But totally your decision.

innovate

Paperweight wrote: »

I just can't believe that they will upset their loyal customers by letting the offer flop and I also believe that, once listed, the institutions will buy in order to have the correct weighting of Saga shares.

Saga have nil say in whether the offer is a flop or not. It's the market that decides. Same for their share price once they are being publicly traded.

Similarly, there is no guarantee whatsoever that institutions (whoever they may be) will buy Saga shares. Nobody will adjust their portfolio to accommodate any company because of their name. If a company doesn't promise a solid return going into the future, they won't figure in portfolios.

Humberstone27

le_loup wrote: »

Oh, but I am a customer ... but I will not be an investor.

Too late ! According to yesterdays report "the £550 million shares have already been oversubscribed"
Good to know you are a Saga customer, as a future share holder I welcome the increase in profits & looking forward to my first dividend cheque.