Good morning, it's Paul here!

Today's report will be earlier, and briefer than usual, as I have to head over to Chiswick, to attend and speak at Mello London - David Stredder's team's latest investor event. I'm looking forward to catching up with many Stockopedia subscribers at the event.


Flybe (LON:FLYB)

Share price: 16.6p (pre market open)
No. shares: 216.7m
Market cap: £36.0m

(at the time of writing, I hold a long position in this share)

Takeover bid(s)?

There's lots of excitement surrounding this regional airline. It put itself up for sale recently, after concerns about it future viability emerged. On Friday we had 2 RNSs, one from FLYB confirming that it is having talks with several parties over a possible bid, or increased co-operation (e.g. code-sharing). Virgin Atlantic also issued an RNS confirming its possible interest.

An article over the weekend in the Telegraph suggests that British Airways is in pole position to buy Flybe, raising the spectre of a potential bidding war. That could be lucrative for shareholders, so I'm rather excited about this one.

It's quite high risk though, as if the bid interest comes to nothing, who knows where things will end up?

EDIT: The very low market cap means that buying Flybe would be pocket change for the bigger airlines. It could bring cost synergies, and act as a feeder for the more profitable transatlantic flights operating from Heathrow and Gatwick. I think there's also an opportunity to be denied to a competitor, which given the bad blood going back to the 1980s between BA and Virgin, could be an interesting factor. 

The volume traded on Friday and today is huge, so we should see some "Holding in company" RNSs this week.  End of edit.




Sanderson (LON:SND)

Share price: 85p (pre market open)
No. shares: 60.0m
Market cap: £51.0m

Preliminary results

Sanderson Group plc ('Sanderson' or 'the Group'),  the specialist provider of digital technology solutions, innovative software and managed services for the retail, wholesale, supply chain logistics, food and drink processing and manufacturing market sectors, announces Preliminary Results for the year ended 30 September 2018.

 

These results look good, with the summary saying;

The Group trading results for the year ended 30 September 2018 are significantly ahead…

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