Air Partner Share Discussion Threads

[pvb] 14/2/2019 19:30

But "Just Culture" itself isn't a proprietary system, anymore than say Systems Analysis is (albeit there are proprietary methodologies in SA). So Baines Simmonds has its own offering as part of their training business. Well, lots of different organisations train people in Systems Analysis etc. So?

I was taught calculus at school. AFAIK, my school never claimed to have a monopoly on the calculus franchise!







And more than one business in the world does Air Charter. Perhaps that is an area where AIR is more at risk from competition?

[venek] 14/2/2019 18:46

2/2
In contrast their competitor Outcome Engenuity is taking a different approach.

They are monetising their product by selling user guides, posters, toolkits etc and creating a software product to licence to ($80 pa per user). And they are still offering training too, and not just limiting themselves to aviation but energy, healthcare and other sectors. In fact they have just done a deal with the civil aviation authority in Austria to deliver a formal just culture qualification in Europe too.

Outcome was formed by one of the original just culture researchers: hxxps://www.linkedin.com/in/david-marx-26ab0981/

They have recruited as Director of Transportation and Energy....the guy who ran BS Americas, so all that customer knowledge when BS pulled out of the US market just walked to the competition (via a BS customer).

hxxps://www.outcome-eng.com

The more I dig the more I wonder how shaky the ground is under this consulting adventure that Briffa has gone on with shareholder money.

[venek] 14/2/2019 18:42

1/2
Briffa made a big play of buying IPR when he bought Baines Simmonds. BS are now pushing the third edition of a product called 'FAIR'. This is "an innovative management tool which enables people involved in reviewing investigation events" they say. This can be downloaded for free and they sell a 1 day course for managers for £520+VAT.

On closer inspection this seems to be a rebranding and formating of some material published elsewhere that describes a 'just culture' (words BS also use). hxxps://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Just_Culture

One might wonder if all Briffa really brought was the registered trade mark for FAIR. It doesn't look like thats a gold mine.

If their then CFO and accountants failed to spot problems with their own books WHO did the due diligence on the IPR of the consultants they bought?

[venek] 06/2/2019 11:34

Now they have completed their late filings and wracked up fines from Companies House, AP have finally appointed BS' MD as an actual director of BS (and of Clockwork too).
They have also now appointed their FD as a Director of each of the consulting companies.

[venek] 29/1/2019 21:25

Clockworks accounts are out now (3 days before the end of the following year so no rest for a fatigue finance team). Again not much detail on activity but a few insights.

£157k operating loss in their first full year under AP and another 9% fall in average turnover per month on the previous 7 month year.

So turnover in 12 months to 30 June (the last full year private) was £707k and in the 12 months to 21 Jan 18 (the first full year under AP) was £452k. Thats 35% down!

CRAWLEY WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

Plus Clockwork lost out to two Dutch research labs for a big piece of research on pilot fatigue for the UK Civil Aviation Authority published last week.

Perhaps not surprisingly a 20% drop in staff too. OK 5 to 4, but as a small business they are very sensitive to further losses of talent.

This might explain why on average Clockwork staff are paid a lot better than Baines Simmonds (assuming the 16 admin staff at BS only earn say a third of the ops staff).

For YE 31 Jan 18 Clockwork's one director was paid £168k vs £97k for the one BS director.

Interesting that for Clockwork cost of sales is £355k vs £254k for admin expenses
BS is £1289k vs £3462k.
Any thoughts why the ratios between COS & admin is so different between the two?

[trident5] 28/1/2019 23:38

Impressive scuttlebutt

[venek] 28/1/2019 21:29

YE 31 Jan 18 Baines Simmonds 'outsourcing' strand, i.e. inspecting aircraft for the Isle of Man registry, was £1.47mn of turnover. A year later it was down to £1.15 mn, a 22% drop.

In recent years Jersey and Guernsey have both opened aircraft registers to pull profitable work away from the IOM (and thus the AP subsidiary). Russian focused sanctions and The Panama Paper's coverage of Lewis Hamilton's import of a business jet via the IOM will probably scare off more investors. In the last 12 months the number of aircraft new aircraft registered in the IOM has fallen 50%

Now Ireland have started a specific corporate jet register to further undermine the IOM.
hxxps://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2019/01/27/irish-firm-sonas-aviation-eyes-new-bizjet-business-for-post-brexit-world/

[venek] 25/1/2019 14:38

So far 3 directors (2 joint founding directors) of Baines Simmonds and Clockwork Research have left since their acquisition. I wonder when their golden handcuffs expire and they will pop up as competitors. Consulting is all about knowledge, contacts and reputation.

Looking online you can find a 5 year old BS 2014-2015 training directory. There are 23 named members of staff. 57% have left since. That is an average of 10%, not bad but its difficult to tell who joined in the meantime and then left (though there are several who are still in their website news section as 'arriving' who are no longer listed). Revealingly many seem to have left in the run up to and the aftermath of the BS purchase.

Back in November Baines had a management away day featuring Lecioni's dysfunction of teams.

So they have an MD who is not a director of that AP subsidiary (but is for two other subsidiaries), who tweets their management away day actions in one of his first dozen tweets after having to call in business school consultants to sort out his new appointed dysfunctional management team.

[trident5] 25/1/2019 09:23

Venek - you have said it much better than I have.

[venek] 25/1/2019 07:55

trident5 you make a share split sound like it would appeal to a vacuous management team, obsessed by style over substance, looking to find cosmetic ways to pump the share price and divert attention from fundamentals and underlying business performance.

[trident5] 24/1/2019 17:08

Cd27idw - how so?

If you want to buy less than £10 worth then they're more liquid. It's tosh.

[cd27idw] 24/1/2019 12:31

The share split was a sop to fund mangers who have since the pre-Biffa days pushed AIR to increase the liquidity of the shares, which is what the 5 for one split achieved. It doesn't necessarily benefit the share holders, other than it enhances the marketabilty of their holdings.

[trident5] 24/1/2019 08:33

PVB - Share splits incur costs in the administration of the split and add nothing. It's like taking a pizza and cutting it into 12 slices instead of 6 thinking you end up with more pizza. However, it seems to get some investors excited and so Boards who are running out of ideas of making their company more profitable seem to think it's a way of generating value. Ergo - you have to question why they're wasting your money and their time splitting the shares.

Venek - yes that bonus is something else. I bet the staff are more open-mouthed than us by that.

[venek] 24/1/2019 08:00

Amazing that the recent bonus was related to FY2012, when profits were originallt inflated by the screwed accounts

What were they thinking?

[pvb] 19/1/2019 14:42

Why was the share split "a mistake"? Then again, is there any genuinely substantive reason for them?

OTOH I do remember, long ago, the then executive chairman (and son of founder?) was encouraged to sell some of his large holding to "increase liquidity".

[trident5] 19/1/2019 14:12

You can add the share split to his mistakes.

And just ponder that the company operates in a highly regulated area, has been late filing its accounts (criminal offence) and amidst all this and on the back of the fraud - he gets a bonus.

[venek] 19/1/2019 13:58

My point was that even after the Global Financial Crisis and acknowledging difficult trading conditions (i.e. with that benefit of hindsight), Air Partner Private Jets was saying in accounts filed on 26 Jan 2010 that consolidation in the sector due to those trading conditions could bring them opportunities. Less then 8 weeks later this became an opportunity for the administrators appointed, not AP.

Lets just hope that other under-performing subsidiaries aren't suddenly liquidated to protect the core business in some future crisis.

[pvb] 19/1/2019 13:35

Another fact is that on 31/5/2018 19:10, the day AP announced they were unable to publish their annual accounts, you, pvb, expressed surprise that the AP share price was holding up, before someone point out that trading had been automatically suspended as they had failed to meet the LSE deadline for filing. In my opinion THAT post was hilariously funny.

Good to know I was able to help somebody have a bit of fun! ;-)

[venek] 19/1/2019 13:21

Briffa did appoint the auditors and CFO who have now gone, signed off years of accounts that we now know where flawed, has now been busy signing off a series of accounts that have missed statutory filling deadlines, was COO during the Gold Air acquisition and closure and has now spent another £10mn on acquisitions that have yet to prove themselves (an in one case missed AP's own targets for it and whose training business is performing substantially below pre-acquisition levels). That is all fact and in my opinion concerning.

Another fact is that on 31/5/2018 19:10, the day AP announced they were unable to publish their annual accounts, you, pvb, expressed surprise that the AP share price was holding up, before someone point out that trading had been automatically suspended as they had failed to meet the LSE deadline for filing. In my opinion THAT post was hilariously funny.

[pvb] 19/1/2019 12:45

Venek, you seem to have a very low opinion of Briffa.

[pvb] 19/1/2019 12:44

trident5 19 Jan '19 - 11:47 - 830 of 832

PVB - they were not being audited. It's an exaggeration that a monkey can prepare a set of dormant accounts, it's not an exaggeration that a child could, and quickly.

Sorry. Missed the "dormant", was still thinking in terms of the ones that are operating companies.

However, these currently dormant companies could still have a back history of operating, no? I was thinking in terms of looking into their accounting history to see if anything was lurking there, as per history of AIP.

I have no practical knowledge of any of this, just wondering about possible plausible reasons - in addition to already posted explanation.

[venek] 19/1/2019 12:08

trident5 Ironic that Baines Simmons's aviation customers are paying for advice and training on regulatory compliance and business performance from a company that has now been fined for non-compliance and is owned by a company that bought a successful air operations business and ran it into administration.

Some commentators here have previously taken the line that last years accounting problems give AP license for further shoddy performance, when they need to be re-building investor confidence by reliable, compliant performance.