Optare Share Discussion Threads

[mdkahamed] 28/11/2017 00:32

Is there anyone who can help me to sell my optare Plc share?I have bought through Aj bell investment broker
Company.
I do not know how to get the share certificate.
Thanks

[steve517499] 20/11/2017 15:38

Wow, long time since my last visit to this board ... nice to see Kim still around.

Must admit, A-L spending £60m on debts ... buying the assets from a liquidators would have been way cheaper and got rid of the minority shareholding.

Whilst the NZ order is promising, it on its own will not turn the company around ... especially as domestic orders seem to be plummeting to an all time low.

Anyone know what happened to MTG ... can't see hide nor hair of him anywhere for the past year +

[reximill] 17/11/2017 15:26

The problem is there were 2bn shares in issue, now there are around 67bn.

Shareholders have been 'squeezed out'. The market cap at 0.1p is now £67m. Even if it gets to £130m, we will only get 0.2p. If the company was worth £130m, we would have likely got something closer to 3p per share if they hadn't done this.

I'd guess the shares now are worth 0.11p or so. It would be nice just to get the money and forget about it.

I'm suprised more shareholders are not upset about this....

[superhoop2] 17/11/2017 09:56

They have certainly turned the corner that is why they have shafted us remaining shareholders. Being a much more viable company I still live in the hope that they relist on AIM and if so would certainly be more valuable than 0.1p!

[kimoldfield] 17/11/2017 00:21

Perhaps they have forgotten that we exist rexmill and Optare haven't reminded them!😃

[reximill] 16/11/2017 23:35

I suspect you're right there.

Would you have thought, they will buy us remaining 0.8% shareholders out at 0.1p or a little more? I think they can pretty much force it through now with a 'fair' price.

I too am wondering why they keep it going and don't just pull the plug or buy us out. It has cost them 10's of millions to keep it going.

I personally think there must have been a huge amount of value here and Optare were likely going to soon start making a lot of money. They had just won by far their biggest order and had other lines of business opening up all over the world.

The remaining shares not in their hands are about 500m which at 0.1p is 500k. If they are going to pay off £60m of debt, why not give a little to shareholders and take it private?

[kimoldfield] 16/11/2017 22:52

Ashok will be using Optare's technology to build electric buses in India but you can be sure that it will not benefit Optare in Britain! However, they must see a lot of value in keeping Optare going to fork out all that money so I hope they will be building buses indefinitely.

[reximill] 16/11/2017 16:50

Hi Kimo - Wow, I've just seen that now, thank you.

Looks like Ashok will now own 99.18%. Shareholders have been really stitched up here unfortunately. They've basically done a massive placing to themselves for negligible value. They could of course have made a reasonable takeover offer but no.

It's quite obvious Optare were just massively turning the corner, so they've quickly slipped this in. The electric bus industry is getting huge and will get much bigger over the next 5-10 years. They are clearly worth much more than 0.1p!

[reximill] 16/11/2017 16:49

Hi Kimo - Wow, I've just seen that now, thank you.

Looks like Ashok will now own 99.18%. Shareholders have been really stitched up here unfortunately. They've basically done a massive placing to themselves for negligible value. They could of course have made a reasonable takeover offer but no.

It's quite obvious Optare were just massively turning the corner, so they've quickly slipped this in. The electric bus industry is getting huge and will get much bigger over the next 5-10 years. They are clearly worth much more than 0.1p!

[kimoldfield] 16/11/2017 11:32

Hi rexmill, no not joking! It is on Optare's website; at the bottom of their 'Home' page you will find 'Investors' under Company Information. In that section is a link to 'Notice of Extraordinary General Meeting and letter from Chairman of Optare Plc'

If you check out here though it will take you straight to it!:-

[reximill] 15/11/2017 23:56

What is this proposal from ashok for optare? I havent seen it anywhere. Or are you joking?

[kimoldfield] 27/10/2017 09:53

Have a look in your sock drawer Skinny, right at the bottom or underneath it even!😃
Ashok Leyland are proposing to assist Optare by writing off all debts for them, internal and external, in exchange for 65,725,000,000 shares at an issue price of 0.1 pence per share. I am voting in favour as I don't realistically have much choice. If it helps to save a British business then that's fine by me!

[skinny] 12/10/2017 09:40

I'm not sure where my shares are!

[tinshill9] 12/10/2017 09:33

I have 233,300 of these shares and recently considered putting them up for offer on the Optare Matched Bargain Service but held off due to their probable better fortunes. This news is maybe encouraging
Cheers

[reximill] 10/10/2017 18:58

A few more deals like this and OPE will be back above a penny a share!

I see Leeds will be spending £71m on nearly 300 buses too and are trialing optare buses now.

The electric bus market is going to expand massively from now on so Optare have done very well to survive. Has anyone dealt on these shares in the last 2 years?

[kimoldfield] 19/9/2017 16:11

It has been a long time since the last post and I am amazed that Optare are still going!
The Metrodecker is still being admired by various people but probably not purchased! The Metrocity is doing well however and the company have just received their largest single export order, from New Zealand, for 114 Euro-6 Metricity buses worth $36 million; order to be completed by June 2018. Profit? Answers on a postcard please!😃

[jsbach123] 08/11/2016 21:34

More excitement from Optare as they announce a 'proof of concept' Metrodecker EV (with a promise to undertake necessary improvements to improve its range in due course). It would be more impressive, and interesting to PIs, to know that the company had sold a single Metrodecker. Optare launched the (conventional) Metrodecker with the declared aim of achieving sales of more than one hundred in the subsequent 18 months in May 2014; more than two years later Optare has not announced a single sale. Is this a record? Were it not for the demonstrators it might be called 'the bus that never was' (that perhaps was the Rapta) Or will the Metrodecker follow in the route of the 'new' Bonito (one sale - according to publicly available information - before the model was discontinued).

The Metrodecker some may think illustrates two points; (i) the problems that Opatre faces as a company; and (ii) the lamentable levels of trade journalism which seem scintent simply to reprint company PR releases without analysis or comment (and quite possibly critical understanding)..

[jsbach123] 06/9/2016 20:31

Gosh. Having written the previous post found that the latest results have been published. I'm curious to know in the face of such dire results why AL do not 'pull the plug'. Perhaps they really have been convinced that the Metrodecker will save them. IMHO dream on.

For connoisseurs appreciative of use of language as 'spin' the Annual Report cannot be bettered. I don't say that they portray black as white, but it is the very palest shade of grey IMHO.

Fickling paid £50,000. Even in the most hardened of independent investor hearts this must raise a smile. Whitley Bay has a mild climate but I wonder if all its inhabitants are able to sleep peacefully at night. And Norris rewarded too; investors other than AL may (still) have found his appointment surprising. Rail disaster leading to fatalities ( and Board lied) anyone?

Optare could IMHO be used as a useful 'real life' example/case study in Business Schools 'How companies fail' course. Loss per share for Optare doubled.

[jsbach123] 06/9/2016 19:59

Next accounts to 31 March 2016 are due to be published by 30 September. Will the Comapny have announced an order for the Metrodecker by then? What will be the size of the declared annual loss (or profit)? How much has Fickling been paid in the year for his invaluable advice? Most interestingly remaining minority shareholders will find out how loans have been dealt with and on what terms.

[jsbach123] 25/8/2016 21:36

Route One magazine reports SMMT numbers for Q2 (calendar year) as 55 registrations for Optare. The company may, of course, be selling numbers overseas but if they are they are very shy about making announcements on the news section of the company website - which means that 55 registrations in three months reminds one of the 'good old days' (NOT) of Sumner lol.

[jsbach123] 29/7/2016 17:32

I am sorry to know that Steve as I would be most interested to learn your opinion, but we cannot always be where we would like to be I know!

[steve517499] 27/7/2016 19:13

I doubt very much I will get around to seeing it JSB, let alone riding on it

[jsbach123] 25/7/2016 21:50

Thanks for info Steve. I'll be interested to learn what you think of it if/when you have the opportunity to ride on it. As it happens I'm in London for a couple of days at present but feel no great need to either see The Red House again (wonderful though it is) nor ride o the Metrodecker (wonderful though it is not)!

[steve517499] 25/7/2016 10:59

JSB .... Thought you would like to know the London demonstrator has turned up, it is with Go-Ahead Bexleyheath.

[jsbach123] 13/7/2016 19:44

Yes Kim, I saw that order announced - so it's worth around £440,000 to the bottom line I guesstimate presuming that the company is making 10% plus on sales. All orders are good but my impression is that Optare is still losing money - and I dont see the metrodecker being the model to save it. Interesting to note in the trade press recently that Reading buses are going for gas stating that batteries need to be replaced every five years at a cost of £50,000 - and then they have to be replaced again five years after that. I wonder if this means that they will not be ordering the metrodecker?

Still, much will be revealed when annual accounts are published.