A regulatory release that's just dropped from Futura Medical PLC (LON:FUM) reveals the small-cap specialist Octopus has increased its stake in the company from 4.5% to just over 8%. One suspects savvy Octopus got in on the recent £12mln share placing. Futura shares have more than doubled this year as trials of its gel for erectile dysfunction proved the boss James Barder and his team are onto a potential winner.
Fly for free?
Michael O’Leary, boss of no-frills airline Ryanair Holdings PLC (LON:RYA), wants to cut fares so much they will effectively be free.
Of course, this makes it a bit tricky asking for your money back should the flight be horrendously delayed, but it is an intriguing proposition, if only because it begs the question: how will Ryanair make its money?
“I have this vision that in the next five to 10 years that the air fares on Ryanair will be free, in which case the flights will be full, and we will be making our money out of sharing the airport revenues; of all the people who will be running through airports, and getting a share of the shopping and the retail revenues at airports,” O’Leary told those assembled at the Airport Operators Association conference in London.
The rent-a-quote boss said he did not expect the revenue sharing idea to fly at big hubs such as Heathrow, but he could envisage it happening at some of the regional airports.
Scraping a living
Meanwhile, the company confirmed today it is revoking a licensing agreement with cheap flights comparison web site Momondo, claiming a breach of contract.
Ryanair had granted a non-exclusive licence to Momondo to display Ryanair’s fares for price comparison purposes, but it got the hump after Momondo displayed links to unauthorised “screen-scraper” web sites.
The Irish airline does not provide a feed to all price comparison web sites but some get round this by having “spiders” trawl through Ryanair’s web pages, accumulating the airlines prices, for the purposes of including them in a price comparison service.
“Many of these web sites continue to cause problems for Ryanair customers and/or fail/refuse to pass on vital information to both customers and Ryanair regarding issues such as flight changes, web check-in, special needs assistance and contact details, which has resulted in missed flights and repeated problems for customers,” the airline grumbled.
The company is also in danger of putting Google’s highly lucrative love affair with Ireland at risk by commencing legal proceedings in the Irish High Court against the US advertising giant to stop Google misleading consumers by “advertising non-existent Ryanair fares”.
Good luck with that one, Mr O’Leary; in the meantime, have some more free publicity.
It is better to travel in hope ...
Meanwhile, Thomas Cook Group PLC (LON:TCG) has started paying dividends again after a five year gap.
The company, which kicked off the whole package tour business backin in eighteen-something-something, had another tough year, what with civil unrest in Turkey and terrorist attacks in Brussels, but was sufficiently confident to restore its dividend, reasoning that its restructuring efforts over the last few years had put it on a sound enough footing to survive the up-and-down market that is the travel business.
“In what's been a difficult year for tourism, I'm pleased with the progress that we've made at Thomas Cook. The early actions we took to shift our holiday programme into the Western Mediterranean and long haul, together with the benefits of a stronger euro, helped us to maintain revenue at group level,” said Peter Fankhauser, the group’s chief executive.
Sometimes life’s a beach.
It’s unlikely you’d ever see retail tycoon Sir Philip Green on a package tour – not while he has his luxury yacht.
Mind you, Lesley Titcomb, the chief of The Pensions Regulator, has hinted that Sir Phil could have the super-yacht impounded if he refuses to comply with a legal demand to cover the £571mln deficit in the pension scheme of BHS, the retailer he owned for 15 years before selling it off shortly before it collapses into administration.
TPR has started legal proceedings against Green, Chappell and their companies in an attempt to plug the pension deficit.
Good luck with that one, Ms Titcomb; in the meantime, have some more free publicity.