Yeah...looking at the chart..maybe should wait....
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Buy some now and some if the price drops. After z sell down ift has a very strong bal sheet. I think they are currently a good buy, not to say they won't become cheaper in the future
So, IFT has announced a transition to electric buses, innovative technology for passenger transport, first delivery mid 2016. So this has obviously been quietly progressing for quite some time. I wonder if that would have made a difference to the outcome of the South Auckland bus tender project.
Cost will be the interesting thing. Would wellington council be willing to pay more to maintain an electric fleet.
I dont beleive Electric was even a factor in the Auckland tenders so unless it provided a cheaper option, wouldn't have made a difference. Could be more of a factor that spend lots of time in the CBD though like the Link buses as thats where fumes are the biggest issue.
Seems like Greater Wellington is keen for an electric/hybrid fleet (especially with the trolley buses getting scrapped) so this could help NZ Bus win contracts.
After careful reading of the announcement, it looks like the buses aren't actually electric. Although it is worded in a slightly odd way so it's unclear exactly what they are proposing.
As far as I can tell, the buses are powered with electric motors where the electricity is produced by a gas-turbine engine onboard the bus. It's unclear (despite the claim that 82% of NZ power is renewable) whether the buses will make any use of the power grid or if the onboard gas-turbine engine will produce all of the electricity used for propulsion.
It's a good way of using the trolley bus bodies that will become useless with the trolley bus wires in Wellington being removed but there seems to be a strong smell of green-wash with this announcement.
Yes - very unclear whether there will be any charging infrastructure. My understanding of that type of system is the batteries are very small (like a pirus) so not much point charging them from a power point. You get the benefits of electric drive motors (few moving parts) and the generator can be optimised to charge the batteries at the engines most efficient point and does not need to be running when crawling through traffic.
You're right - not enough clear detail in the article to be useful!
NZ Bus face a real dilemma; do they purchase brand-new hybrid diesel-electric buses at a premium, and bank on the fact that they will be allowed to use these vehicles for their entire useful life (20-25 years), or do they repower the existing trolleybuses as an interim measure? Either way this is quite a capital intensive exercise.
The proposed timeline for the GWRC tender means NZ Bus could end up investing capital into new equipment in 2016 ready for the 2017 trollybus decommissioning, but not win the tender and be forced to dispose of the equipment by the Jan 2018 contract implementation date.
Trolley buses are still running as far as I can see. Personally I'm not excited about this part of the business. I would have done the upgrade upon attaining the new, renewed contract if it were up to me.
The big issue NZ Bus will face if they move the vehicles to Auckland is that they will not currently receive a higher subsidy from AT for using these vehicles. The GWRC provide a higher subsidy rate (and additional incentives) for tenders pertaining to the existing trolley bus service and presumably, the new electric bus service. The only other council that provides similar subsidies is the Waikato Regional Council who require CNG buses to be used on some urban routes.
Charging infrastructure will also be a greater issue as routes in Auckland are generally longer than those in Wellington.
Still, it's great to see some positive actions being undertaken to move away from diesel buses.
Didn't they lose an Auckland contract recently? I thought there was no more opportunity there for a while?
I chased the price down from $3.28 to $3.24 (Average buy price $3.26 to date for around 98k shares) IMO this is one of only a small number of companies on the NZX that are currently value buying with upside and increasing divvys, how are you going with your buying?
That was in South Auckland. The whole of auckland is to be re-tendered over the next 2 or so years. The West and central are big for NZ Bus, north shore not so much.
I have read another story on the electric buses and the battery packs are apparently bigger than I referred to above. They will still have a ICE engine but the battery will be big enough to run for long periods and as battery tech improves, the ICE may be replaced with just batteries.
Using figures from the 2015 accounts the buses contribute about 12% by revenue and 6% by profit
The conversions are hybrid for sure, but will allow quiet emissionless running at times , so good at busy intersections with pedestrians etc.
It will be interesting to know how smart the technology is. ie. are the geo fenced areas where it always runs on batteries (ie. in the CBD), does the generator turn on regardless of charge when the bus is moving quickly as fumes less of an issue, are routes programmed in so it knows not to charge if its just about to go to bed for the night. probably A topic for TransportBlog rather than here though.
Edit: from the NBR:
Quote:
The Wrightspeed technology also allows for “geofencing,” or programming buses to run solely on electricity on different parts of any particular route.
The technology also allows for the buses to be converted completely to electricity, once battery technology has sufficiently improved, and that was another reason for choosing to go with Wrightspeed, Mr Fulljames says.
Bus drivers do often seem to be in dispute with employers. The south Auckland tenders, 4 of them I think, have gone to Go Bus which is iwi owned. There was a lot of discussion at the time that the iwi owners had a significant tax advantage over non iwi owned companies and that this may have reduced the level of competition. Although there is a tax advantage we, the public, will probably never know for sure how much impact this had in the tender pricing.
It will be interesting to see what industrial action, if any, pops up under the new ownership. am I cynical in thinking not much? Possibly the iwi owners will be under pressure to improve pay and conditions which may impact profitability over time. Especially as they have committed to a lot of capital expenditure.
Artemis - the tax advantage may not be public but it is known - 28% of expected profits. What we dont know is if they have a lower cost base, or their profit margin requirement lower that also allowed them to price lower. or it could just be their lack of knowledge led them to price lower - NZ bus would have had the most info on the routes. From what I have heard, those in the industry are not sure how Go Bus will make a profit as the price was seen as too low for bad routes (Shorter, lower patronaged routes).
Go Bus workforce is also less unionised and (partially) as a result, have worse conditions and lower wages which would have lowered their cost. Whether that will last for the term of the contract 6-12 years, who knows, especially if they have to hire lots of formerly unionised NZ bus employees.
GoBus are very smart operators; their management team have a very long history in the provision of urban public transport services dating back to deregulation of the industry in 1991. I would not underestimate them.
Harvey's comments re unionisation and pay rates are bang on the money. What I have been told by a colleague - but not confirmed - that the wages being offered to GoBus South Auckland drivers is lower than what NZ Bus were offering.
Interestingly NZ Bus have been participating in tenders for other regions, most of which operate under the gross contract rather than net contracts as are standard in AKL, WLG and CHC.
Yes I believe the owners will pay no tax as they are effectively charitable trusts. But I do recall reading that Go Bus said at the time that the tax situation was not material to them winning the contracts.
Yeah right. But that is basically why I posted that we may never know the impact of the tax advantage on their tender pricing.
I just don't think an iwi should be allowed to register as a charity for the profit of its members. It makes no sense.
Iwi organisations pay a tax rate of 17.5% which is the marginal tax rate as the vast majority of the beneficiaries of those organisations. This is much the same as what happens to shareholders like us in companies with imputation credits.
This issue was well covered on Media Take which you can watch here on demand.
You shouldn't be able to register as a charity unless you're actually doing charity work in my opinion... Allowing Maori people to call their family a charity and make a business that doesn't pay as much tax just because of skin colour, then giving them tax benefits, etc is a really great way to cause racism.
It's damaging to business and creates monopolies, churches do it to, like sanitarium. Wrong and corrupt.
Anyway, rant over.
Speaking of wrong and corrupt, didn't IFT lose their snapper card deal a while back in a dodgy way? I remember reading something in the paper saying that the govt dept in charge of transport stuff had let slip that they wanted to change to a specific provider so it was the same as the one in Auckland... Then IFT lost the tender process. That looked suspect.
More recently they lost a bus contact in Auckland.
I wonder if there are some unlevel playing fields in this industry or perhaps some broken relationships. Or perhaps it's all above board and I need to loosen my tin foil hat?
Just feels like that side of the business might have trouble coming.
The Thales-based system implemented in Auckland represents the de facto ticketing system that is (as far as the NZTA is concerned) to be used nationwide. All regional transport systems will be required to integrate into the system progressively and although regions can still tender for and select a different system to be provided, NZTA ticketing system implementation subsidies will not be guaranteed. Worse still is that the NZTA have established a company called New Zealand Transport Ticketing Ltd, which is being touted as the company that should manage the implementation.
IMO Snapper are likely to lose the Wellington contract, which will probably be the final nail in the coffin for that division.
Another concern with the Thales system is that it is antiquated. In most other countries, separate stored-value cards are being replaced by other technologies such as Visa Paywave (which is now accepted by Transport for London) or NFC based smartphone systems. Why would we want yet another plastic card to carry around and manage the balance of? Shouldn't a freshly implemented system utilise the latest technology and provide the greatest convenience for the customer?
Today there was an advert on the radio, asking people to have their say on Wellington transport. They gave a url, but I couldn't remember it by the time I got home (side note: that's why radio advertising is a waste of money).
Might be worth us as both shareholders and citizens, having our say. I'll keep an eye out for the URL.
You can view the details of the proposal at http://www.gw.govt.nz/buses
This is a substantial change for Wellington and consequently operators. If you're a local stakeholder, then definitely have your say. As I'm not resident in Wellington, it's probably not appropriate.
There's also a campaign going on called let's get Wellington moving
Noticed 3+u buyers @ $3.26c. Should be announcement here very soon for div. etc..... hopefully.
What does the 3+u buyers mean? I have seen these before, but never thought too much about it
Mixed feelings about these... Wellington airport should be very good due to tourism being at peak in Wellington and most tourists arriving from abroad in Auckland + prospect of loss off the snapper card (that contributes to a loss of profit) - should be a good divie... But they're kinda pricey. I suppose the big buyers could indicate insider trading. Maybe there's ANOTHER special divie going to be announced?
Does anyone remember why there were special divies in the previous years?
Thanks seeweed for the explanation
Pretty solid result and pretty handy dividend :)
http://stocknessmonster.com/news-ite...=NZSE&N=282554
good result, but never been a fan of nz bus
So NZ bus is why you wouldn't buy?Will new electric buses give them /not give them a competitive advantage?
Interesting where does NZ bus sit in the overall context of the overall results anyway???
19%Compounding return year in year out for IFT in my view not too shaby.
Future looks well embedded and planed.
http://www.4-traders.com/INFRATIL-LT...631/consensus/
A low stress hold :) not having need to trade year in year out and so I'm letting this good one run on.
I'd go so far as to call it an excellent result, given recent mediocre business conditions. Any company that improves it's performance this year is doing well, IMO.
I'd agree that NZ Bus isn't the star of the show and don't expect that it ever will be - but it's a minor part of the portfolio.
Disc: One of my bigger and oldest holdings.
When IFT entered into the provision of public transport services, the Passenger Transport Management Act and its successor the Passenger Transport Operating Model didn't exist. IFT were upbeat about the possibility to grow commercial services as they saw fit, however these two acts have successively stifled that possibility.
NZ Bus is now also facing increasing competition from Go Bus, with a lower cost structure which other commercial companies will be unable to replicate. It will be interesting to see if the business is sold in the coming years.
Data centre purchase https://www.nzx.com/files/attachments/235720.pdf
Wow that is a good fit when tied to renewable energy wind farms which is what data center users are looking for.Its a beauty with increasing demand. Marko indicated at investor presentation they look for 10 times increase in value when looking at new investments.Happy with that :)
For those of you like me who don't know much about data centres I found this; Data Centers are like hotels. You rent a room (server) for as long as you need to host your website. The hotel provides everything you need, housekeeping, room service and laundry ( networking, power, and maintenance). You pay for the convenience so that you don't have to personally keep a server at your office or home running 24/7.
Or http://computer.howstuffworks.com/data-centers2.htm
A study by International Data Corporation for EMC estimated that 1.8 trillion gigabytes (GB), or around 1.8 zettabytes (ZB), of digital information was created in 2011 [sources: Glanz, EMC, Phneah]. The amount of data in 2012 was approximately 2.8 ZB and is expected to rise to 40 ZB by the year 2020 [sources: Courtney, Digital Science Series, EMC].
I would say their main customer is government agencies - seems as though big operators Google or Amazon have their own data centres. But likes of Xero or Small buisness that don't want their own server, large private businesses etc. Seems a universal requirement for a lot of companies... Even though it's a slightly different business to there usual infrastructure investments it looks to be the goods - I must say the images of our new investment are about as boring as they get, racks of servers! However boring usually means a good investment!
Seems like a prudent investment at first glance. Now it just needs a Pied Piper box ;)
Just to clarify my thinking.
Data centres - aka "the Cloud" ?
Found a video about Canberra Data Centres which shows what its all about
https://youtu.be/nvyzJ1I6IGQ
Yes, basically lots of offsite data storage that companies can rent to store their files or use as a server.
One of the biggest challenges in the technology sector is data storage. The ratio with which data is expanding grows literally by the minute. The companies that can master data compression, transfer, security and storage will have a license to print money. Getting more and more excited about this one.
Xero is in the process of migrating to Amazon data centres. But anyone doing Healthcare IT needs to use a top-tier data center as patient data is quite tightly regulated, so you'd expect that sector to be a prime target given all the government work they presently have. Think Orion rather than Xero.
Thanks for the vid - here's a bit more I found re technology and upgrading:
Datacentre professionals should build a business case and perform a cost analysis ahead of setting up their datacentre budget. They must consider total cost of ownership rather than just capital expenses or operating expenses of running a datacentre and look for return on investment in power savings.
"Every time you change servers, you are doubling capacity and halving energy consumption," he said. Facebook's strategy is to refresh its hardware so aggressively that it doubles its capacity and avoids building new datacentres.
"But it becomes difficult for local council authorities to justify capital expenditure on hardware ever so often."
While the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon do not set practical examples for regular datacentre managers, traditional enterprises must at least refresh datacentre more often than they are doing now, he said.
Three-year hardware refresh is one way of cutting datacentre cooling costs at a time when datacentre growth is predicted at 20% per year for the next few years. UK datacentres consume 1GW of power every year, according to Bitterlin.
UK's average annual temperature is about 9°C and the peak temperature is 33°C, so businesses need not depend on mechanical cooling devices such as the compressors all the time.
Following simple measures such as updating equipment regularly and by ensuring higher degree of server utility, datacentres' power consumption can be optimised, Bitterlin said.
"Any datacentre manager keeping their hardware for more than three years is crazy," he said.
In 2013, server equipment in IT facilities are estimated to consume 35% of their peak power even when they are idle or doing very little IT processing whereas microprocessor utilisation across the globe is under 10%.
"This is not correct. We must get the average utilisation rate high and idle power consumption rate down," he said.
The future has to change because today, transferring 2TB (terabyte) of data by a jumbo airplane is cheaper and more energy-efficient than transferring it via the network over a 27-hour timeframe running servers at high capacity, he said.
Perhaps the answer lies in photonic network in the future, Bitterlin said. A photonic (or optical) network is a communications network in which information is transmitted entirely in the form of optical or infrared transmission (IR) signals.
Companies using datacentres aren't bothered if they're green. They mainly want to use them because either it's a big business run by a moron (who doesn't understand IT but has been put in charge of managing it and reads that it's good to be in "the cloud" in his IT manager monthly magazine). However there are some very good reasons for businesses to use the cloud. I wrote this article a while ago as a summary guide:
http://www.itsupportforum.net/topic/...yths-debunked/
By example, recently I put a server in the cloud because it was a new service that required massively fast internet, but only once a month. The alternative would be to get another internet connection that would have cost more and wouldn't get used for 27 days in the month.
People look for cost, reliability, fringe benefits (faster internet, site replication, better UPS, etc.) and location when looking for a cloud provider. There is a belief in the industry that one of the big providers will take over because they have massive economies of scale. By example, Microsoft azure cloud is very cheap. Very cheap. The disadvantage of azure is the support and fact that you can't physically go into the datacentre. Also there are sovereignty issues in some countries.
Hope that helps.
So Lewy, with you experience in this area, do you think it is a astute investment? Thanks in advance.
Honestly, I have no idea. But in my opinion...
Longer term if Microsoft / Amazon refine their offering, nobody else stands a chance at any big growth here. Microsoft have the biggest advantage IMO because they can do cheaper software, they get an amazing deal on hardware, they know the software better than anyone else, they can market it better than anyone else. Marketing is unique because they can change their licensing for non cloud customers to tease then into the cloud, then IT people will want to take the cloud exams to get qualified, which is powerful because when people get qualifications in an area, they tend to become evangelists. Why? Because firstly there's a feel good factor of having the qualification in something that people around you are enquiring about. Secondly they know the product so they're comfortable using it, so they look like better employees. There's risk in putting in another product and looking like an idiot. Thirdly they are forced to learn all the features of the product, so they know the benefits of the product without knowing the technical benefits of the other product (a problem because adverts are salesy and non technical, when the advisor to the buyer or buyer themselves is technical). The exam training is practically selling the products and forcing prospective customers to repeat the benefits over and over in their head to exam cram. Also it makes sense for managers to use technology their staff are trained in.
So Microsoft have the edge in my opinion...
However, at the moment, if their sales are good and they have loyal customers and the purchase is earnings accreditive, or if they can offer something the big guys can't (local datacenter, access to said datacenter, support, extra services such as engineer resources for projects, data sovereignty, etc) then they may be sorted. Also they may have barriers to exit for customers, such as difficulty migrating out of the datacentre due to size of data stored and inability to migrate it out without an outage, fear of change. There is a comfort factor of knowing where your datacenter actually is and knowing the people hosting it.
Also Microsoft might not sort their $#!& out and might not engineer, maintain or push the product properly. Nothing is certain, right? It did take an unusually large amount of time to get azure out of beta.
All that being said, I would guess that there will be a place for small, local datacentres such as the one IFT have just bought. It's just not likely to be the next XRO.
Yes, Google, Amazon and Microsoft tend to build their own facilities. The Sydney-based Microsoft data centre is in North Rydge and the AWS facilities are in Eastern Creek & Smeaton Grange, all of which are fairly non-descript but obviously secure building. I'd agree that the Canberra location is primarily aimed at Government institutions, although with a cooler climate and further inland provides it with some strategic advantages.
The good thing about data centres is although they cost significant sums to build, there is very little staffing involved aside from a handful of tech's and security that is obviously paid for by the customers anyway.
One of my previous roles was managing a large data centre for a multi-national, before there were very many co-lo's available.
I think a lot of people underestimate Microsoft and wrote them off for missing the IaaS, PaaS and mobile trends, but they have a significant war chest of cash, some highly experienced and capable staff and a deep ingrained presence in corporations and homes. Amazon have the first starter advantage, but I agree with you that MS have the edge in many ways.
There's probably a few latency sensitive applications that would benefit from being located close to use, plus a Canberra centre might make a great location for redundancy. In terms of weather there aren't any major threats, although obviously being located in a capital city might raise some risks.
To me it's quite an exciting investment for IFT to make! Hopefully it will pay off!
Let's hope so. Better than NZ Bus or those dud secondary-level European airports! Is it reasonable to think that govt agencies might be reluctant to entrust their data to facilities owned by major foreign multi-nationals such as Microsoft and Amazon and that therefore the Canberra operation will retain a competitive advantage in that regard?Quote:
To me it's quite an exciting investment for IFT to make! Hopefully it will pay off!
Yes, that's a very good point - that's a real concern amongst Governments and many corporations throughout the world.
Microsoft are currently fighting a court case involving the US Government's request for Microsoft to hand over an individual's emails that are hosted in a Dublin based data centre. The US Government's position is that Microsoft is an American company and is therefore bound by US law and that they must comply with the court order issued for them to hand over the emails. Microsoft's position is that the US Government can't infringe upon the sovereignty of another country and therefore should seek an alternative method (such as the use via the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty) to gain access to the data.
The implications of the outcome of this case are significant, with most competitors such as Apple, Google et al filing amicus briefs with the court siding with Microsoft.
For this reason (and quite a few others), the market for data centres wholly owned and operated within the legal jurisdiction of the local country are growing very quickly.
It's common for public health data to not be allowed to leave the country and I expect other govt held public data is the same, so yes I'd say that a locally owned data center provider would be more attractive than a multi-national, provided they can still offer the same technological benefits and disaster recovery options.
Yup, this is a good share for diversification. Also, I like them because this is the way I would run my business if I had a $#!& load of money; just get a successful business going, then use the spare cash to have a pop at other things that interested me out ideas I had. Keep doing that and eventually strike it super rich. Plus it's fun.
Interesting.
As Infratil get in, Tata get out. . .
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/b...w/52334793.cms
In-store Snapper terminals are about to get awesome!
We are making some changes to our in-store Snapper terminals. The new terminals will have improved features so that you can check your transaction history on your receipt and collect a credit via a Snapper retailer, instead of having to go to a service centre. This will save you a lot of hassle if you are accidentally over-charged on the bus and need to collect a refund.
Practice makes perfect
Before we roll out the new terminals across the whole retailer network, we have selected a small number of stores to trial, and ensure everything is working as we expected. The trial begins on the 23rd of May, so if you happen upon one of the trial stores, we ask for your patience while we refine the experience to make it perfect. We will let you know once the trial phase is complete and explain more about the sweet new features you can access from your Snapper retailer.
That’s all from us for now. We'll keep you posted on when you can expect Snapper retailers everywhere to have the new, improved terminals!
Team Snapper
Is anyone else concerned about the falling EPS each year with a 5 year EPS growth rate of -55% and ROE of 0.012%? Is this the result of a cyclical market?
I hope infratil aren't tempted :eek2:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11645940
If you were planning to buy a whole bunch of shares in a company (enough to raise the value), why would you announce it first? That would just put the price up before you bought. Also, how well would retirement homes work in China? Their parents live with their kids. That's the culture.
Ok ,still has $14m to go!
https://nzx.com/files/attachments/236459.pdf
Don't forget, ex div tomorrow:).
It goes Ex June 1st ie tomorrow.
Game changer for NZ bus.What would you like electric or diesel?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news...-lease-on-life
Electric buses are covered in the Infratil roadshow Currently travelling around the country. It is a growth area for the company and it was said that diesel buses would be well on the way out within 5 years. Go Bus was mentioned - they won several South Auckland routes from NZ Bus recently and have a committed to buying around 80 brand new buses at around half a mil each. Diesel.
(Go Bus is owned by two iwi charitable trusts, so do not pay tax on profits.)
Roadshow video and presentations are on their website, worth a look.
? SP up on no news...
I think people are after the higher yields. There was a huge sell order this morning at 338, but that was taken off after a while. Infratil is a safer company to invest in, for those wanting lower risk (DYOR). Mind you last time I went to their agm, they mentioned they believed to be undervalued.....