Share price hanging in there
Going below 270 (which has held several times over the last year) would be ominous
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Share price hanging in there
Going below 270 (which has held several times over the last year) would be ominous
At least its making a profit. When the vaccinations start to work, and the Australian travel bubble is opened up, we will see some big gains.
Gull NFD and Waitomo building new stations all around the Manawatu....reducing larger margins wherever they are found.
Sanson for instance now has a new automated Gull right on corner of SH1
An ECL guy I was talkin to at a Z in Palmerston said NPD building a new station there and in Levin.
Their industry in the current form is certainly a sunset industry, even though not so long ago it was called a "consumer staple" on this thread (I had it in my divie portfolio), so they need to change direction. Jet fuel will come back but other parts of their business are in a downward trend. They certainly need to decide where they want to go in the future and come up with a clear plan to become an interesting investment opportunity again.
Do they need something radical like Kodak going from film development to pharmaceuticals or Nokia from gumboots to mobile phones !!
Unfortunately ICE cars will be with us for a long time. If a vehicle bought today has a 20 year lifespan and 99% of them are ICE there is another 20 years of fuel demand. Tourism restarting, economic growth and the refinery shutting down should help the ZEL bottom line. It will be interesting to see how sustainable the newcomers will be - Z always has the option of adding "no service" stations if that model is fiscally viable.
Investing in ZEL now, would be like investing in a company that made traction engines in 1935.
Eventually, they will run out of steam.
kinda is tho!!
I use enough of the stuff and there are a lot of ICE's still out there all whizzing around like bats outta hell. Apart from Jet its only marginally (pun) about demand and more about margins. Z have been and continue to obtain larger margins (based on prices) where ever they can as people dont travel to fill up so the prices are maxxed hard by location and location of competition. Essentially charging what they could but so much of this will get eaten and continue to get eaten - and the no frills approach started by Gull makes it even worse
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c...merstaples.asp I have to buy fuel today or tomorrow whether I make money in the market today or continue to get a hiding, just like Mrs B has to go shopping for food and we have to pay our electricity, telephone, internet and rates bills whether we want to or not. Currently less than 1% of the national fleet is an EV and the speed of uptake is best described as extremely slow in my opinion.
The issue for ZEL is not whether what they sell is a consumer staple, there is no question it is, its about their very poor marketing, lack of investment in their sites, price gouging and the ever increasing number of unmanned sites that are being built by their competitors around the country. Jet will be very slow to come back in my opinion and Marsden Point is an unmitigated train wreck.
Fuel will be sold for decades to come, its about whether ZEL can adapt their business model for the gradually changing conditions. Under Bennett's "leadership" my bet is they will always be behind the eight ball and his lack of leadership or vision makes this ostensibly uninvestable in my opinion.