£218m bid to buy the AA and take it private- again!
The Breakdown & Insurance Broker 6 years ago was floated with shares at £2.50.
However, laden with £2.5Bn debt from previous owners it struggled - shares now 32p
www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/11/23/aa-eyes-210m-rescue-deal/#comment
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Difficult to see a viable business model for them, but I guess there must be one.
Cars don't break down very often, when they do it either requires a computer with expensive software or expensive parts and one can do a lot of costly damage tot hem by dicking about without expertise.
Punctures and fuel I guess, but the fuel one will be dying out soon and punctures don't happen anything like as much as they used to.
And, IIRC, doesn't the AA own most of it's breakdown infrastructure directly rather than contract others as the RAC tends to do?
I guess it's going to be broken up.
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>> £218m bid to buy the AA and take it private- again!
I know a few people who were 'full' members of the RAC when it was sold off. IIRC they got £35,000 each. 1999, was it? Handy anyway.
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I was involved in the moves of the IT system between purchasers - Twice!
These days it would be easy - assuming they have their systems on the cloud, assuming of course they invested in that. I doubt it. The AA is the prime example of leveraged buyouts, asset striping (in this case stripping money out of it) leading to lack of investment, and I'm sure its death further down the line.
The Assets are its Brand, and Its customer base, It makes no money from breakdowns, but quite a bit from follow on services like insurance.
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Coincidentally I was stuck in the car waiting for Mrs C this morning, and with nothing to do looked at my AA Road Atlas.
I noticed in the key it had campsites and caravan parks, and said these were "AA Inspected". I wondered what that actually meant and what the business model was for it.
Hotels in old photos used to have "AA stars" as well, going back forever. Again, do new ones still apply in some way for such a thing, and at what cost? Do potential customers even notice such stars, know what they mean or care? Etc etc.
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Thanks - that was actually very interesting. They didn't half keep faffing about with the system - changed it every other minute in some way or other. Kept them busy I suppose.
Also from that I found some pictures of previous "Landlady of the Year"seses too, so they were real people.
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All very interesting and probably rather sad. They were a major part of the motoring world going back a couple of decades, but are now a declining brand mostly amongst the more elderly!
Cars don't breakdown with anything like the frequency they used to.
They used to provide routes and directions - my father used them when I was a kid when touring in Europe. Google and satnavs finished that off.
They used their brand to sell insurance - until compare-the-market etc got their act together.
They used to be a good, even authoritative, source of information on hotels and restaurants, until trip advisor, expedia etc undermined their market.
Sadly another piece of traditional British motoring history on its way to the undertakers. The only marker of their passing will be the brand name - and in a couple of decades no-one will remember why.
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They used to provide routes and directions - my father used them when I was
>> a kid when touring in Europe. Google and satnavs finished that off.
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I remember those, they sent them in the post. Looked like some from an old dot matrix printer, the paper had those holes down the sides?
Last edited by: sooty123 on Mon 23 Nov 20 at 15:32
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>> I remember those, they sent them in the post. Looked like some from an old
>> dot matrix printer, the paper had those holes down the sides?
My Dad used AA route guides in the seventies, possibly as early as the sixties.
In 68 and 69 he drove us down to Paddington from where we got the motorail train to Penzance prior to flying out to the Scillies. Might have used an AA route from the end of the M1. Remember going down the Edgware Road, a route that 12 or 13 years later I'd cycle regularly on way into work.
Certainly used them to Gatwick and on a few occasions to Dover - via the North Circular and Dartford Tunnel in latter case.
He also had two for Eastern and Western France. Spiral bound jobbies. I think, heading home, they read from back to front. Another AA supplied item was a spares kit. Hillman Hunters were not that common in France. Later, when he'd moved up to a Ford Granada, he found that was a completely different car to that the Ford Agent in Sete was used to. They managed to fettle the troublesome Lucas alternator but were used to Bosch.
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I know a few people who were 'full' members of the RAC
I wasn't but a bog standard RAC members card always allowed a hefty discount at US Hotels...the word "Royal" and the pictogram of the crown seemed to impress.
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Does this mean that my AA-box key will be useless now?
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>> Does this mean that my AA-box key will be useless now?
Kinda, there is a box at Brancaster Staithe, but its got no phone in it.
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>> Does this mean that my AA-box key will be useless now?
Dunno. Do you need a replacement key to start a 70s Escort?
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>> Does this mean that my AA-box key will be useless now?
> Dunno. Do you need a replacement key to start a 70s Escort?
A 70s Escort never needed a key to start it.
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They didn't start, Key or no key.
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My Capri was the worst. On a cold damp morning you got one shot and that was it - fail and it was flooded chambers and a battery charger.
Early automatic chokes were a nightmare.
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>>Early automatic chokes were a nightmare.
No problem for me, properly adjusted, two kicks of the accelerator and it would burst into life on my Pinto engined, MK3 Cortina GT.
Sister-in-law borrowed it for a week and reckoned she never used it as she couldn't start it.
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Donkeys years ago, the company I worked for had a conference at the Imperial Hotel on the sea front in Blackpool. Dozens of our standard issue Cortinas parked there for three days. On the last day most of them wouldn't start.
Thing is, the hotel wanted us gone because the Conservative Party conference was moving in. Met Sandy Gall in the bar as it happens.
As you were.
;-)
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>>Dozens of our standard issue Cortinas parked there for three days.
It used to be that leaving a car in long term at the airport was going to be a bit of a hit and miss affair when you got back to it.
I 'fondly' remember a snowy night some years ago with a 7 Series BMW with a flat battery in one of the Long Term car parks at Heathrow. (also, it turned out subsequently, rusted brake discs which took some miles to start working effectively).
I can't now remember how long it had been there, a month or so I think.
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Whereas, my E350Cdi which twice stood unused for seven weeks this year, started after a few twirls of the starter motor. No flat spotted tyres and the engine lumpiness went within a couple of hundred yards.
I was surprised, expecting to need a jump, but apart from the slightly longer than usual starting time you would not have really known I hadn't driven the car the day before.
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I've had problems in the past few years with cars that have been left for fairly long periods (ie months) too many faffs, I just leave the keys with someone now.
I tried the dash solar chargers but found they didn't really work.
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End of the road for the AA at Lon Stock Xchange - No FM2R
