Carnival, Triumph Gold, TUI - It is starting again!

Carnival PLC - Rollover in financing successful

For investors in the travel industry, the pandemic is currently the most important criterion for investment decisions, in addition to the fundamental data. Should there be another tightening of the regulations in the fall, the number of passengers will have to be limited again, and the load factor will drop. The number of staff on board even had to be expanded for the current season's start to ensure safe operations. Overall, even after increasing prices, the margin has dropped significantly compared to previous years.

The largest cruise operator, Carnival PLC, announced that it expects to have 65% of its total fleet capacity back available to guests on eight of its cruise brands by the end of 2021. Eight of the Company's nine brands have plans to resume guest operations on 54 ships to date by the end of 2021, with nearly half of the capacity on US-homeported ships. According to the Company, the advance bookings for the end of the year and 2022 should be at a high level.

Meanwhile, the group is already back to work on its next refinancing. The Anglo-American cruise company's current rollover offer is to repurchase around EUR 2 billion of senior secured bonds maturing in as little as two years. For this, 85% of bondholder approval has already been received, and EUR 2.4 billion of new longer-dated bonds have been issued. A sign that the Company continues to enjoy the trust of investors.

Carnival's share price, meanwhile, has had a rollercoaster ride. The price rose to EUR 22.4 due to the opening euphoria in June but then crashed again by 30%. The share is currently trading at EUR 16.85. With a successful refinancing, a new wave of speculation could occur.

Triumph Gold - Drilling program started in June

Cruise ships are still not allowed to dock in Canada; the country is closed for tourism until September 2021. However, there is unrestricted freedom of movement for residents; thus, drilling operations in mining companies can continue. Triumph Gold Corp. is a Canadian-based junior resource company engaged in property exploration in the Yukon Territory. They assembled a full-time team focused on advancing the Freegold Mountain project within Yukon's prolific Dawson Range copper-gold belt in March.

The flagship project hosts three NI 43-101 mineral occurrences. It covers an extensive section of the Big Creek fault zone, a regional structure directly associated with epithermal gold and silver mineralization and gold-bearing porphyry copper mineralization. The 2021 exploration program at the Freegold Mountain project has commenced in the first phase, with diamond drilling and field teams mobilized to the site on June 15, 2021. Phase I consists of 8,000 meters of diamond drilling, 100 line kilometers of ground geophysical surveys, 35 line kilometers of soil sampling, and surface trenching. The program is aimed at defining new inferred resources and upgrading inferred resources to indicated resources.

The current focus is on the Revenue zones, a gold-copper-silver-molybdenum-tungsten porphyry system and the Nucleus deposit, an epithermal gold-silver-copper system within strata of the Yukon-Tanana terrane. Drilling will be supplemented by assays on the Melissa, Irene and Vindicator zones. Historical trenching samples from the Melissa zone returned 5.67 grams per tonne gold and 52.8 grams per tonne silver. The entire program thus appears highly prospective.

Triumph's stock has a current capitalization of CAD 25 million at a price of CAD 0.18 per share. The share is 41.8% institutionally held, with Newmont Corporation as the major shareholder with 12.8%. Looking at the chart and the ongoing drilling projects, Triumph Gold could be on the move soon.

TUI - Travel agencies compete with online offer

Booking numbers for tour operators have recently soared. However, the industry's largest, TUI, is only benefiting to a below-average extent because the travel provider's marketing strategy is not going down well with travel agency owners. The Hanover-based group has made it clear on several occasions that it is relying primarily on customer bookings via the Internet. The association of independent travel agencies sees this as "a declaration of war" because TUI had always been supported during the crisis, and now the online business dominates.

There was also trouble because of discount vouchers that were available on TUI's online site. Then there was the communications fiasco in the Corona heyday. The corporate hotline was barely accessible to agencies, and disgruntled customers had to wait forever for refunds on canceled trips. In industry blogs, travel agency owners have therefore angrily announced that they would no longer offer TUI products in the future. That could become a problem for the group, which was saved with billions in taxpayers' money. Because right now, many vacationers are looking for personal advice from a travel agency.

As data from Nuremberg-based analyst firm TDA shows, TUI did sell 15% more package tours in the first week of June than in the same week in 2019. But competitors such as DER Touristik, FTI, Alltours and Schauinsland have in some cases more than doubled their sales figures. TUI Germany boss Marek Andryszak has now announced his retirement because of the quarrels - at his request, it is said. It is doubtful whether this will change anything for the travel agencies because TUI group boss Fritz Joussen is also a declared fan of the online strategy.

The TUI share has plummeted in the last 4 weeks, losing a good 25% since June. Given the current strategic problems and the uncertainties for the fall, the share remains highly speculative.

The stocks considered here offer ideas for the speculative investor. With Carnival and TUI, one sets on a conciliatory continuation in the pandemic. With Triumph Gold, the turnaround opportunity with a view to an inflationary rise in the gold price is convincing.