TUA - Turners Auctions. A Case Study.

[Radar]

I suspect All ears has a personal axe to grind. Perhaps as his name suggests he once worked for Turners

Reads like a soon to be redundant long time staff member, with a staff shares.

People take the loss of comfort zones too personally and if the directors aren't doing well according to his opinion, then he needs to go out and do it better himself.

Maybe the directors haven't slept for a year, and maybe they've kept him in a job way longer than what he would have had doing it himself.

Plebs only think they know whats going on, and anything not making their lives easier, can't possibly be right.

His comments might have been compelling if he had chosen his words more carefully, rather than making it blindingly obvious that he's a disgruntled employee.

[duncan macgregor]

Reads like a soon to be redundant long time staff member, with a staff shares.

People take the loss of comfort zones too personally and if the directors aren't doing well according to his opinion, then he needs to go out and do it better himself.

Maybe the directors haven't slept for a year, and maybe they've kept him in a job way longer than what he would have had doing it himself.

Plebs only think they know whats going on, and anything not making their lives easier, can't possibly be right.

His comments might have been compelling if he had chosen his words more carefully, rather than making it blindingly obvious that he's a disgruntled employee.

Dont shoot the messenger be gratefull for the message. Right or wrong its up to you to decide. i bet a few shareholders in Feltex wish that a disgruntled employee had given them the inside story before it all hit the fan. A message to all disgruntled employees in any industry spill the beans Macdunk is ALL EARS. Macdunk

[Deev8]

Dont shoot the messenger be gratefull for the message. Right or wrong its up to you to decide. i bet a few shareholders in Feltex wish that a disgruntled employee had given them the inside story before it all hit the fan. A message to all disgruntled employees in any industry spill the beans Macdunk is ALL EARS. Macdunk

Most companies of any size have disgruntled employees who are very happy to tell anyone who cares to listen that the senior management don't know what they are doing and the company is going down the tubes.

Sometimes the stories are accurate, more often they are misguided - inadvertant misinterpretation of the facts by someone who doesn't have access to the whole picture. Occasionally they are pure fiction, invented with the sole purpose of harming the company that the disgruntled employee hates.

It's difficult, if not impossible, for the independant observer to know which category any disgruntled employee story belongs to. So I take any such story with a large pinch of salt.

This isn't intended to be a direct comment on Turners Auctions - but it is the reason why I wouldn't give much weight to insider stories from that company or any other.

[ratkin]

Its clear he is biased , however as a long time attender of the auctions in christchurch i can see he makes very good points.

When i first arrived in this country in 1992 i went along to turners auctions in the old building they had on moorhouse ave. It was always packed with a lively atmosphere , busy cafe upstairs and lots of cars , many from private buyers. Lots of variety. I found it so interesting that i would often go along just for the entertainment value , try out the more unusual cars and have a bite to eat.

Was always iffy in terms of quality, first car i bought blew up after two weeks , had been put in by someone who obviously knew it was stuffed , but it my own fault for not checking it properly.

Now fast forward fifteen years. I went to look for a car last year at the new building, very flash it is too, just behind the new tower junction mall. Must be prime location now.
Anyway i found nearly all cars were unregistered imports , boring run of the mill stuff . Very few new zealand new cars or cars put in by private sellers (all on trade me?).

I ended up buying a mitsubishi mirage , boring i know I won the auction for 4400. However by the time all the charges etc had been added on it was up over 5000.
There was hardly anybody at the auction , most of the cars didnt even reach reserve and were passed over for next week.

The lack of atmosphere is a real problem for them i would think. In the old days people would get involved in bidding wars with cars often going a fair bit higher than reserve, you just dont see that now.

They have built a better testing track , and have a much nicer (more expensive ) building but i would imagine they are making far less money.

When you look at the real cost of their cars now they are really no cheaper than buying from a car yard and the risk of buying a dud is probably much higher.

I must say though that my mirage has been very good and has given no problems at all

[Radar]

Dont shoot the messenger be gratefull for the message. Right or wrong its up to you to decide. i bet a few shareholders in Feltex wish that a disgruntled employee had given them the inside story before it all hit the fan.

This is a valid point, same with BridgeCorp and a bunch of others... to be a fly on the wall. And interestingly, like turners, they all failed to act, or did so inadequately, when the core of their market turned inside out.

So perhaps there is merit in some of the points made, nevertheless, if he's indeed an employee that cares about the company and its success, then there are more constructive ways of bringing about change, and certainly more tactful ways of informing others about problems. The delivery sounds like sour grapes, packed full of emotion, so the integrity and motives are at the very least, questionable.

But it would to me, seem overstating of the obvious, that the market has changed to the detriment of the business. There is no way to escape the impact technology will continue to have, and there is likely to be no amount of money to afford a turnaround.

Yahoo didn't see google coming, and turners didn't see the internet coming, if anything, its a sign to others that a site like trademe, with hundreds of thousands of visitors each day, is capable of affecting change in any number of markets.

To be honest, I doubt there was anyway for turners to have seen this coming, and its now way too late to turn the clock back. That's no fault of the director's, no one could have crystal-balled the impact trademe would have on a number of markets, including trademe itself.

Disgruntled employee's need to accept the director's are likely as much the victims of change as they, the horse has bolted, its time to find a different career and cut your losses while you still can, not throw mud around the playpen where there's nothing for it to stick to.

[winner69]

I think there is more to All Ears comments then you give him credit for .. says he was an employee once but one thing for certain he is an industry insider ..... maybe even a competitor?

Like MacDunk says we should appreciate people like All Ears conig out and saying these things .... he could actually be correct

Anyway he must be a decent bloke ..... he owns some NZO shares (no small change either he says)

[ratkin]

Didnt he say he was Turners biggest customer?

My guess is he worked for turners and then branched out on his own , with his own car yard, using turners to supply his new venture.
Turners then increased their costs to the buyers which would of in turn hurt is new buisness

[Radar]

Didnt he say he was Turners biggest customer?

My guess is he worked for turners and then branched out on his own , with his own car yard, using turners to supply his new venture.
Turners then increased their costs to the buyers which would of in turn hurt is new buisness

He seems to have a great deal of endearment and empathy with staff at Turners in the here/now, and talks almost like he's sitting in more than one persons chair.

Perhaps he's a former employee, now a customer, with a relative still working at Turners.

[STRAT]

I think there is more to All Ears comments then you give him credit for .. says he was an employee once but one thing for certain he is an industry insider ..... maybe even a competitor?

Like MacDunk says we should appreciate people like All Ears conig out and saying these things .... he could actually be correct

Anyway he must be a decent bloke ..... he owns some NZO shares (no small change either he says)

Never meant to imply any disrepute. I agree with All Ears and his perspective on the company and merely posted my observations at the time. Out of Courtesy to All Ears here is his reply.

http://forum.sharechat.co.nz/showthr...5888#post15888

[winner69]

Used car market collapsed and TUA will make $1m this year ........ and everybody in the industry is suffering ... sympathy for used car dealers anyone

TUA is really a microcap now .... market cap pre announcement $17m ... so still pretty richly valued.

Maybe All Ears did have something about the ability of TUA to survive hard times