Historical increase of prices in food within the last 10 years Follow-up

 At the beginning of March 2022 I tried to update the database for my article I wrote back in August 2020 on historical price increases.

Beginning March 2022 the values look like this:

I trimmed the data points more towards 10 yrs.

Overall price increase looks much higher now (3.93% vs. 2.29% in Aug 2020), with most of the increases coming from 2022.

This is for example how the data for Rapeseed cooking oil looks like:

 Notable as with most other products is the decrease in price from 2014-2018 and sharp increase in 2022.

After I updated by database Aldi (Germany's disounter with the biggest pricing power and pricing leader) that the will increase the prices of over 400 products (so basically everything they sell).

Looks like I will have to do a follow-up rather soon.

Emergency Preparedness / Recommendations: Food & Beverages 2

 Recently I noticed that the two big discount markets here in Germany (Aldi/Lidl) provide offers on cartons of staple canned foods. I would recommend such offers to purchase sufficient long lasting vegetables & fruits.

For reference purposes I attached the two offers, both starting next week (i.e. calendar week 5 of 2022).

Aldi Süd: 

Lidl: 

UPDATE ALDI SÜD STARTING 21. OCTOBER 2022

Emergency Preparedness / Recommendations: Food & Beverages

 Based on the official recommendations (see this Checklist) of German Ministry of Civil Protection.

Will Russia invade Ukraine

 Since autumn 2021 Russia again started a massive troop build-up near the border of Ukraine, deploying a troop of +100k, plus equipment. Talks between US and Russia hit dead end beginning of this week. 

As usual if in doubt it makes sense to create a little list of what speaks for (pro) or against (contra) a certain scenario (here: The invasion). I quickly want to mention that I do not possess additional sources beyond conventional mass media and any other insights, just an interested observer.

Motatos: Shopping Experience / Unpacking

 Today I received a package from Motatos, which arrived pretty much one week after the purchase order. Motatos is selling food and beverage close to or short past expiration date. I really like the idea and when still living in Berlin sometimes visited a store with the same concept (Sirplus, they are also online).

Last week I got a 20% off voucher for Motatos, which I did not know before and tried it out. Most of their stock seemed to consist of sweet and salty snacks and although they were offering staples such as canned food, pasta, etc. I found those offers not very attractive (price wise). They did have some interesting beverages (cheap fever tree), but I do not like ordering drinks online - petty the delivery guy.

This is how it looked when opened, very well packed nothing broken.

Contents were as follows, including the months the product has expired (-) or still to go on (+):

Unpacked:

Conclusion:

Not really convinced to be honest. Even with the discount and free shipping what I got for 32EUR is alright, but considering most is past (some quite a lot past) expiration nothing sensational. 

I guess ordering makes sense if they offer some products at a very good price which you really like and cannot get enough (so you get past the free shipping).

Claim compensation for delayed flight with AirEuropa - A modern odyssey

 Two years ago (before Corona that is) I took a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Medellin, Colombia with AirEuropa (AE) a Spain (Mallorca) based low budget carrier. AE seems to be owned by a family via Globalia Corporación Empresarial S.A. Due to technical issues in Frankfurt our plane was delayed and by the time we reached Madrid the connecting flight to Medellin was gone. So there big confusion and it took some hours for the very scarce staff of AirEuropa to reroute everyone onto new flights and arrange accommodation. For us that was a flight on the new day to Madrid -> Bogota -> Medellin with a night in a cheap Airport hotel close by including transport via bus back an further plus dinner and breakfast. All in all we arrived in Medellin with more than 24 hours delay.

Privatization of TLG IMMOBILIEN GmbH 2012 - 2015 Lone Star

Facts & Circumstances:

TLG IMMOBILIEN GmbH (TLG) is a German commercial real estate company which was founded in 1991 after the unification of Germany took over formerly GDR state owned real estate assets. Effective as of December 31, 2012 TLG was taken private in a tender won by Lone Star (LS) for a purchase price of EUR 1.1bln. 

German Ministry of Finance Source 

Fact Sheet TLG IMMOBILIEN as of before privatization 

 In a difficult environment LS managed to get TLG IPOed in October 2014 at a price of €10.75, all shareholding was sold off until July 2015.

Since then TLG developed quite well, did grow organically and via M&A and was control over TLG was acquired by competitor Aroundtown in late 2019. The COVID-19 restrictions are hitting commercial (break and mortar) businessses really hard, yet the recovery since the initial shock has been very step. This phenomenon can be overserved throughout the industry and is not TLG specific.

Question:

As a citizen I am always quite sceptical about the benefits of privatizations. So I wanted to find out: How much return did Lone Star make with this transaction.

Analyis:

I analysed the annual report 2013 - 2015 for transactions of/with shareholders and stock prices for share prices. All following values are in kEUR, except stated otherwise

The transaction between TLG and LS amount to the following:

The sale of share by LS in the open market I calculated as follows:

This makes a total calculated gain of EUR 1,216,072k vs. intital investment of EUR 1,100,000k, not taking into account discounting.

The return of EUR 116,072k sounds impressive at first, but if you consider it is equivalent to 10.6% based on capital invested for a holding period of 2.5 yrs and the risks involved is worse than I would have expected. I expect they have loaded up on debt to leverage but at 4.2% ROI p.a. I am not sure if they could debt finance at a much lower rate (back in 2012).

Concusion:

The € 1.1bln sales prices of the Ministry of Finance seems to have been quite a fair price at the point in time and certainly no steal/bargain for LS.