ADS - Alliance Data Systems

[NotSoWise]

For me it looks like a restructuring situation. Melissa was in Ed's team, so not interested about taking out all the mess, as it was partially her mess. Once the new guy comes in he may take out a few dead bodies from the closet, make new reserves for portfolios and replace some people below him, potentially CFO. It will take some time to fix on a challenging market.

Wasn't the guidance about 2019 only?

But overall its a positive change (base effect I guess), but not without its risks.

[maybe4less]

For me it looks like a restructuring situation. Melissa was in Ed's team, so not interested about taking out all the mess, as it was partially her mess. Once the new guy comes in he may take out a few dead bodies from the closet, make new reserves for portfolios and replace some people below him, potentially CFO. It will take some time to fix on a challenging market.

Wasn't the guidance about 2019 only?

But overall its a positive change (base effect I guess), but not without its risks.

Yeah, I'm out for now.

Best Case: we have no real CEO and no real story for six months until after Q1 earnings. Then Andretta comes in and writes stuff down, a bunch of one-time charges, resets long-term guidance, etc.

Worst Case: No one noticed how bad Miller was until she was in charge and there are serious problems with the card business she ran for such a lone time.

[kab60]

For me it looks like a restructuring situation. Melissa was in Ed's team, so not interested about taking out all the mess, as it was partially her mess. Once the new guy comes in he may take out a few dead bodies from the closet, make new reserves for portfolios and replace some people below him, potentially CFO. It will take some time to fix on a challenging market.

Wasn't the guidance about 2019 only?

But overall its a positive change (base effect I guess), but not without its risks.

Guidance included 2020 as well. But communication isn't a strong skill of theirs, so who knows?

[LC]

Ralph is a good guy, I would not be worried with him at the helm. I picked up some shares in support.

[NotSoWise]

Do you know him personally - or is it based on his CV?

[LC]

I've worked with him professionally for a number of years for certain consumer modelling related items.

Structurally the company has challenges of course, but I always found him capable and therefore anything under his control I would be confident he can manage effectively.

[Spekulatius]

I've worked with him professionally for a number of years for certain consumer modelling related items.

Structurally the company has challenges of course, but I always found him capable and therefore anything under his control I would be confident he can manage effectively.

Pretty interesting insight and I think in this case, a new CEO can make quite a bit of difference. The former CEO Melissa Mayer came from the marketing and seemed to lack the skill to really run the business with predicable results. I do think we might see major reset (these marketing folks always see the world with rose colored glasses) but once that is done, we could look at an interesting situation here.

[NotSoWise]

Thanks for feedback on the new CEO.
Agree, worth observing the situation how it develops and waiting for the first quarterly call with him to get more insights. For the time being its a black box out of which anything can come out (both good and bad) in the next few months.

[Spekulatius]

Podcast episode from scuttleblurb discussing ADS:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scuttleblurb/id1443244539?i=1000459218424

[ander]

Anyone following this name with the new CEO having joined?