Ann: S&P DJI Announces March 2024 Quarterly Rebalance, page-31

Gee whizz... If anyone is getting emotional here, it ain't me!

Asking someone simply to support their statement with more than 'because I just know'.

One thing I know for sure - if 25-30% EBITDA margins really were on offer broadly across this industry (outside of high-end restorations or other minor market segments that a large player like AMA wouldn't and shouldn't be interested in), AMA would have been snapped up by private equity/smart money a LONG time ago now. But they haven't, because those margins are not broadly on offer because the insurers hold too much market power.

I'm sorry, but nothing you are saying about how profitable this industry is makes any sense to me

You're entitled to your opinion and I appreciate that you have a wealth of industry knowledge/experience, but that doesn't give you the right to make statements of opinion and present them as fact. Those IBIS reports aren't perfect, but they are at least based on data.

If you have better/more accurate industry data that you're unwilling to share in this forum, you should reach out to AMA - they might be interested if its suggesting they should be making money hand over fist!

"They are now scrambling for 600 plus staff" - this would imply an 18% increase on their total headcount of 3,370, and that includes ACM. This is completely nonsensical and implies that they have 20-30 empty shops waiting for staff, which they don't. Where have you plucked this 600 number from?

They hibernated/closed sites and let people go because they didn't have the work volumes at the right prices for it to make sense to keep operating them (ie. losing more money by operating than they would have by closing them). Any network business (retail, restaurants, petrol stations etc) closes stores that are unprofitable to focus on its profitable ones. In AMA's case, given their significant amount of debt, they probably felt like they had no choice if they wanted to survive. Making people redundant is never a nice thing to do in business, but unfortunately it has to be done sometimes.