LCG - London Capital Group
I did my main write up on LCG here. The two big bits of news since then for LCG have been thetrading update and the change (again!) of the CEO, Mark Slade. With regards to the CEO, I'm sorry to see Mark go after such a short period but it does seem genuinely to be for non-business related reasons (and on the bright side, the overly generous options package granted to Mark will no longer dilute shareholders). The new CEO's background seems well suited to the role and he's already a shareholder so knows the business well.
The trading statement generated a bit of positive movement for the shares as it confirmed that the core business had grown from £12.8m to £13.2m (and this is based on the good H1 last year, not the bad H2) although the institutional FX and broking business declined from £4.8m to £3.1m. They claim an "adjusted" profit before tax of £3.1m compared to £2.7m in last year's H1. There's the expected IT platform cost (they are running two platforms concurrently whilst they perform a migration and should cease when completed) and some restructuring costs (which I think should be expected, given they are going through a much needed cost cutting process). Even being cynical with regards to how non-recurring these costs are, that's still an annual run-rate of £3m PBT (£6.2m if you think they are genuinely non-recurring) compared to a market cap of ~£23m (as I write, the shares are up today). They've disposed of two loss making divisions as well, which is good news. I still think there's plenty of upside left here.
PVCS - PV Crystalox Solar
All seems suspiciously quiet on the news front here from PVCS, as shareholders have been expecting a large return of capital (7.25p per share, compared to a market price of ~11.5p) for months now. Correspondence with the company has sadly only yielded a "wait and see" message, as they wait till the next trading update to announce what they'll do. The proposed tariff on Chinese imports on solar panels in to the market materialised, although they were somewhat less drastic than what was hoped for they still offer some degree of relief for the market. PVCS is still a net-net…
