Good morning! A jolly time was had by all at the usual monthly Mello investor evening in Beckenham last night, organised by my friend David Stredder. These are excellent evenings, and very friendly, as everyone has a common interest in shares.
The company presenting was HML Holdings (LON:HMLH) who provide professional services to blocks of flats. Management were the type of people that I like to invest in - straightforward, down to earth, hands-on management. They gave clear answers to questions, and seemed to present the business in a non-hyped way. Crucially also, I felt they were not trying to conceal anything about the business, it was an open book. So a firm thumbs up from me for this management team.
As for the shares, I think they are fairly priced at 37.5p, so it's one to go on my watch list, to possibly buy on any future dips, who knows? It's a bit too small & illiquid for my taste though, so I would only buy if the market throws me a bargain buying opportunity at say 30p or less.
Some investors don't like meeting management, which is a good idea if you're easily sucked in by a persuasive pitch. However I find meeting management very worthwhile - I can usually detect problems instinctively, and seem to have a sixth sense that rings alarm bells in my head when something is wrong. Maybe it's subconscious reading of body language, who knows?
dotDigital (LON:DOTD)
Share price: 33.5p
No. shares: 285.2m
Market Cap: £95.5m
Trading update - today's update reads very positively - it covers the six months to 31 Dec 2014. Revenue is up 31% to £10.9m, and I think this growth is all organic too.
Net cash has grown to £9.5m, so that's 10% of the market cap.
A final divi of 0.2p has been approved, which is an unnecessarily mean yield of only 0.6%. Come on DotDigital! You've got the cash in the bank, so pay a proper divi! To my mind they should be paying about 3-4 times that figure in divis.
Valuation - I like this business a lot, but the price is so high on the historic figures. That said, with 31% organic growth being achieved, you could argue a strong case for this stock deserving a premium rating - if that growth rate…
