Good morning! There was a positive-sounding contract wins accouncement from niche marketing company Spaceandpeople (LON:SAL) on Friday. This confirms my view that Spaceandpeople is on a roll, and should achieve about 10p undiluted EPS this year. Therefore at 134p the shares are priced at a fairly reasonable PER of 13.4, which is not an aggressive valuation for a good growth company.
It is interesting to note that their potential markets are much greater than just shopping centres. In this announcement the company mentions a new contract to manage space in 142 UK garden centres. This comes on top of previous announcements about railway stations. So there should be plenty of scope for SAL to continue growing market share in its main UK and German markets, with potential overseas expansion also a possibility. So I remain enthusiastic about this company.
Interim results from Solid State (LON:SSP) look to have slightly disappointed the market, at least in terms of its initial reaction - their shares are currently down 7.5p to 259p. Profit before tax has fallen from £732k to £564k, for the six months to 30 Sep 2013, compared with the equivalent prior year six-month period.
EPS dropped from 8.5p to 7.5p for the six months, although the outlook sounds encouraging, summarised here;
As in previous years, we expect the result for the year to be significantly second half weighted, which is supported by a record order book and strong enquiry levels. This order book strength underpins the Board's confidence in declaring an interim dividend of 2.75p.
A small (just over 1m shares) Placing at 240p has also been announced, to finance a bolt-on acquisition. It really is noteworthy how many fundraisings are going on at the moment, and the relative ease with which companies are obtaining financing. I can't see any reason why that would change any time soon, so let the good times roll. Although you would imagine that at some point investors appetite for fresh equity will be used up. No sign of us reaching that point yet. I suppose the warning signs might be when new issues start going to discounts - a lot of appetite for new issues must be coming from people who just think…
