Good morning!

I had a discussion with our Graham yesterday. We both agreed that readers clearly want more prompt reports from us. So we're going to experiment with the format, and aim to get our reports up much earlier in the day. So it might take the format of an initial quick review, then some more detailed stuff (which takes longer to research) later, each day.

We've got a bit sloppy, so it's time to pull up our socks! Although I don't really like rushing to get things out, as that increases the likelihood of mistakes slipping through.


In case you missed it, yesterday's completed report included sections on - Telit (TCM), Tasty (TAST), SCS, and Water Intelligence (WATR) - here's the link for that.

So here are today's quick fire comments from me;


ST Ives (LON:SIV)

Probably the most interesting update that I've read so far today. This marketing company updates us today on the year ended 28 Jul 2017. The key bit says;

The board reports that the overall results for the year are expected to be at the top end of the range of current market expectations.


Stockopedia shows consensus of 12.9p EPS. At the time of writing, the ungodly hour of 08:20, the share price is currently up 12.6% to 61.4p. That puts SIV on a PER of only 4.8 - strikingly cheap.

However, bear in mind that this company has a lot of debt, and a pension deficit. Its balance sheet is very weak - as I explained here when reviewing its figures after a profit warning in Jan 2017.

Bear in mind also that forecasts for this year were reduced considerably after that profit warning, so hitting the top end of forecasts is actually still a performance well below recent years' previous results.

Note that there have been some property disposals of £9.9m, to improve the net debt position. Also that agreement has been reached on pension contributions - at £3.8m in the new financial year, and £3.0m p.a. thereafter. That is an increase from £2.4m p.a. previously. So a fairly hefty drain on cashflow, with money that could otherwise have been paid out in divis. This needs to be factored into your valuation of the company, as a negative.

Overall, whilst I don't…

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