I first covered Vislink (LON:VLK) back in April, and they've been in my portfolio since mid-May, when I freed up some cash by selling some of the other constituents and decided to take the plunge with the broadcast & surveillance tech company. That's proven to be one of my better decisions; they're up about 60% in that roughly 4 month timespan, a rather generous return. Clearly, they now deserve at least a second look, both to catch up with the company post their results and consider whether a significant jump in price sees the shares still looking attractive.
As I mentioned above, the company operates broadly in two segments - broadcast and surveillance. Broadcast mostly relates to the capture and wireless transmission of video and audio. Surveillance operates in a similar area - the technology is basically the same gist, transmitting data from A to B, but the focuses are different. It's a niche, sure, but it's a wide market - and that's an attractive feature. They do one part of an important and growing service, and do it well.
The results
While the share price has been meandering upwards since July, the big spike came with the announcement of their half-year results at the end of last month. Put simply, they look good for the future - while revenue is only up slightly, order intake - a more important indicator of what they're likely to do in the next few years - was up 32%. Adjusted operating profit was up 43%, at £2m, and there's a cherry on that cake, too - management have included a £0.5m charge to this half's operating profit since they expect to be paying management bonuses if/when they meet market expectations for the full year. Well; cake/cherry wise is entirely a matter of perspective, really, since that's money not going to shareholders - but the positive slant is that if this is a non-recurring 'turnaround' bonus, this year's operating profit further understates intrinsic earnings potential.
Sadly for us, as far as I can tell, it isn't really non-recurring - it's just their performance related bonus agreed last year -so managements' specific pointing out is probably a hint at something else. What's that something? Well, the 2012 annual report states that 'no performance related cash bonus can be earned unless the Group has achieved an adjusted…
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