Daily Stock Market Report (Thur 24 July 2025) - VCP, JSE, TET, IGG, PEB, MAB1, JDG, RCH, AJB, SYS, EMR, SFR

Huge thanks to Roland and to all of you for keeping the show on the road yesterday as I was under the weather - the report had my name on it, but Roland was editing it!

Anyway, let's see what we've got today.

Wrapping it up now, thank you.

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Companies Reporting

Name (Mkt Cap)	RNS	Summary	Our view (Author)
AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) (£165bn)	Gefurulimab nanobody met Phase III endpoints	Statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements for rare autoimmune disorder.
Relx (LON:REL) (£71.5bn)	Interim Results	Reaffirms outlook. Expecting another year of strong underlying growth in rev and adj. op profit.
Lloyds Banking (LON:LLOY) (£46.5bn)	2025 Half-Year Results	2025 guidance reaffirmed (ROTE c.13.5%). Confident in 2026 guidance (ROTE>15%).
3i (LON:III) (£42.3bn)	Q1 performance update	A good start to FY26. NAV 2,711p (March 2025: 2,542p). Total return of 7% in three months.
Reckitt Benckiser (LON:RKT) (£34.2bn)	Results for the six months ended 30 June 2025	Upgrading LfL net revenue guidance to above 4% in Core (prev: 3-4%). £1 billion buyback.
Anglo American (LON:AAL) (£27.7bn)	Production Report Q2 2025	Production/cost guidance for continuing biz unch. Overall copper unit cost guidance unch.
Vodafone (LON:VOD) (£20.2bn)	€500m Buyback Programme & Q1 Trading Update	Reiterates full year guidance. Adjusted EBITDA after leases of €11.3-11.6bn, FCF €2.4-2.6bn.
BT (LON:BT.A) (£19.9bn)	Trading Statement	On track to achieve full year guidance: revenue £4.9bn (-3%), adj. EBITDA £2.1bn, PBT £468m.
Centrica (LON:CNA) (£7.69bn)	Half-Year Report	Outlook unchanged. H1 profit weighting. Usual uncertainties including weather, commodities.
Airtel Africa (LON:AAF) (£6.68bn)	Q1 Results	Customer base grew 9%. Rev +24.9% (cc). EBITDA +29.8% ($679m), profit after tax $156m.
Howden Joinery (LON:HWDN) (£4.6bn)	Half Year Report	On track with the outlook for 2025. Strong H1 close due to well executed promotions/incentives.
IG group (LON:IGG) (£3.7bn)	Results for financial year ended 31 May 2025	Rev +9%, adj. PBT +17% (£535.8m). Confident re: FY26 exps for revenue and cash EPS.	GREEN (Graham holds) One of my favourite companies and favourite shares, and a large part of my personal portfolio, I’m thrilled to see it performing so well. The supportive market conditions seen over the past year can’t be expected to continue indefinitely but I have a high degree of confidence in the new CEO and support the initiatives he is pursuing.
ITV (LON:ITV) (£2.9bn)	Half Year Results	SP +7% On track to deliver 2026 key financial targets. ITV Studios outlook unchanged.
AJ Bell (LON:AJB) (£2.1bn)	Q3 Trading Update	Customer numbers +17% y/y. AUA +15%. Strong momentum underpins confidence in full year.	GREEN (Graham) [no section below] Probably one of the highest-quality listed companies in the UK, this investment platform has posted a solid update with continued impressive growth figures. Clearly their formula is working and attracting a steady stream of new customers. Net inflows show investor willingness to participate in markets more broadly, in contrast to outflows at the fund managers we cover in this report. This was a particularly favourable quarter given high volatility (prompting dealing activity) and then a rebound (boosting AUA). While it could be argued that the current earnings multiple of 21x is “up with events”, I’d like to leave our GREEN stance unchanged given the strongly positive business and share price momentum (Stocko MomentumRank 85).
Sigmaroc (LON:SRC) (£1.26bn)	Interim Results (Trading Update)	H1 ahead of our exps. Outlook: do not expect market sentiment to improve markedly before year-end
Wizz Air Holdings (LON:WIZZ) (£1.12bn)	Q1 F26 Results	SP -4% Q2 outlook: Load factor flat (prev: >2ppt y/y). Rationalising A321XLR program.	BLACK
Vesuvius (LON:VSVS) (£962m)	Trading Statement	SP -10% Now anticipates that challenging conditions will persist. H2 performance to be similar to H1.
CVS (LON:CVSG) (£855m)	FY Trading Update	FY25 adj. EBITDA in line with consensus (£134m). Positioned well to deliver attractive growth.
Discoverie (LON:DSCV) (£686m)	Trading Update	In line. Expectations for adjusted earnings for FY26 unchanged. Q1 group orders -4% (cc).
Resolute Mining (LON:RSG) (£670m)	Initial Mineral Resource at Bantaco	Initial estimates for Bantaco West and Bantaco South prospects, total approx. 266koz gold.
M P Evans (LON:MPE) (£656m)	2025 H1 crop and production	Harvested crops +9%, total fresh fruit bunches -3%. Crude palm oil production -2%. CPO price +13%.
Boku (LON:BOKU) (£617m)	Trading Update	Full year rev growth ahead of exps. Adj. EBITDA in line with consensus if FX costs included.
Judges Scientific (LON:JDG) (£525m)	Half Year Trading Update	SP -18% H1 Revenue +7%, Adj. EPS +15%, “As a result of these headwinds coupled with the aforementioned business specific issues, the Board now anticipates delivering Adjusted basic earnings per share of between 285p and 330p per ordinary share in FY25 which is below market expectations” (expectations were 367.2p). Overall organic growth was 4%, with the major weakness being North America (down 18%).	BLACK (AMBER/RED) (Graham) [no section below] I’m dismayed to see this former small-cap favourite struggling to maintain its prior standards of performance. As noted in March, when I was neutral on the stock, there have numerous reasons to be cautious on it in recent times, and the danger has now materialised in the form of a fully-fledged profit warning, caused in particular by reductions in US federal government research funding. At the midpoint, the new EPS estimate is 16% below the prior consensus estimate. Personally I’m surprised that the share price is not down by more today, given the high multiple at which it was trading. As I do still admire many aspects of this company’s track record, and it is still profitable, I think a RED stance would be overly negative. I’m therefore content to downgrade our stance on this by just one notch.
Wickes (LON:WIX) (£523m)	6mo Trading Update	H1 Revenue +3% (1.6% LFL), Net cash £158m (24H1: £152.4m), “we remain comfortable with current consensus expectations for adjusted PBT in 2025.”
Mortgage Advice Bureau (Holdings) (LON:MAB1) (£450m)	Trading Update	Revenue +19% to £147m, Adj. PBT +14% to £14m. “The Group continues to trade in line with the Board's expectations.” Some pull-forward to transactions by the changes to Stamp Duty relief. Refinancing is expected to accelerate in H2 2025 and 2026 as five-year deals from the post-Covid boom expire.	GREEN (Graham) [no section below] Pleased to check in on this top performer from my watchlist. The franchised mortgage network has had a strong H1 and its market share of new mortgage lending has ticked up slightly to 8.3%. After some tough years in the mortgage market, it is now showing a little more confidence and its network has increased headcount by 5% in six months. If this confidence is well-founded, we should see a nice growth spurt in the coming months. I have no reason to change my positive view: while it’s not very cheap at a P/E multiple of 16x, I think the underlying quality and short-term growth prospects do support it. If the market becomes too complacent and overprices it, I will eventually remove it from my watchlist, but I don’t think we are there currently. The founder-CEO still owns 18%.
Reach (LON:RCH) (£240m)	Half-year Report	HY Revenue -3.4% to £256m, Operating Profit flat at £44.8m, EPS +6^ to 10.7p, Net Debt £26m (HY24:12.3m), interim dividend held. “Whilst July's referral volumes were impacted by Google's recent core update, we remain confident in delivering market expectations for the full year.”	AMBER/GREEN (Mark) The company presents some rather optimistic adjusted figures, but looking at the details none of what they want us to ignore is exceptional for a declining print business with a large pension deficit. If I assume that contributions to the schemes do actually end in 2028 as planned, I make the adjusted EV/FCF 7. This seems cheap, even for a business with its core part in permanent decline, but there are risks caused by almost all of the near-term cash flows going to the pension schemes and shareholder returns are being debt-funded.
Animalcare (LON:ANCR) (£200m)	H1 Trading Update	H1 Revenue +19% to £43.8m, U/L EBITDA +40% to £9.2m, Net debt £7.9m (21H1: £9.0m)
City of London Investment (LON:CLIG) (£181m)	Pre-Close Trading Update	Funds under Management +5.6% to $10.8 billion as of 30 June 2025 as compared to $10.2 billion as of 30 June 2024. Final dividend for the year ended 30 June 2025 to be in line with the previous year.
Aptitude Software (LON:APTD) (£164m)	Trading Update	“...with the deferral of some new opportunities and the significant change in GBP to USD exchange rate impacting reported revenues, Aptitude's revenues for FY 2025 are now expected to be broadly in line with the Board's expectations. As a result of the re-organisation of the business, including the benefits of cost reductions, the Board remains confident that the Group will meet its current profit expectations for FY 2025.”
Treatt (LON:TET) (£149m)	Trading Update	Now expect revenue of between £130m and £135m and profit before tax and exceptionals (PBTE) of between £9m and £11m, lower than previous guidance.	BLACK (AMBER) (Mark - I hold) Another PW here and while the company quantifies a PBTE range for FY25 of £9-11m, the lack of accessible brokers notes means we don’t have updated EPS estimates (my guess is 12.5p based on scaling the HY) or FY26 figures. Still I think these perhaps matter less to the investment case at the moment, given that the company trades at a discount to tangible book value. This makes the stock risky in the short term but with a good risk-reward ratio in the medium term, in my opinion.
Quartix Technologies (LON:QTX) (£118m)	Interim Results	Revenue +10% to £17.6m, EBITDA +30% to £3.7m, EPS +26% to 5.52p. “The Board is confident in the outlook for the remainder of the year and now believes that both profit and cashflow will be slightly ahead of market expectations.”
Jadestone Energy (LON:JSE) (£107m)	H1 2025 Trading Statement	H1 2025 average production +21% to 20,368 boe/d, Operating costs -10% to $112.8m. Net debt $107.6m (31 Dec: $104.8m) excl. $62.5m liftings received in early July. 2025 production guidance is increased by 1,000 boepd to 19,500-21,500 boe/d. 2025 operating cost range is reduced by $15m to US$240-280m.	AMBER (Mark) [no section below] A good H1 sees this O&G producer raise production guidance and lower cost-guidance. My simple maths says that this is probably worth an additional $25m of revenue, for a positive $40m swing in operating profit overall. This is certainly material for a company with a $150m market cap. However, this is currently suffering from an overhang (probably in both sentiment and shares) from recent well cost overruns and a history of operational weakness. Today’s trading update suggests that they may be turning the corner operationally, with the result being a material improvement in the financials.
Severfield (LON:SFR) (£103m)	Final Results	Revenue -3%, U/L Op Profit -42% to £21.7m, U/L EPS -52% to 4.3p. Net debt £43.1m (FY24: £9.4m). Outlook unchanged.	AMBER/RED (Mark) [no section below] These are poor results, even on an adjusted basis. Net debt on a pre-IFRS-16 basis balloons to £43.1m from £9.4m, funding higher working capital requirements even on reduced trading. On top of this there is £30m of provisions which are mainly due to the bridge remediation work they need to carry out net of insurance payouts. The reality is that that competitor Billington (which I hold) is cheaper, more conservative financed and better run.
Cornish Metals (LON:CUSN) (£102m)	Activities Update - South Crofty Tin	The first major phase of surface redevelopment at South Crofty started in early July with refurbishment of the Mine Dry building and demolition of the old Bartles Foundry buildings. Part funded by UK Government.
Victoria (LON:VCP) (£84.3m)	Final Results & Refinancing	U/L Revenue -9% to £1.115bn, U/L EBITDA - 28% to £113.7m, U/L LBT £11.5m. Net debt £897.9m, 7.9x EBITDA. “The Board expects revenue to return to a more typical H2 weighted seasonality after successive years of a contracting market, and H2 will also benefit from the ongoing self-help cost initiatives.” Refinancing has 90%+ support from bondholders.	RED (Mark) [no section below] The results are poor. The real stand out figure is the debt, which now stands at a whopping 7.9x EBITDA. This is in the process of being refinanced, but it seems that bondholders have little choice here but to pretend and extend. In my opinion, there remains a real chance of a debt-for-equity swap at some point. While the equity makes up a small part of the capital structure this will be volatile and attract traders. However, it looks far more like a gambling chip than an investment.
Bango (LON:BGO) (£64m)	Trading Statement	25H1 Revenue +5% to $25.2m, Adj. EBITDA +60% to $6.5m, Net debt $7.3m (24H1: $5.1m). “A solid performance in the first six months of the year underpins the Board's continued confidence in meeting full-year market expectations."
Ondo InsurTech (LON:ONDO) (£36m)	Partnership with vipHomeLink	“Under the agreement, vipHomeLink will provide the LeakBot water damage prevention system to its network of small and mid-sized U.S. insurance carriers, enabling streamlined access and complete, turnkey deployment of LeakBot programs at lower minimum volumes.”
iomart (LON:IOM) (£32m)	Final Results	Revenue +13% to £143.5m, Adj. EBITDA - 9% to 34.3m, Adj. EPS - 65% to 3.4p. Net debt £101.9m (FY24: £42.3m). Dividend foregone. Outlook: “Q1 trading was in line with the Board's expectations, recognising that cost reductions are more H2 weighted. Full year effect of net churn in FY25 will impact run-rate into FY26 but Q1 has achieved positive net order bookings.”
Manx Financial (LON:MFX) (£29m)	CAM Wealth Group	“CAM Wealth Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Group, has been granted regulatory permission by the UK FCA to sell and distribute general insurance products within the United Kingdom.”
Mission (LON:TMG) (£23m)	Trading Update	H1 organic revenue of £34.5m (24H1: £35.3m). Headline operating profit before adjustments of £2.1m (24H1: £1.9m). Net bank debt c.£13.6m (24H1:£19.6m, 31 Dec: £9.5m). “...on track to deliver full year revenue targets broadly in line with expectations and at least to meet full-year headline operating profit.”
Argo Blockchain (LON:ARB) (£21.8m)	Nasdaq Delisting Notice	Argo has not regained compliance with the minimum bid price requirement
Inspiration Healthcare (LON:IHC) (£19m)	AGM Statement	“we are confident in delivering a strong first half and meeting market expectations for the full year.”
SysGroup (LON:SYS) (£16.7m)	Final Results	Revenue -10% to £20.5m. Adj. EBITDA -55% to £0.9m. Adj. EPS -85% to 0.3p. Net cash £3.6m (FY24: Net debt £3.4m) after £10.6m fundraise in H1. Outlook: During the first quarter, we experienced a significant slowdown of discretionary spend …Whilst we are seeing a recovery in pipeline activity heading into the second quarter, we remain mindful of the near-term environment.”	AMBER/RED (Mark) [no section below] Given the continued cash burn, this company looks lucky to have got its raise away last year at 33p. This buys them some runway, but with poor results released today and little hope of a swift recovery in the outlook statement, the valuation looks stretched.
Eleco (LON:ELCO) (£151m)	Trading Update	SP -6% ARR +19% y/y (£30.7m). Deferred pipelines in construction have reduced non-recurring revenues.
Empresaria (LON:EMR) (£12m)	Trading Update	H1 NFI -8% to £23.4m, but flat on a CCY-LFL basis. Net debt £16.1m (31 Dec: £15.3m). FY results are expected to be in line with the board's expectations.	PINK (AMBER/RED) (Mark) [no section below] That NFI down 8% is a reasonable result shows how tough recruitment markets are at the moment. They say the increase in net debt is almost entirely down to currency movements. However, this simply underlines why most sensible companies in this sector run their business with net cash not debt. This is likely to increasingly push shareholders to accept the takeover offer here. However, this remains distinctly unattractive to the individual investors as it is mostly in unsecured loan notes.
Pebble Beach Systems (LON:PEB) (£11m)	Trading Update	SP +56% H1 Revenue +11% to £5.9m,EBITDA +42% to £2m. Significant overhead and R&D cost reductions lead to FY 25 and FY 26 profitability to be materially ahead of market guidance. Net debt £3.3m (24H1: £4.8m).	AMBER (Mark) A material beat together with illiquidity have driven a huge rise here. However, the beat seems to be almost entirely due to cost-cutting (including reducing new product development) making it an unsustainable source of future gains. EPS forecasts are flat but the debt is being paid down rapidly and the rating remains undemanding even after today’s rise.

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Graham's Section

IG group (LON:IGG)

Up 6% to 1120p (£3.9bn) - Results for the financial year ended May 2025 - Graham - GREEN

(At the time of publication, Graham has a long position in IGG.)

Quite pleased to see the positive reaction to this update, as IG is an important share for me (currently 13% of my portfolio).

Some highlights from these results:

• Revenue +9% to £1,075m.

• Adj. PBT +17% to £535.8m, margin improving from 46.2% to 49.8%. This is ahead of expectations of £523.5m.

• Actual PBT +25% to £499.2m.

Net interest income is included in the revenue figure and was down 6% as rates fell.

Without that headwind, revenue growth would have been higher - “net trading revenue” was up by 12%.

Capital returns: total dividend increases to 47.2p (from 46.2p), and there’s a new £125m buyback, “subject to share price performance and other demands on capital”. The amount spent on buybacks during FY25 was £235m.

Buybacks have helped to further boost EPS: for FY25, earnings per share rose 26% to 114.1p.

Customer numbers are distorted by the acquisition of Freetrade in April. Organically, active customers increased 5%.

Freetrade “performed strongly” in FY25, with assets under administration up 38% and revenue up 22%, but I don’t see it as material yet. Revenues were £29m, with only a small portion of this being generated after the takeover.

Despite the Freetrade acquisition, IG’s sprawling empire of small businesses has been curtailed by the CEO who joined in early 2024:

Exited multiple legacy and sandbox initiatives not delivering acceptable returns, including Spectrum, Brightpool, Raydius, Bad Trader, Small Exchange and our commercial operations in South Africa.

The core product has been improved with “TopTrader” (showing the positions held by IG’s most successful traders) and with a cash crypto offering. In the US, they are trying to simplify tastytrade (the options trading platform) and broaden its appeal. Accounts can be funded with crypto “stablecoins” and the range of tradable coins has expanded from 4 to 23.

CEO comment:

"In the first year implementing our strategy, we have made good initial progress delivering on our priorities of improving our product, embedding a high-performance culture and enhancing efficiency. I am pleased that we are getting closer to our customers and accelerating product velocity which is translating into stronger customer acquisition…

Looking forward, we are confident of meeting market expectations for total revenue and cash EPS in FY26. Beyond FY26, we expect total revenue to compound in a mid-to-high single-digit percentage range per annum on an organic basis, accelerating within this range over time, with cost discipline."

Estimates: thanks to IG for posting this on their website.

I note that PBT/PAT are expected to dip in FY26, before bouncing back in FY27. EPS is more resilient, presumably due to buybacks:

Graham’s view

As Breon Corcoran says, these FY25 results have benefited from “supportive market conditions”, with plenty of hot-button issues to get people trading over the past.

But that’s one of the reasons I’ve been invested here for so long: I enjoy holding shares in a business that benefits from market turmoil, as it gives me a natural hedge against anything else I might be holding.

Nothing in these results changes my view that this is an incredibly high-quality business, with fabulous cash generation (£491m of operating cash flow), return on equity (c. 20% again), and shareholder orientation with surplus cash being delivered to us on a regular basis.

If I was to put a very sceptical hat on, I could point to tastytrade as a source of risk. For a start, the seemingly relentless bullishness in the United States may have pulled more retail traders into the market than you’d get in tempered conditions.

Secondly, the news that customers there are funding their accounts with “stablecoins” could be viewed as a red flag. The phrase “stablecoin” is itself a misnomer in my view, with a claim to stability that I don’t believe is proven.

But… I am glad to have some exposure to crypto in this way. It seems to be one of the least objectionable ways to gain exposure to this asset class. If the boom continues, tastytrade will do well. If it turns out to be “a load of old cobblers”, as some of us suspect, then hopefully the hit to IG will be limited.

I’ve been holding this share for many years. For the longest time, it traded within a familiar range, but more recently has been breaking out of this range.

I think this is deserved: even at the current higher level, it trades on a P/E multiple of only 10x.

For a market leader with, as I’ve suggested, very high quality metrics, I think it still offers great value here.

The StockRanks don’t disagree, giving it a QualityRank of 100 and a StockRank of 91 - a Super Stock.

I’ll reiterate that I think the new CEO has a terrific background, having worked in the banking industry and then for many years at Paddy Power and then Betfair. I think he instinctively understands what he is dealing with at IG.

It will come as no surprise to readers that I’m GREEN on this.

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Mark's Section

Pebble Beach Systems (LON:PEB)

Up 56% to 14p - Trading Update - Mark - AMBER

It's a huge rise this morning from this microcap company and it is worth starting with a warning. The majority of the rise here occurred in the first 15 mins of trading with only around £50k worth of shares traded. Illiquidity here has certainly helped the rise. For the first three days of this week only £3k’s worth of shares traded in total. Anyone buying into this company on this rise needs to believe in the long-term future of the business, since liquidity tomorrow could be zero.

Here’s the cause of the rise:

The Group entered H2 25 with a strong order book giving the Board confidence in delivering profitability materially ahead of market expectations1 for FY 25 and into FY 26.

There’s only one broker here, Cavendish, so it is easy to quantify the impact as they say:

Upgraded forecasts reflect improved cost base visibility: adj PBT upgraded +27% to £2.4m (was £1.9mE) and adj dil EPS upgraded +27% to 1.9p (was 1.5pE) in both FY25E and FY26E

However, this material beat appears to be almost entirely driven by cost-cutting:

In January 2025, the Group announced strategic plans to focus on existing core capabilities as a broadcast solutions specialist, including a significant reduction in overhead and R&D costs under a process which commenced and concluded in H1 25.

While removing unnecessary cost is clearly a good thing for the business, it seems they have also significantly reduced investment into new products. Revenue is growing, but not at particularly impressive rates:

The Group expects to report increased revenues of c.£5.9m for the Period (H1 24: £5.3m) driven by the timing of project order intake and the continued growth in SLA revenue. Revenues in the Period comprised project revenues of c.£2.6m (H1 24: £2.2m) and recurring support revenue of c.£3.3 million (H1 24: £3.1m), both up year on year.

This makes this gain likely to be a one off. EPS forecasts are flat from FY25-26 at 1.9p. Even after today’s rise this is only a P/E of around 7, making it cheap, but perhaps not out of place if flat EPS is expected. This has always been a cheaply-rated stock because of the debt that they had so this is also good news:

At 30 June 2025 net debt was £3.3m (H1 24: £4.8m) with bank debt continuing to be paid down from the Group's improving operating cash flows. Following the strategic amendments announced in January 2025, the Group has greater certainty of cashflows and re-iterates the expectation of delivering annualised cash savings of c.£2.0m, with an expectation of moving to a net cash position during 2026.

My calculations show that this is currently on a EV/EBITDA of around 5, which again looks cheap for a software business, but again only if they can grow in other ways apart from cost-cutting.

Mark’s view

A stock with a materially ahead statement and a large one-day rise would seem to fit Ed’s criteria for a further upwards drift. However, in this case, it doesn’t meet the SR>70 criteria:

I am also a bit more cautious than usual given the illiquidity and that the gain here has come from cost cutting (including reducing new product development) rather than an unexpectedly strong top line. Balancing this is that the debt is largely being paid down through internally generated cash flow and the rating isn’t expensive. I’ll go for AMBER overall.

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Treatt (LON:TET)

Down 22% to 200p - Trading Update - Mark (I hold) - BLACK/AMBER

It is another profits warning here:

Treatt has continued to face trading headwinds since the announcement of the interim results on 13 May 2025 which will affect the performance for the full year. As a result, we now expect revenue of between £130m and £135m and profit before tax and exceptionals (PBTE) of between £9m and £11m, lower than previous guidance.

They helpfully quantify this:

Previous guidance at 10 April 2025 was £146-£153m revenue and £16m-£18m PBTE

They didn’t give us a similar breakdown at the previous profits warning, and unhelpfully, we don’t have access to broker’s notes here. I always feel that when mid-caps see their share price collapse to become a small cap again, they should be forced to employ a small cap broker (or at least commission some paid for research). We are largely flying blind here.

My basic maths says they did £3.6m PBTE in H1, reporting around 4.5p EPS, so they should do 12.5p EPS for the full year and the middle of their current guidance range.

The reasons given are simply a continuation of previous trends:

· Lower demand in Heritage from sustained high citrus oil prices affecting buying patterns, and leading to reformulation. Although citrus oil prices have started to reduce more recently, this has continued to impact both short-term buying patterns in value added citrus products and citrus margins. We expect a reduction of this adverse impact as citrus oil pricing normalises.

· Consumer confidence in the US, combined with geopolitical and tariff uncertainty in the US was impacting the overall beverage market in North America. This has persisted, reflected in extended softening of demand.

After the last trading update, we got a buyback, presumably intended to balance liquidity in the stock. However, with hindsight, all they appear to have done is wasted shareholders' money buying back stock at a premium to today’s price.

The £5m share buyback was completed in May 2025. The balance sheet remains strong, and we now expect to report a low net debt position at the year-end as a result of the expected lower level of profitability for the period (compared to previous guidance of £1-3m of net cash).

This level of net debt shouldn’t worry investors as this is still a profitable business, although at reduced levels, and gearing levels will be modest compared to most companies of a similar size.

Valuation:

Based on my 12.5p EPS estimate and 200p share price the stock trades on a 16x earnings, not cheap in the current market. I have no idea what the FY26 forecasts now look like but they would be taken with a pinch of salt at this stage anyway.

What is interesting is that I make the current P/TBV 0.85 based on the H1 results. This looks low for a company that is still profitable and is a previous stock market darling that fund managers would have put in their “never-sell” quality compounders portfolio a few years ago.

The risk is that that majority of those assets are their manufacturing facilities, and inventory:

These may not provide much downside protection in a liquidation scenario, but we are a long way from even considering this. Instead, my assumption is that management will either make these assets productive again or someone else will.

Mark’s view

I’ve held my nose this morning and bought some shares below £2. While there is certainly a risk that there is a further profits warning to come, and management haven’t covered themselves in glory with a badly-time buyback, the discount to TBV suggests that there is value here. If the share price dropped much further, another larger food additives business may see the opportunity to buy the company for little more than the value of their assets. If instead management deliver on their pipeline and in a couple of years EPS is back to the 30p level that was forecast prior to these warnings, then the share price is likely to be back around the £5 mark. This makes the risk-reward look favourable to me from these levels. Roland had this as AMBER at 271p when it was last reviewed on the DSMR, with the outlook lower but the share price also lower, I am of a similar view today.