Good morning.
I am particularly struck this morning by announcements from two companies that I am familiar with: Northbridge Industrial Services (LON:NBI) and NAHL (LON:NAH).
Northbridge Industrial Services (LON:NBI)
The company is a supplier of electrical testing equipment to heavy industry. One of their products is a loadbank - essentiually a huge electrical capacitor that you can hook up to an electrical generator for test purposes.
I used to own shares in this company, selling too soon following a Mail on Sunday tip. I'm a big fan, like I am of any successful AIM company. Northbridge has achieved a significant amount of growth through acquisition, which still takes some doing.
Results for the first six months of the year are here:
http://www.investegate.co.uk/northbridge-ind-serv-...
(when I said that the company has been successful, that is evinced in seven years of successive dividend increases)
There is more sunshine today in the results:
• Group revenue up 13.8% to £21.2 million (2013: £18.6 million)
• Gross profit up 16.6% to £11.6 million (2013: £9.9 million)
• Operating profit up 27.6% to £3.6 million (2013: £2.8 million)
• Strong cash generation from operations before movements in working capital of £6.5 million (2013: £4.8 million)
· Continuing investment into hire fleet totaling £3.0 million
• Reduction in net gearing to 29.8% (31.5% at 31 December 2013)
• Significant increase in revenue from Middle East and Asia-Pacific businesses
• EPS up 17.5% to 14.8 pence per share (2013: 12.6 pence)
• Interim dividend increased by 10% to 2.2 pence (2013: 2.0 pence)
Stockopedia has the shares trading on 17.1 times 2014 estimates earnings, with the prospect of a 1.1% dividend. That's about as high as I have ever seen the rating here.
The company looks to have opportunistically capitalised on this today, announcing a placing and an acquisition:
http://www.investegate.co.uk/northbridge-ind-serv-...
the placing price was a 7.5% discount, which seems about right and nothing much to complain about, just have to hope that they get the purchase right!
Outlook:
We are pleased with the Group's progress during the first half of 2014 with the strong performance providing substantial underpinning of the full year forecast but with further revenue to be secured prior to the year end. We expect continued growth in line with management's expectations.
