Daily Stock Market Report (Wed 29 Jan 2025) - VANL, PAY, DWL, HSP, AJB, CWR, SMWH

29th Jan by Graham Neary

87 comments 6835 reads

Good morning! The Agenda is now complete.

1pm: we're out of time now for this report, enjoy the rest of your day!

Companies Reporting

Name (Mkt Cap)	RNS	Summary	Our view (Author)
United Utilities (LON:UU.) (£6.7bn)	Final Determination & TU	Agreed £13bn capex for 2025-30. Current trading in line with FY25 guidance.
AJ Bell (LON:AJB) (£1.8bn)	TU	Record AUA up 3% to £89.5bn in Q1. Customer numbers +4% in qtr. Outlook positive.	GREEN (Graham) Staying positive on this one even if growth might possibly be less rapid than it was before, due to its excellent market positioning.
Pennon (LON:PNN) (£1.5bn)	£490m Rights Issue	Issuing shares at 264p, 35% disc to ex-rights price. Cash needed to fund spending through 2030.
WH Smith (LON:SMWH) (£1.5bn)	TU	LFL sales +3% in 21 weeks to 25 Jan, Travel LFL +8%. N. Am performance improving.	AMBER/GREEN (Graham) A pleasant update from this Travel retailer, with the expected divergence between growth in Travel and shrinkage on the High Street. The recently announced possible sale of High Street continues to make a lot of sense to me.
Raspberry PI Holdings (LON:RPI) (£1.4bn)	TU	Channel demand normalising. Adj EBITDA “not less than $36m” for 2024. Outlook sounds mixed.
Dowlais (LON:DWL) (£920m)	Takeover offer	Cash and shares offer from US peer valued at 85.2p per DWL share.	PINK (Roland) My initial impression is that this is a poor deal for DWL shareholders, favouring the acquirer.
PayPoint (LON:PAY) (£502m)	TU	On track to deliver FY25 exps. Net rev +1.9% to £53m in Q3, some weakness in Shopping div.	GREEN (Graham) Upgrading this on valuation grounds (it’s cheaper now vs. Nov). On track for £100m of EBITDA by the end of FY26.
FDM (Holdings) (LON:FDM) (£290m)	TU	2024 results to be in line with exps. 30% headcount reduction. 2025 outlook uncertain.
Ceres Power Holdings (LON:CWR) (£270m)	FY TU	Record order intake >£110m, revs at upper end of guidance £55-£60m. GM exp 78-80%.	AMBER (Graham) Heavily loss-making and therefore speculative, but the historic losses are offset by a strong balance sheet and really impressive growth.
Hargreaves Services (LON:HSP) (£195m)	Interim Results	H1 rev +14% to £125m, PBT +96% to £5.3m. FY results to be in line, divisional perf mixed.	GREEN (Roland) A strong outlook for the Services business supports an upgrade to FY26…

Unlock with Email

Unlock with Google

Already have an account?
Login here

ezlifeme

29th Jan

Exactly the point - you need to know the number held in treasury just as Graham said. I don't invest in companies that spend profits buying back, to then gift to the Executive team that voted for the buyback! Personal stance on skin in the game level playing field etc

Ternheim

I agree totally with Roland on Dowlais. Stay independent, keep buying your shares back and paying us a generous dividend .

Paul Hill

#DWL #AXL

Hi Roland - I suspect one of the possible attractions of the #AXP deal to the Dowlais (LON:DWL) Board, was effectively being able to delist from the UK market - & instead trade on the NYSE under an existing company's quote, where valuations are much higher for similar auto-parts businesses.

Viz

I understand he has received a suspension. If true, totally uncalled for :(

Cuddlesticks

The numbers clearly show revenue and profit growth have reversed in what was their core business.

I've not said anything about hVIVO (LON:HVO)'s circle of competence or the adjacent markets being widely divergent....the markets appear to be adjacent, but requiring investment if they are to successfully address the decline in growth and turn around a loss making acquisition. An important change and challenge which shouldn't be dismissed off hand.

Management could have been much more transparent about the challenges they face.

Like all investments, I think it's important to discuss both the downside and upside risks.

BnB

Completely agree. I was just giving the other side of the argument. Neither of us can know for sure!

Bouden54

I rarely get involved in these tiresome spats, but struggle to see why this individual gets so much support. His tone is consistently obnoxious and while he does appear relatively knowledgeable, I feel this forum would be a much more pleasant place without him. I'm pretty sure he was a factor in Paul Scott leaving too.

blaz

Is there a block poster function on stocko? Those that find him rude could then use this function, and leave the rest of us to still read his posts?

WarrantStar

I think it should be standard practice that, if any post or comment is deleted by a moderator, the author should be given an explanation as to why it has been deleted.

Unfortunately you'd still have the tiresome back and forth responses from the other members he's picked a fight with - unless you block all those too!

Rusty2

Yes, l quite agree. Some of mine were deleted last year, no explanation was given and could not see any reason for it, apart from maybe replying to some posts that also were also moderated.

Pimlico on Thames

I can't help but think that yesterday's 10% spike at Renold (LON:RNO) may have been the result of a read across of careless whispers on the Dowlais (LON:DWL) bid.

rmillaree

Saga (LON:SAGA)

I dont believe it (as victor would say)

https://news.sky.com/story/sag...

saga seem to manage to make a hash of everything they do - on the face of it decent terms refinacing to give them plenty of time should be complete game changer - lets see if finance company charge a huge wad to provide this finance.

ed_miller

There could be a 'Leave the Conversation/thread' function made available to cover such scenarios.

intuitive6191

I am bit late to the party today so I am reading a complete thread.

From a readability perspective it makes it difficult when a post is deleted as quite often there are many posts referring and connected to the deleted post.

Also the posts get very narrow on my screen as blue lines encroach onto the screen where sub-posts are plentiful.

Is there anything Stock can do to improve format and readability?

G Morris

Reassured by results today from Hargreaves Services (LON:HSP) and PayPoint (LON:PAY). Hold both as a shareholder than following the crowd and investing on fundamentals.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But would you prefer a 'more pleasant' place where people just post platitudes, or a proper discussion place where challenges are made and often can be proved correct?

I know he isn't everyone's cup of tea, but surely we need people like Yiannos to avoid people drifting into echo chambers where actually, aren't making profits and not seeing an alternative, factual view?

Aren't we big enough to disagree with others without having to censor views?

Cisk

I suspect one of the main attractions to the Dowlais (LON:DWL) board is probably bonus payment in the event of change of control!

I'll be voting against and encourage others to do the same. This deal is trying to get the company on the cheap - after all it was de-merged from Melrose at 120p. The Board own 0.3% of the company - not sure the % in public hands but let's hope majority of private investors and some enlightened institutions vote against, failing to achieve the 75% of votes required....

lagib

Use your phone in landscape mode to sort out the blue line problem.

Thank you - I use a laptop......

Huge amount of screen devoted to "Securities mentioned" with the important discussion squeezed into very small remaining space between blue lines.

As a workaround I play with the browser settings - but not ideal.

Daily Stock Market Report (Wed 29 Jan 2025) - VANL, PAY, DWL, HSP, AJB, CWR, SMWH

Companies Reporting

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

About the Author

Graham Neary

87 comments

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...