I Read The News Today Oh Boy! 10-May-2019

10th May '19 by matylda

15 comments 1889 reads

Morning all!

Andrews Sykes ( Andrews Sykes (LON:ASY) ) – 580p – £245m – PER 16.8

Results For The 12 Months To End December 2018 – Revenue up 10.2%, Operating Profit up 17.6% with EPS up 21%.

First coverage for me and (after a quick glance) looks OK but no real idea - Will probably looks into a little more today or over the weekend.

Eurocell ( Eurocell (LON:ECEL) ) – 226p – £226m – PER 10.8

AGM Statement & Trading Update For The First 4 Months Of 2019 – Confident of FY being in-line.

Not enough here to get my any more interested.

Premier Technical Services ( Premier Technical Services (LON:PTSG) ) – 69p – £85m – PER 4.9

Trading Update For The 12 Weeks To End March 2019 – "Recent acquisitions of Guardian and Trinity are performing ahead of management expectations", confident of a successful year in-line with the Board's expectations.

Remains interesting but I believe there are still some FCA issues lingering here plus the Debtor days and Debt levels are high. Not for me.

T Clarke ( T Clarke (LON:CTO) ) – 128.5p – £55.7m – PER 7.2

AGM Statement & Trading Update YTD – Expects Revenue and PBT to be in-line with previously upgraded market expectations, £340m and £9.3m respectively with EPS at 17.5p. Believes well placed for target of sustainable 3% Profit Margin. Order book at £403m (£368m this time last year).

I am Long here, I like this update so see no reason to change my position at present.

As always, all comment most welcome!

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timarr

10th May '19

The critical thing about Andrews Sykes (LON:ASY) is the ownership. Their chairman, Tony Murray, controls over 85% of the stock. He's also 99 years old, so presumably there'll be a change of control at some point. Two of his sons are on the board.

timarr

MrContrarian

My morning smallcap tweet:

RA International (LON:RAI), Brewin Dolphin Holdings (LON:BRW)

RA International (RAI) $9.8m contract over 5 years from UN for Somalia.
Brewin Dolphin (BRW) £60m placing at 305p, a 5% discount, to boost regulatory capital after depleting it making acquisitions.

Albertos

Andrews Sykes (LON:ASY)

Only 8% free float and 1000bps spread would be 2 red flags for me which I presume you are alluding to.

Have they said anything on succession?

Phil

Hi Phil

Not that I've seen. You'd imagine they'd keep it in the family. I can only think that the reason for the AIM listing is IHT relief. Nothing else seems to explain why this even has a listing.

timarr

garbetklb

Hi Tim
I think IHT relief would still apply if they were not AIM listed - I believe the definition is "Unlisted" and AIM is deemed not to be a listed exchange.
Andy

andrea34

In have belatedly put a trade in for T Clarke (LON:CTO) this morning after this update; the targeted margin is excellent for the industry that they opposite in, and the improved order book looks good; I'm attracted to the low PEG too.

Symphony Environmental Technologies (LON:SYM) have leapt almost 50% on the confirmation that the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has been instructed by the European Commission to close the oxo-degradable plastics restriction process which commenced in December 2017 because the Commission thought that those plastics created microplastics. Of course, there aren't any actual numbers in the report......

There is a very wishy-washy solid trading update from Irish insurance/services business £FBD which doesn't suggest I should look at them any further.

The update from Premier Technical Services (LON:PTSG) looks promising. In the last finals, two divisions were doing well and two were flat, debt had been reduced through part proceeds of the share placing.... at 157.5p!!!! Debt does not look that high to me, roughly 30% of turnover, thought debt collection is poor. What are the FCA issues, please, Matylda? The price does seem to have been clobbered a little excessively, perhaps.

Oh, VP (LON:VP.) announces another, relatively small, acquisition... as if they needed to take on any more debt.

Have a nice weekend all.

Andrea

Hi Andy

I think IHT relief would still apply if they were not AIM listed - I believe the definition is "Unlisted" and AIM is deemed not to be a listed exchange.

Duh! Yes, you're right :)

Not at all obvious why this is listed at all. Shame really, it's a nice company.

matylda

Premier Technical Services (LON:PTSG) - Can't seem to find the FCA issue in my notes, perhaps I was mistaken (apologies).

Andrews Sykes (LON:ASY) - Yes, the free float and spread is a bit of a put off here, agreed.

No bother re Premier Technical Services (LON:PTSG) - if the two "recent acquisitions are performing ahead of management expectations" and they are "confident of a successful year in-line with the Board's expectations", does this mean that the rest of the company is falling slightly behind expectations? :-/

One would perhaps think so!

simoan

It can only be to provide the majority shareholder a liquid market to sell into to raise cash, should they so wish. IMHO listing rules should insist on a minimum free float of say 50%.

All the best, Si

Possibly. Only there have been negligible director sales since Tony Murray took over and the Murrays are enormously rich anyway. There's no obvious need for him to ever need to raise money and if he does he can just push out another dividend.

All very curious, but the man's nearly a 100 years old and a WW2 air hero so he probably feels he can do what he damn well wants ...

Tbh I don't know anything about the company. Having a free float <10% is ridiculous and so it is not anywhere near in my "investable universe". It may as well not exist and I've already spent far more time thinking about it than is worthwhile just reading this thread :-)

That's very fair comment indeed £ASY

William K

12th May '19

I have belatedly put a trade in for T Clarke (LON:CTO) this morning after this update; the targeted margin is excellent for the industry that they opposite in, and the improved order book looks good; I'm attracted to the low PEG too.

Me too.

I Read The News Today Oh Boy! 10-May-2019

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Matylda

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