I Read The News Today Oh Boy! 2-Aug-2018

2nd Aug '18 by matylda

4 comments 3139 reads

Morning all!

Communisis ( Communisis (LON:CMS) ) – 51p – £107.0m – PER 7.17

Interim Results For The 6 Months To End June 2018 – Reasonably positive, FY in-line and the Pension Deficit and Net Debt are both down about 25% and 15% respectively.

I remain uninspired by the growth here and remain Neutral for now.

Eurocell ( Eurocell (LON:ECEL) ) – 252p – £252.8m – PER 11.0

Results For The 6 Months To End June 2018 – Nice to see a head line “Financial results in line with expectations and good progress with strategic priorities”. H2 weighting should see FY in-line with expectations.

Looks about fairly priced here to me, I remain Neutral.

Portmeirion ( Portmeirion (LON:PMP) ) – 1122.5p – £122.0m – PER 15.0

Interim Results For The 6 Months To End June 2018 – Strong H1 and confident of meeting FY market expectations.

Looks like there may be some upside here but sure there’s enough to push it through 1300, I remain Neutral.

Gattaca ( Gattaca (LON:GATC) ) – 125.25p – £40.3m – PER 4.09

Trading Update For The 12 Months To End July 2018 – FY PBT expected to be broadly in-line, Net Debt will be £46m (the Market Cap is just £40.3m).

I was Neutral but considering the progress here and that huge Net Debt, this in now going on my Avoid list.

VP ( VP (LON:VP.) ) – 1132.5p – £454.7m – PER 11.6

AGM Statement – Positive start to the year, trading is in-line with the Board’s expectations.

Those willing to accept the “macro market uncertainties” mentioned in this statement may have some interest here. I am not that way inclined at the moment so remain Neutral.

Walker Greenback ( Walker Greenbank (LON:WGB) ) – 78p – £55.4m – PER 6.19

Trading Update For The 6 Months To End July 2018 – “The Board's expectations for the full year remain unchanged following the trading update issued on 24 July 2018, which stated that Adjusted PBT for the…

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MrContrarian

2nd Aug '18

My morning smallcap tweet: Estate agent offers 80% discount to shift stock.

Advanced Oncotherapy (LON:AVO), Countrywide (LON:CWD), Porta Communications (LON:PTCM), Novacyt SA (LON:NCYT), Eservglobal (LON:ESG), Sinclair Pharma (LON:SPH)

Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO) has raised £6.4m at 49p, a 4% discount, from new investors based in Switzerland and two NEDs. The NEDs have bought 540k! AVO raised £33.3m this year already. Some v negative articles on ShareProphets.
Countrywide (CWD) H1 rev down 9%. Adjusted EBITDA £10.7m (£27.8m), slightly better than recent guidance. Firm placing and open offer of 1.4bn shares at 10p (an 80% disc!) to raise £129m net. Huge dilution of existing 238m shares. I'm short.
Porta Communications (PTCM) H1 trading: ahead of management expectations on an Adjusted EBITDA basis which will be no more than 15% down YoY. Also positive discussions with its lender re refinancing of £5.2m convertible loan that matured on 29 June. Er, so they defaulted? Can't see an RNS about that.
Novacyt (NCYT) Warns FY on rev due to underperformance of the NOVAprep business but cost cutting means EBITDA profitability [sic] is expected to be be higher than previously anticipated.
Eservglobal Limited (ESG) H1 trading. Orders received exceeded forecasts at €7.7m. "This, together with the strong pipeline for the second half, puts the Company in a strong position to reach the breakeven target for the year. Only €1.2M of the €7.7M in new orders has been recognised as revenue in 1H18." H1 operating costs down €2.2m. "t the fundraising in October 2017, it was expected that two large agreements would soon be signed to exploit the HomeSend network. One of those was signed and is expected to go live in the September 2018 quarter, and the other remains a live situation with the agreement still expected despite the delay."
Sinclair Pharma (SPH) Firm offer deadline extended to 16 August.

andrea34

Re Elecosoft (LON:ELCO) I'd suggest that the revenue increase is more or less as expected, as this was also the revenue growth in the last results. I really don't understand what has made the shares leap from 50p to 80+p in 3-4 months. I just don't like companies where the profit growth vastly outstrips revenue growth because I see this as down to benefits from margin uplifts and/or synergies and in both cases there is only so much that can be squeezed out of either of these factors. I expect you may have held for most/all of this share price increase, so well done you!

I have bought a microscopic initial position in Portmeirion (LON:PMP) this morning at slightly below the mid-price, I think they are a solid, well run business and the increasing diversification in both geography and product ranges is reassuring. I think they are good value at this level with a PER of less than 20, double digit revenue growth, and profit growth up almost 30% at the interims. They are doing really well in the USA, which surely in the long term is a potentially huge market...?

matylda

Thanks for that, actually I was late to the Elecosoft (LON:ELCO) party and suspect I may not do too well out of it, I will monitor for now.

Portmeirion (LON:PMP) - Quite in agreement there but as I mentioned, I am not sure I can see a "kicker" here to push it to new highs, which I guess means I can only see perhaps 15% or so upside here at present.

Recent sell trades are pushing Elecosoft (LON:ELCO) lower at the mo, even though they are outweighed by buy trades.

Some companies I buy shares in for the long term rather than for a short term gain, I think Portmeirion (LON:PMP) are ones that fit into this category. There is the remote possibility of a bid at some point now that they have got their act together. On the flip side, Brexit is a possible impact... but then again it is for most.

I Read The News Today Oh Boy! 2-Aug-2018

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Matylda

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