I Read The News Today Oh Boy! 4-Jan-2018

4th Jan '18 by matylda

4 comments 3902 reads

Morning All!

Getting a little busier out there today…

Sopheon ( Sopheon (LON:SPE) ) – 367.6p – £36.8m – PER 12.8

Trading Update For 2017 – Revenues and PBT expected to exceed market expectations – Improved recurring revenue and visibility into 2018.

There’s lots to like here, growing (but not dynamically, reflected in the PER), great ROCE and Operating Margin – And, it’s got Cash. It’s on my Watchlist as a potential on a general market correction.

Cambria Automobiles ( Cambria Automobiles (LON:CAMB) ) – 61p – £61.0m – PER 7.06

Franchising Developments And AGM Trading Update – New higher end franchises progressing, trading in-line. Actual sales down, supported by after sales. Outlook is, as one would expect, cautious.

Still maintain that this is one for those with faith in the sector. I guess, those with a belief that it has, perhaps, bottomed.

Churchill China ( Churchill China (LON:CHH) ) – 1135p – £124.4m – PER 19.3

Full Year Trading Update (To End December 2017) – Expects operating performance to be slightly ahead of expectations.

Seems fairly priced to me at this level.

Taptica International ( Taptica International (LON:TAP) ) – 465p – £290.1m – PER 13.9

Trading Update For The Tear (To End December 2017) – In 2017, Revenue to be in-line, EBITDA to exceed expectations. In 2018 “confident of delivering solid year-on-year EBITDA growth for 2018 in line with market expectations”.

A lot going for it. It is an AIM listed company based in Israel which usually puts me off but I did 2 bag on XLM last year. Constantly tempted to get on board here and will keep it on my Watchlist. Have a great day!

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MrContrarian

4th Jan '18

My morning smallcap tweet:
4 warns, 4 beats.
Cyanconnode Holdings (LON:CYAN), Symphony Environmental Technologies (LON:SYM), Sopheon (LON:SPE), Be Heard (LON:BHRD), Green & Smart Holdings (LON:GSH), Escher Group (LON:ESCH), Churchill China (LON:CHH), Debenhams (LON:DEB), Taptica International (LON:TAP)

CyanConnode (CYAN) warns on FY due to a customer delaying deployment to 2018. "Delivery is now expected to be made during 2018, hardware and service revenues relating to this project will now be recognised in the Company's current financial year." Surely *not* be recognised? Rev will be significantly below market expectations at £1.2m." Order book over $100m, global pipeline ~$320m. Outlook "continued positive momentum in the pipeline has been aided by re-alignment of key employees to create a world class team." Re-alignment? Did you take them to a garage?
Symphony Environment (SYM) exp FY rev £8.2m, marginally above market expectations and pretax significantly higher than current market expectations, at least £400k.
Sopheon (SPE) FY trading - rev, EBITDA and pre-tax will exceed market expectation.
Be Heard Group (BHRD) warns FY profitability to be below market expectations "due to a number of unexpected factors....MMT, agenda21 and Freemavens experienced a reduction in activity towards the end of the year and some deferral...MMT suffered cost overruns on a substantial contract. Sounds too bad to be true. All this since last update 15 Dec. Also joint CFO & COO will become COO.
Green & Smart Holdings (GSH) Malaysian power co warns FY to end Sept rev only RM45m due to failure to get new funds. It is in advanced negotiations to secure funding. Three months to add up the rev figure!
Escher Group (ESCH) CEO retires end May after 10 years. Showered with garlands.
Churchill China (CHH) FY operating performance will be slightly ahead of current market estimates. Cash to exceed current market expectations.
Debenhams (DEB) warns - post Xmas sales poor despite further "markdown investment". It's not effing investment. I hate that use of the word. H1 gross margins expected to be c150bps down. Cost cutting: "expect to generate further annualised savings of c£20m, of which c£10m will be realised in H2 FY2018. Consequently, FY2018 costs are now expected to rise by c+1% compared with previous guidance of +1% to +2%."
I'm short.
"Taptica (TAP) FY trading - rev in line, adj EBITDA ahead of market expectations."

FREng

MJ Gleeson (LON:GLE) TU confirms lower first half, still expects higher second half. House completions up 31%. Full year "in line with board expectations". This sounds positive to me (I'm long).

andrea34

The update from Sopheon (LON:SPE) is positive... but enough to justify a 21% rise in the share price?!? I'm not prepared to chase.

I am rather surprised that the Cambria Automobiles (LON:CAMB) price has not dropped significantly on the trading update - personally I think it's very poor, with even used car sales down on a LFL basis as well as aftersales profitability marginally down - these two areas have generally been propping up falling new car sales in other car dealers. I continue to favour Marshall Motor Holdings (LON:MMH) (which I hold) and Lookers (LON:LOOK) in this industry which, to-date, have performed significantly better than Cambria Automobiles (LON:CAMB).

The Group's trading performance in the first three months of the current financial year has been in line with the Board's expectations, albeit behind the corresponding period in 2016/17, both on a total and like-for-like basis. This trading performance in the first quarter continues the trend highlighted in the Group's preliminary results on 22 November 2017 and means that the Group is trading in line with market expectations for the full year.

The weaker new car market has seen pressure on both volumes and margins across the three month period. New vehicle unit sales for the quarter were down 16.3% (like-for-like down 14.4%), with gross profit per retail unit also reducing over the same period.

Used vehicle sales continued to perform well on a like-for like basis. Whilst total used unit sales were down 9.2%, including the lost units from Swindon Motor Park (closed January 2017), like-for-like units were down 2.8% compared with the same period in the prior year. This unit reduction was offset by continued improvement in gross profit per unit and this performance has again enhanced the profit from the used car segment of the business.

Overall, the Group's aftersales operations delivered a good performance, with revenue increasing by 0.3% (like-for-like up 6.1%), with profitability down 0.7% year on year (like-for-like excluding the two bodyshops and Swindon Motor Park up 5.9%). The Group's aftersales results have been impacted in total by some of the new franchising decisions that have been taken. These have necessitated the closure of the Group's bodyshop operations in two locations in order to facilitate the property development for the new franchises. The impact of the bodyshop closures has been excluded in the like-for-like analysis.

matylda

Agreed re: Sopheon (LON:SPE) and Cambria Automobiles (LON:CAMB) !

I Read The News Today Oh Boy! 4-Jan-2018

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Matylda

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