After this morning's results, surely this is worth a punt? EBITDA up 25% and leverage down. It seems positive but I may be wrong.
It's been a rough ride over the past year for Archial. Big losses in 2007, change of CEO and CFO, staff cuts.... I agree that the results announcement - http://www.stockopedia.com/news/announcement/ARL/090402arl9834p.htm - was quite upbeat.
- Turnover remained stable at £42.5m against £44.2m the previous year.
- 71% of pipeline of work was in place for 2009 against 70% in 2008.
- EBITDA (pre exceptional costs) increased by 25% to £6.5 m (2007: £5.2m) and EBITDA (pre exceptional costs) margin substantially increased to 15.3% from 11.7%
- Net debt reduced by £5.7m to £14.3m, substantially reducing the financial leverage from 3.9 to 2.2 times EBITDA
Littlemore has done a good job restructuring and repositioning the business (previously known as SMC Alsop) but for all the talk about it being well placed to benefit early from any market recovery (http://bit.ly/KDvqg), I am sceptical. Any UK architecture business faces a difficult road ahead - I don't see any good news coming back into the UK housing market for a long time.
