Pre 8 a.m. comments

Good morning. There are lots of trading and results statements issued this morning, but most are either resources sector, or large caps, so not a great deal for me to cover today.

There is a 90p cash offer for Sprue Aegis (OFEX:SPRP), an ISDX-Listed company which is the market leader is fire detection devices. Pity, as I looked at these shares recently, when they were around 60p and thought they looked cheap.

It looks like an existing 29.9% shareholder is bidding for the rest of the company, and it looks a bit messy - the Board of Sprue Aegis has not recommended the bid, and there seem to be a couple of thinly veiled threats in the narrative from the bidder, concerning liquidity, and what would happen if the bid is not accepted. If I were a shareholder, this announcement would very much raise my hackles & I'd be inclined to tell them to stuff it. There's nothing worse than a takeover offer with threats - that just means that the bidder is under-paying for it, in my opinion.

 

I was impressed with results last week from small restaurant group Tasty (LON:TAST). This morning another small restaurant group, Richoux (LON:RIC) has also impressed with some excellent-looking headline figures. Turnover is up 10% to almost £10m, and operating profit before one-offs looks to be around £750k, so that's a fairly respectable profit margin for a small operation. Solid balance sheet too, so they are well placed to open new outlets - and now is the time to be expanding, as such good deals are available on leasehold property right now. Bizarrely, despite operating only 14 restaurants, Richoux has no less than 4 different brands.

At a £10.6m market cap, it looks pretty good value, so worth a further look I think. If there's a convincing roll-out story here, then money could be made potentially.

 

Post 8 a.m. comments

Interims from Cambria Automobiles (LON:CAMB) are a reminder that there's not really much profit margin to be made in this sector, about 1%. 

 

Brady (LON:BRY) is starting to look potentially interesting. The shares have looked rather expensive to me in…

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