First off, a company I've never looked at before, a magazine publisher called Future Group (LON:FUTR). As with other media companies, they're trying to reinvent themselves for the digital age. Judging from their results for y/e 30 Sep 2012, issued this morning, they're not doing too badly. As ever, I don't have time to go into any real depth in this morning skim of results, but just looking at the headline figures, turnover is down from £121.9m to £117.7m (that's the normalised figure, as it looks like they have disposed of something as total turnover fell by a larger percentage).

However, EBITDAE (the last E is "exceptionals") is up from £7.8m to £9.4m. They also talk about possibly resuming divis in 2013. On the downside, I note that the vast bulk of their business is still print media (magazines), so the digital talk looks a bit of a smokescreen to me.

Readers here are familiar with the publishing sector, as we made a very nice profit on Trinity Mirror (TNI) shares this year, and are hence well aware of the declining nature of sales. Although I think magazines have a much longer lifespan than newspapers, as they are special interest, niche products.

With 1.1p adjusted EPS, and a share price of 17p, I really cannot see any value in Future, so will pass on this one.

Had a very quick look at interim results from Sweett Group (LON:CSG) , which is a £11m mkt cap international construction/property consultancy. The headline figures look quite good, returning to profit. But I don't like the balance sheet - too risky, with too much net debt, and debtors are too large (perhaps not surprising, as they operate partly in China, where paying debtors seems to be optional & when you feel like it).

Results from Earthport (LON:EPO) are always good for a laugh, and today's announcement of prelims to 30 Jun 2012 are no exception. As usual, it starts off with lots of positive talk about new customer implementations, growth potential, etc. And in fairness, they have managed to increase turnover by 21% to £3m. Gross margin 78%, lots of bullish narrative, they even managed to get yet another fund-raising of £10.3m this time away successfully.

So all looking interesting, until you…

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

Unlock with Email
Unlock with Google

Already have an account?
Login here