Good morning!

I wrote a catch-up report yesterday, being the one that I missed on the day, last Monday. It's here - and includes my thoughts on the Sepura (LON:SEPU) profit warning, plus a couple of other interesting companies. So why not have a read of that whilst waiting for today's report to emerge?


Eclectic Bar (LON:BAR)

Share price: 75.6p (up 29% today)
No. shares: 16.2m existing shares + 15.455m new shares = 31.66m after Placing
Market cap: £23.9m

As you can see, I have manually adjusted the market cap above, to take into account the 55p Placing done last Friday, which together with a hefty loan from Barclays, is funding the purchase of Brighton Pier. The shares were suspended on Friday, and have come storming back into the market today, up 29%. Clearly a big vote of confidence in the expansion of the company, and the key figure behind this new strategy, Luke Johnson, one of the UK's top entrepreneurs.

An announcement today says that a new admission document for the enlarged company will be available on its website later today. I've had a quick look, and can't find it yet, but that should make interesting reading later.

It's a bold move to expand from bars into experience-led attractions. I can see the opportunity to improve Brighton Pier, but that will come at a heavy cost - a large, and ongoing capex requirement. For that reason, personally I'm not tempted to chase up this share on the initial excitement of this deal. It's certainly an interesting one to watch though.


XP Power (LON:XPP)

Share price: 1618p (up 2.6% today)
No. shares: 19.2m
Market cap: £310.7m

Trading update - this Singapore-based company has a full UK listing (so much more palatable than overseas + AIM, which very often spells trouble). It also has an excellent track record of profits, high margins, cashflows & divis. So it's a company that I would certainly consider investing in.

Trading is going well:

Trading in the first quarter has been strong. Group revenues in the three months to 31 March 2016 were £28.2 million (2015: £25.6 million) up 10% from those achieved in the same period a year ago. In constant currency, revenues were up 6%.

Order intake in the…

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