Small Cap Value Report (12 Jun 2014) - TSTL, RGS, SPH, VNET, VLX, RHL

Good morning! A jolly time was had by all at last night's ED Investor Forum, kindly hosted as usual by lawyers Fasken Martineau in Hanover Square. I enjoyed all three company presentations, brief impressions as follows;

Tristel (LON:TSTL) - Several shrewd investors have urged me to look at this company in recent weeks, so I always sit up and take notice when highly successful investors begin to mention the same company. Checking back on my notes here, it's always looked a tad expensive, but broker forecasts keep going up. In the last year consensus forecast EPS has doubled from 2p to 4p. With another outperformance RNS just a few days ago, I think this company deserves its forward PER of just over 15. One attendee put it politely by suggesting to me that the CEO & FD of Tristel would benefit from going on a presentations skills course! It was a rather peculiar, wooden, scripted presentation, with awkward pauses and almost robotic delivery. Although in a way I find that quite encouraging - if management are hopeless at ramping the share price, then you're more likely to get a bargain! The content of the presentation is what counts, and Tristel are clearly on a roll with their innovative products, which are now being put through an international roll-out.

Regenersis (LON:RGS) - The complete opposite in terms of delivery, which was a super-confident presentation from this electronics repair company. Mind you, the presentations should be slick by now, as they seem to appear at virtually every investor event going! I spotted the value here at 90p, but sold too early at 150p. The shares are now 390p, and growth is being achieved on many fronts, mainly from acquisitions in emerging markets. A fairly large acquisition has been made of a data erasure company, and a very convincing case was explained for this deal. I'm not tempted to buy back after such a big rise in price, but was discussing the company with a large shareholder afterwards, and completely understood his decision to hold for more gains.

Sinclair IS Pharma (LON:SPH) - This was a new company to me. It mainly does cosmetic creams and other treatments for skin. The charismatic CEO gave us a master class in the sector, including some vivid examples of treatments such as a suture with little cones attached, which scoops away wrinkles and lasts about two years. Useful for wrinkles, saggy bottoms, and other areas of sagginess where apparently excellent results have been reported! Why people cannot just accept that the ageing process is natural, I have no idea. Narcissism knows no bounds apparently, and the financial results of this company do look pretty remarkable, especially if forecasts are achieved. There were some more worthwhile products such as a foam to help serious burns victims survive. Also a potential new product for the millions of Indians with blotchy skin pigmentation issues. A bit like the skin whitening condition that Michael Jackson had? Which reminds me, a good suggestion to perfect your Michael Jackson singing impressions, is to practice your dance moves barefoot with Lego scattered over the floor!

Vianet (LON:VNET)

Generally I try to have several meetings in London on the same day, to make a more efficient use of the time, so I put together an investor meeting with the Directors of VNET, kindly hosted for us by MHP Communications.

In my opinion the recent results were not bad, considering they have had major distraction/disruption from the Government's Statutory Code for tenanted Pubs. As is so often the case with clumsy action by Government, their concern for tied Pub tenants actually backfired in some ways, since it created uncertainty into which Pub groups accelerated their disposal programmes. That obviously reduced Vianet's client installations for the core beer flow monitoring equipment.

They have made good progress with their vending telemetry division, and that's starting to look like an interesting business. The fuel division is holding its own, with further improvements in trading expected, and I got the impression that the dividend is reasonably safe. That's worth noting, since the yield is an appealing 7%.

Volex (LON:VLX)

It's best to take everything this company says with a huge pinch of salt. They are masters of spin, and just talk nonsense in their trading statements, in my opinion - there's a complete disconnect between the bullish narrative and the poor figures. Today's results for the year ended 31 Mar 2014 are headed up,

'The Volex Transformation Plan is beginning to deliver results'

The figures immediately below that statement then make it clear that the company has not made progress at all, in fact trading has got worse. Here are the highlights, and remember that these will be best things they can report;

Sorry about the lack of formatting in today's report, am staying with friends in London, and the computer here behaves unpredictably. It's doing all sorts of funny things today, so it's a miracle I've got this far! What's next? Ah yes, interim results from Idox (LON:IDOX) are issued today. They look pretty good at the P&L level, although as always with software companies, you have to unpick what they've done on capitalising development spend to get a more conservative view of the real cash profit. I toy with the idea of buying some of these shares for its recovery, but decided against it because they've got such a ropey Balance Sheet. Net tangible assets are negative to the tune of about £20m, which is not something I would invest in. Call me old fashioned, but I like to be able to sleep at night, so that means strong Balance Sheets only, preferably ones stuffed full of cash & freehold property. If you restrict investments to companies with strong Balance Sheets, then even your investing mistakes tend not to hurt too much. Redhall (LON:RHL) Interim results are out for the six months to 31 Mar 2014. This company is a complete car crash in my view, and would have been put into Receivership by the Bank in any previous Recession. It still has way too much debt, and despite a £7m Placing being done, net debt is still dangerously high. On this the company says; "Our net debt at 31 March 2014 stood at £12.2 million compared with £19.1m at 30 September 2013. The settlement with Vivergo and the raising of £7.0 million in the recent share placing has enabled us to reduce our gearing levels. We are currently in discussion with HSBC Bank plc to review our requirements and to extend the facility term beyond 30 September 2015. The Bank is fully supportive of the Group and we would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their continued support." Therefore the way I see it, this company's equity is really worth nothing, since it only has a value whilst the Bank remain supportive. That could change at the drop of a hat. Why take that risk of a potential 100% loss, when you don't have to? Oh for pity's sake, what on earth has gone wrong with the formatting now?! I think it might be time for my mid-morning nap. I see that Tom Winnifrith has written another negative article on Quindell (LON:QPP). That's a nuisance, as I went long yesterday. However, it's no good shooting the messenger, one has to listen to, and assess the bull and the bear arguments for any share. Getting to the truth is all that matters. Personally, I'm always grateful to people who point out the negative points on shares that I hold - sometimes that can save you a lot of money, if you've got too bullish on a particular stock, but few people are prepared to do that - normally people just say what they think you want to hear. Bearish views on bulletin boards are shouted down & chased away. I've even been banned from some threads on advfn by the poster who set them up, as people cannot stand to hear the facts. More fool them. The self-delusion that some people undertake with their favourite shares is quite astonishing. I think it will probably take some time (if at all) for management credibility to recover here. Better leave it there, and apologies again for the horrendous formatting today, at least it rang the changes! Regards, Paul. (of the companies mentioned today, Paul has long positions in QPP, TSTL, VNET, and no short positions)