Good morning! I added a few more sections to yesterday's report late last night, so here is the link for that report.
I'm looking forward to Mello Bloomberg tonight, so hope to see some of you there. Let's hope we don't get too merry, and sign up for a Bloomberg terminal, or it could turn out to be an unexpectedly expensive evening!
Portmeirion (LON:PMP)
Share price: 895p
No. shares: 10.7m
Market Cap: £95.8m
(at the time of writing I hold a long position in this share)
Preliminary results - for the year ended 31 Dec 2014. Reported EPS is 57.6p (up 8.2%), which has come in a little ahead of broker consensus of 56.0p.
Revenue growth in the three key markets (USA, UK, and S.Korea) looks pedestrian, but growth in RoW looks more encouraging - up 25%. Also note that online sales are small, at only £2.0m, but growing strongly (up 70%), which is encouraging.
Dividends - up 10.4% to 26.5p for the year. That gives a yield of just under 3.0% - which may not sound exciting, but the divi has been going up by c.10% every year since 2008, so assuming that continues, this should be a decent income stock - something that is heavily emphasised in the narrative to today's statement.
Balance Sheet - excellent, as always. The freehold HQ site is included within fixed assets, which is always welcome. The current ratio is wonderful, at 4.0, although note that inventories are rather high. The company doesn't duck this issue, and 'fesses up in the narrative that stock control was not good enough, and is an area they need to focus more on.
Pension deficit - has gone up to £4.2m. A cash outgoing of £0.8m p.a. is required to keep this under control - unwelcome, but not a deal breaker, in my view.
Outlook - sounds positive - sales are up in the first two months of 2015. Acquisitions are mentioned as a possibility.
My opinion - this is one of my favourite companies, and it has performed very well in recent years. However, the price looks about right now, and given a more relaxed rate of growth now, I've decided to top-slice my holding this morning, banking some profits to free up for other opportunities. Am happy to keep running the remainder of my position for the long term.
It looks as if this year the…
