Small Cap Value Report (25 Mar 2015) - TPT, POS, JPR, BAR, MOSB
Good morning! I caught up with yesterday's SCVR yesterday evening, so here is the link if you haven't already seen it. Apologies for the outage on Mon & earlier on Tue. So I thought we'd get today's report in early. That reminds me of the joke about America being late for two world wars, so they've decided to be really prompt for the next one!
Topps Tiles (LON:TPT)
Share price: 123p
No. shares: 193.6m
Market Cap: £238.1m
Trading update - this covers the half year to 28 Mar 2015, since the company's next year end is 27 Sep 2015. It only mentions sales, but says nothing about profitability, or trading versus market expectations, so a bit thin on detail.
The top line figure is good though. Sales are up 6.4% to £104m for H1, and LFL* store sales are up an impressive 5.2% - all the more impressive since the 2014 comparative was itself very strong, being 10.2% up on 2013. So very good progress on sales, no doubt about that.
* LFL = like for like - i.e. removing the impact of new stores, and store closures.
Outlook - the company mentions short term uncertainty due to the General Election, but that rising levels of disposable income should help boost home improvement spending. I wonder if there might also be a backlog effect, from people having delayed replacing things like flooring until their personal situation improves?
My opinion - I did buy into Topps a while back, when they were around 90p, but banked my profit at about 115p, when it looked fully valued. The broker forecasts already factor in a considerable increase in earnings, and note from the graphic below that broker forecasts have actually been falling over the last year. That seems a little odd to me.
The light blue lines on the first 3 charts below are obviously broker consensus forecasts, so you can see expectations are already fairly ambitious. There could be more upside for the shares, but the key question really is how much is already baked into the share price?
Note the steady decline in broker forecasts for the company over the last year;
I wonder if this means the company is experiencing strong sales, but might be under some margin pressure? Or that sales increases are being driven by increased marketing…
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Topps Tiles Plc is a United Kingdom-based retailer of tiles. The Company is engaged in the retail distribution of ceramic and porcelain tiles, natural stone, and related products. It operates in the Topps Tiles stores and online business segment. It supplies tiles and associated products to both trade and retail customer base, primarily for the refurbishment of the United Kingdom domestic housing. Its product categories include new products, bathroom wall tiles, kitchen wall tiles, mosaic tiles, kitchen floor tiles, bathroom floor tiles, ceramic tiles, porcelain tiles, underfloor heating, wet rooms, outdoor tiles, fireplace tiles and metro tiles. Its brands include Tile Adhesive, Tile Grout, Tile Preparations, Hardiebacker Board, Rubi Tools and Accessories, Warmup, and Homelux Tiles Trims. It offers tiles in various colors, such as beige tiles, black tiles, blue tiles, brown tiles, cream tiles and gold tiles. It has over 350 stores across the United Kingdom. more »
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Plexus Holdings plc is a United Kingdom-based company, which provides oil and gas engineering services. The Company is engaged in marketing a friction grip method of engineering for oil and gas field wellheads and connectors, named POS-GRIP. The Company is involved in the sale of its POS-GRIP technology and associated products; the rental of wellheads utilizing the POS-GRIP technology, and service, including assisting with the commissioning and on-going service requirements of its equipment. The Company's POS-GRIP is involved in deforming one tubular member against another within the elastic range to effect gripping and sealing. Its method of engineering for wellheads offers a range of advantages to operators, particularly for high pressure high temperature (HPHT) applications. POS-GRIP technology can also be applied for surface land, and platform production and subsea wellheads. more »
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Johnston Press plc is a United Kingdom-based local and regional multimedia organization. The Company provides news and information services to local and regional communities through its portfolio of various publications and Websites. The Company operates through two segments: Publishing (in print and online) and Contract Printing. Its portfolio contains approximately 190 paid for weekly newspapers, 10 paid for daily newspapers, 30 free titles and over 10 lifestyle magazines. It also has approximately 190 news sites and over 20 other sites, including entertainment site WOW247 and Jobstoday. Its brands include BallymenaTimes, BanbridgeLeader, Belfast News, News Letter, CarrickTimes, ColeraineTimes, Mid-Ulster Mail, Derry Journal, Sunday Journal, TyroneTimes, LarneTimes, LurganMail, Isle of Man Examiner and Yorkshire Post. Its titles span Scotland, the North East, West Yorkshire, the North West and Isle of Man, South Yorkshire, the South, Midlands and Northern Ireland. more »
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11 Comments on this Article show/hide all
Great to see youre ok :)
Welcome back and glad you're feeling brighter.
Very good to see you again. Stay erll.
well
Hi Paul, don't know if you know about a company called Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO), but their SP has taken off this morning. They've been one I've been watching for a while but now I'm kicking myself for not buying a few beforehand. Basically they are building Proton-therapy cancer treatment machines and have just secured their first sale of one of their 'LIGHT' machines in China. They're still working on the prototype at this stage, but the list of interested clients is swelling and the very talented scientists at CERN are heavily involved in developing these machines. Today's announcement makes me think this is a less speculative propostion than before and a lot more concrete as an investment case.
Hi Paul,
Great to see you back, I think you can see how much people on here value your reports. If you have time to go back to do Monday's results/statements, I'd be interested in your view on the final results of GVC Holdings GVC Holdings (LON:GVC) if you have time.
Thanks
Chris
Hi Paul
Welcome back. I would be interested in your thoughts on the Optimal Payments announcement of you have time.
Kind regards
Richard
Welcome back, glad you're feeling better,
K
Paul, can you please review POWR results?
Hi Paul
V pleased that you're hale & hearty once more.
Andy
I bought into Plexus some years ago at circa 54p and have admired its performance ever since.Its range of new market leading products will start gaining traction over the next two years and then we should see some significant share price performance.At the end of the day Pos's IP will attract one of the majors in the sector however not before Mr Bilderbeek has proved to the world what a brilliant innovator he is.