Good morning!
News today has thankfully calmed down a little, at least as far as UK small-caps are concerned.
This means I can go back and look at some of the stories I've missed this week:
Volvere (LON:VLE)- Sopheon (LON:SPE)
- Portmeirion (LON:PMP)
- FW Thorpe (LON:TFW)
- Xaar (LON:XAR)
- Safestyle UK (LON:SFE)
From today's news, I might look at:
- Henry Boot (LON:BOOT)
- Robinson (LON:RBN)
Volvere (LON:VLE)
- Share price: £11.25p
- No. of shares: 3.1 million
- Market cap: £35 million
(Please note that I have a long position in VLE.)
I've been slow to update on Volvere. This might seem strange, given that it's my biggest holding, at 16% of my portfolio.
However, I felt there was little to say, since not much had changed as a consequence of Tuesday's trading update.
This update was the first piece of news since October. Things move slowly in Volvere-land!
Results for the year ending December 2018:
- revenue from continuing operations improved to £18.6 million from £16.2 million. £18.3 million of revenue is attributable to Shire Foods. The rest to Sira Defence.
- underlying result before tax from continuing operations is £100k.
Segmental Analysis
Shire's profit before tax and intra-group charges was £790k.
Volvere plans to invest £2 million into Shire in 2019, in the form of new plant and equipment.
Francis wrote a great comment on Wednesday after attending the company presentation, explaining that the focus is now on expanding Shire's vegan/vegetarian and healthy pies. The product range has already expanded a lot over the past year.
I still have a pretty good impression of Shire: could it be worth £10 million+ on eventual disposal, or is that too much to hope for? It has a freehold property in Leamington Spa, blue-chip customers and a decent track record. I'd like to see it generate PBT before intra-group charges of £1 million+ this year, but I know that it operates in a fairly competitively sector so I'm not going to get carried away at this point.
On top of that we have…
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