Good evening/morning, it's Paul here.
I'll start (this bit written late Monday evening) with some catching up from stuff I was too tired to write about earlier, to get you started on Tuesday morning.
Tandem (LON:TND)
Share price: 190p (up 3% at market close)
No. shares: 5.0m
Market cap: £9.5m
(I do not currently hold this share, but have done in the past)
This group sells bicycles, mobility & leisure equipment, and toys.
The shares looked interesting earlier this year, after it reported a bumper H2 in 2018, of about £2.4m profit. Some investors thought this might be a new, higher run, rate, implying maybe £4-5m future annual profit.
That's not turned out to be the case, as H1 in 2019 reported £509k pre-exceptional profit, not the £2m+ that some imagined might be the case. Still, it's a good improvement on the -£298k loss reported in H1 of 2018.
Revenues also seem somewhat unpredictable (hence why profit goes up & down), eg.
H1 2018: £12.7m
H2 2018: £19.8m
H1 2019: £16.0m
Hence it's looking as if the bumper H2 last year might have been a bit of a one-off bumper period?
Outlook comments are quite detailed, talking about each product category. The overall picture is this;
The potential threats on the horizon that we previously alluded to remain in place. Whilst we shouldn't seek to 'blame' Brexit, we remain cautious as to the impact that it will have, should it materialise soon, with potentially uncertain future import duty rates and with regards to consumer spending which is discretionary for the type of products that we supply.
Weak sterling, and therefore a correspondingly stronger US dollar, is also likely to effect the cost of future imports.
We previously stated that the longevity and success of most licences is limited and transient. Whilst we continue to seek new, exciting and profitable properties there is no guarantee of this.
[Paul: note that Peppa Pig is mentioned, which has recently been bought out by Hasbro - how much impact could this have on Tandem?]
Despite these threats we look forward to the rest of the year with some confidence and expect to deliver a satisfactory result to our stakeholders for the full year.
Who knows what a satisfactory result would be? There doesn't seem to be…
