Good morning, it’s Paul here with the SCVR for Tuesday.

Timing - today's report is now finished.

Agenda - here’s something I prepared earlier (last night) -

Staffline (LON:STAF) - trading update - OK, but looks like it needs to do another fundraising

Asos (LON:ASC) - acquisition of Arcadia's top brands. BOO (I hold), Next & Asos as "marketplace" platforms.

Dx (group) (LON:DX.) - positive trading update, but looks expensive now.

Today's news -

Idox (LON:IDOX) - a quick review of its results FY 10/2020

Moonpig (MOON) floats

Gyg (LON:GYG) - my first look at this superyacht painting company. FY 12/2020 trading update.

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Staffline (LON:STAF)

56p - mkt cap £39m

Trading & Business Update

Staffline, the recruitment and training group, is pleased to provide the following trading and business update for the year ended 31 December 2020.

It looks like 2020 ended decently -

The Group expects to report underlying operating profit marginally ahead of expectations for the year ended 31 December 2020.

Strong peak trading over Christmas, thanks to good demand from food retail, ecommerce & logistics sectors.

People Plus division moved into u/l operating profit in H2, after ditching its apprenticeships operation

Net debt - heavily flattered by £42.9m VAT arrears. Good disclosures though, of this boost, and also giving the average net debt figure, which is more meaningful than the snapshot at the year end, I wish all companies would provide this important information -

At 31 December 2020, the Group had pre-IFRS 16 net debt2 of c. £9.0m (2019: £59.5m), with average net debt throughout the year of c. £38.1m (2019: c. £85.2m).
The year-end position represents an improvement against expectations resulting from the increased focus on working capital and cash generation during 2020, as well as a number of timing effects, including the benefit of deferred VAT relief from Q2 2020 of £42.9m.

VAT is repayable in instalments between Mar 2021 - Mar 2022 - a highly significant cash outflow. Will the bank be happy to finance that, I wonder? Possibly, at least in part, because the bank lending is now secured against the receivables book.

Covid - still disrupting things.

Refinancing - it raised fresh equity in June 2020, but admits today that it needs another fundraise -

Notwithstanding the combination of corrective measures taken in 2020, which has resulted in…

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