Good morning, it's Paul here.

Estimated timings today - late morning start time, should be finished by mid to late afternoon.



Synnovia (LON:SYN)

Share price: 122.5p (up 40% today, at 10:57)
No. shares: 39.0m
Market cap: £47.8m

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This small group was previously called Plastics Capital.

There's an agreed takeover bid announced today, at 125p in cash. That's a healthy 42.9% premium to the share price on the "last practicable date". This phrase is used 29 times in the announcement. At the end, in the definitions section, we are told that the last practicable date is yesterday. They could have saved a lot of ink.

The bidder is a Californian investment group, so here's another example of American investors finding UK listed companies attractive bid targets, due to the weak pound no doubt.

This looks a done deal, with 57.7% of shares already lined up to support the bid.

In my view this looks a fair price. Synnovia was going nowhere as a listed company, in my view. Cash generation was poor, hence it was not able to generate enough cashflow to both pay divis and fund acquisitions. I agree with the announcement today, that the group would be better off being privately owned, rather than being an illiquid listed company.

Well done to shareholders, this is a good deal, at a fair price.




Xaar (LON:XAR)

Share price: 64p (down 27% today, at 11:16)
No. shares: 78.2m
Market cap: £50.0m

Trading update (profit warning)

Bad news from this advanced printheads maker;

Revenue in the first half year to 30 June 2019 was £22.5 million, as previously announced, including the impact of a £4.3 million revenue reversal relating to Xaar 1201 Thin Film printhead inventory being returned to the business.

As part of the interim results process, a review of the Group's holding of Xaar 1201 printhead inventory and near term prospects for sale has taken place which has resulted in a reassessment of realisable value. We now consider it prudent to make a provision of £5.7 million which will be reflected in our first half results.


Trading in H2 is also set to be poor;

Trading for the remainder of the year is expected to be weaker than previously anticipated.  This…

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