Alistair Lindsay

Maven has taken over management of what was the Amati AIM VCT, which may explain some of their holdings RNSs.

Given the size of the price move speculation on this issue caused for Beeks, management should be announcing to the market not an individual investor.

#BOWL's bowls up.

#ZTF.L "Zotefoams, a world leader in" issuing RNSs justifying further capex. The new plant will be completed in 2028/29, pretty much when ZTF's exclusive contract with Nike expires (31.12.29) creating a risk of stranded assets. And if the new assets aren't stranded, can ZTF fill freed up capacity?

True, but heading the RNS "Trading ahead" is a bit rampy.

Looks quite expensive at £14m initial consideration+ £0.6m net debt assumed for trailing adj PBT of £1.3m? Appreciate you pay more for bigger deals, but this seems to be a materially higher multiple than the market gives MACF itself?

Excellent article, thank you Simon. Have also been thinking there's a case for investment trusts in place of individual equities in taxable accounts. There's been no protests against the CGT hike, so we may see the Chancellor come back for more despite "one and done" promises.

#FDM.L Quite a lot to like: large owner stake, disciplined cost control, very strong cash generation, done well to trade in line. BUT is there a structural challenge: if FDM can train graduates in c. 3 months to do these jobs, aren't they the first roles that customers will switch to AI?

#SXS.L (2/2). Q3 sales down 10% LFL despite £22m revenue being pushed into H2 on the shift to a new ERP system. RNS says some of the catch up will be in Q4 but doesn't specify how much occurred in Q3 and therefore boosted sales.

#SXS.L (1/2) Hefty PW. Operating profit for FY24 now guided at c. £200m, whereas forecasts were c. £220m per Sharepad. Guided figure now includes 2 acquisitions, whereas the "in line" guidance at interims excluded. Not clear whether analysts included acquisitions in their £220m forecasts.

#ALU.L On 25.7.23 they said “expected operating synergies” would reduce the ARP multiple to <5x assuming full earn out. Today they say “delivery of the initial synergy targets is well advanced.” Reference to “initial” suggests more synergies are available than were baked into the acquisition plan.

#FRAN.L Opportunistic buy back of £5m to take advantage of selling before budget unrelated to FRAN's prospects. Good capital allocation IMO. No change to targets for debt reduction for FY24 (2.0x) and end of 27 (bank debt eliminated) implies that cash generation is ahead of plans.

Reviewing #EAH.L involves unhealthy amounts of time on pig333.com.

#MPAC.L Historically cash from operations has been erratic (minimal in 21, negative in 22 and YTD 24; strong in 23), so interesting to see confidence that leverage will fall from nearly 2.0x to <1.0x by end of FY25.

But they raised at 192p in July 21 to fund the GP Strategies deal, an acquisition that has gone well with margins doubling albeit without organic revenue growth. Investors who supported that could legitimately be grumpy at a 100p exit.

Perhaps Andrew wants to cash out and Jonathan wants to shift his stake into the unlisted vehicle and use PE funds to roll up more businesses. J seemed frustrated on the last call at shareholder calls to buy back shares given the low multiple (although that does seem the right capital allocation).

#LTG.L. Agree that the price seems very low for a potential recommendation given SP history and management incentive scheme. Maybe Andrew and Jonathan want to retire. And maybe saying 100p would be enough is intended to flush out other bidders (as the FT story hints).

Not specific to #IGR.L: maybe big grocers let own label suppliers raise margins whilst costs and supply chains were volatile to maintain supplies. But with more stability/clarity and more price pressure on the grocers, is there now a re-assertion of the grocers' much stronger bargaining position?

#CHRT's upgrade is interesting compared with #PEN's comment yesterday about UK orders being delayed pending the UK Strategic Defence Review and a recent drifting down in other defence stocks like #CHG and #CNC.

#TRT.L (1/3) 3 components: Bridgestone needs a DCF on the royalty flows to expiry in 2030. TRT estimates future flows at £13-16m. Their figures need to be discounted for time. But are arguably conservative as growth was 30% in FY24 and they use 10-18% annual growth.

#TRT.L (2/3) Let’s generously use £16m as the NPV of the Bridgestone royalties. At EV of £27.6m, the rest of the business is valued at £11.6m. It generated £1.57m revenue with costs of £2.95m (Bridgestone is almost 100% profit as a royalty flow).

#TRT.L (3/3) Translogik is profitable (£380k op profit) with positive outlook let’s say £4m value. That leaves SAWSense at £7.6m for trailing revenues of £450k and significant costs. To buy here you need a very positive outlook on SAWSense IMO.

Staying with #PEN the "Post-period end" section contains a fair amount of gloom, with the "Outlook" heavily focused on the next 3 months.

#PEN has burned through £1,047k of the £1,358k net raise in the period. More +ly, amortisation charge (£822k) is now ahead of spend on acquisition of intangibles (£703k) so the reported losses (let's ignore EBITDA as development has to be accounted for somewhere) are overstated on a cash equivalent

Klarna talking a lot about AI replacing staff and even their existing core software stack. Makes me wonder how their underlying lending business is performing...

#ING.L - every 6 months they put out an announcement saying they're going to recruit more sales heads. Perhaps the time has come to do it!
Also, why quote EBITDA when you have no debt and tax losses?

Is #HVO.L's corporate governance up to scratch? On 15.2.24 (SP 26.5p) CFO was granted options back dated to 1.2.23 with reference price of 17p. Also note 29 to AR23 disclosed a buy out of unexercised warrants because Cathal had inside information for * some * of the 5 yr period for exercise.

#LTG.L sold off because (i) GS said AI would eat its lunch – AI hasn’t; (ii) too much net debt – down to £1m on 30.8.24; (iii) no organic revenue growth; fair enough, but a change in the cycle will address this and should rerate. While wait, best capital allocation wd be buybacks not acquisitions.

WIL put out its prelims today (30.6 year end) unaudited as auditors requested extra time. Guessing you wouldn't do that if your numbers depended on any debateable accounting calls.

WIL (1/2) WIL prelims. Net cash £65.0m. Deferred consideration due £16.5m; discount at say 30% as disposals structured so that WIL shared risk of failure = £11.6m. Cash + discounted deferred consideration of £76.6m.