Most popular equity research this week | 15 - 19 Oct

Safestyle UK (SFE)

Not buying SafeGlaze | Liberum, 19 Oct

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"In response to speculation, Safestyle’s Board has announced that it is not in discussions to acquire either the assets or business of SafeGlaze, the very aggressive and disruptive new entrant to the industry. However the Board has said it is considering other arrangements with key SafeGlaze stakeholders, and that these could potentially prove beneficial to Safestyle's business and its recovery..."

Smart Metering Systems (SMS)

Landmark contract win | Cenkos, 19 Oct

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"Yesterday, SMS announced that it has extended its relationship with First Utility and signed an exclusive agreement until 31 December 2021 to be its fully integrated domestic smart meter installer and Meter Asset Provider (MAP). This agreement provides SMS with an initial access to up to 1 million meter points, significantly underpinning our forecast of 2.5 meters installed by end 2020..."

London Stock Exchange Group (LSE)

Business as usual...strong growth...what's Brexit? | AlphaValue, 19 Oct

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"The London Stock Exchnage Group (LSEG) released some numbers (trading statement) this morning. Total revenue at £464m is 2.5% below expectations but, adjusted for the new accounting standard IFRS 15, this is line with expectations (and 4% below ours). The LSEG also announced it is purchasing another 15% of LCH Group for £384m, funded with cash and existing debt facilities..."

Burford Capital (BUR)

Target price increased – buying opportunity | N+1 Singer, 16 Oct

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"Equity investors are usually looking for companies that have opportunities to deploy incremental capital at high returns. Burford Capital is, in our view, a prime example of this as it continues to apply its legal and financial skills to the business of law. It’s recent, well-timed, 5% placing at 1850p to raise c.$250m looks to us simply a logical response to the ever-expanding opportunities, on which we comment herein. This has coincided with market volatility, hitting the best performing shares on AIM the hardest. We have updated our estimates (3-4% reduction FY’18 and ’19, 5% increase FY’20) and increase our 12m TP 6% offering a 29% TSR. The exaggerated fall in the shares offers a compelling buying opportunity, in our view..."

IG Design Group (IGR)

Value: Fundamentals vs Market Sentiment | Cenkos, 16 Oct

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"IG Design has announced a trading update for H1/19E, guiding to performance being in-line with strong market expectations. The group is expected to deliver record H1 revenues, with all regions contributing to the growth performance. Highlights for the period include numerous strategic actions by management, with the acquisition of Impact Innovations in the US being significant in transforming the group's growth profile. .."

Gear4music (G4M)

Interims justify FY2019 profit expectations | Equity Development, 16 Oct

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"Gear4music’s interim results were released this morning and reconfirmed both underlying sales growth for the business and a view that full year profits will meet expectations. The company’s second half includes the all-important Christmas period. Moreover, international sales appear set to nudge ahead of UK in the six months. Clearly, sales trends remain strongly positive, which should benefit both future profit growth and valuation..."

AFH Financial Group (AFHP)

Reload. £15m cash now ready to deploy | Liberum, 17 Oct

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"AFH has successfully raised £15m at 370p. The statement makes clear that there is a strong pipeline, but we assume no acquisitions in numbers, hence our FY19 estimate falls 8%..."

Dotdigital Group (DOTD)

Winning formula | finnCap, 16 Oct

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"The successful formula of selling more functionality, to more customers, through more partners, in more territories, over more communications channels continued in FY18. Much more than an email marketing platform, the acquisition of Comapi during the year confirms dotmailer as a data-led marketing platform across clients’ channels of choice (e.g. email, WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook Messenger), leading to greater revenue per client from additional services, including analytics..."

Dotdigital Group (DOTD)

Not just a pretty face | N+1 Singer, 16 Oct

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"dotdigital has delivered another year of strong growth, with a positive outlook promising more of the same in the current year. The results, which were largely flagged at the trading update in July, show 15% organic revenue growth, with 22% EBITDA growth and net cash of £15m at the period end..."

Driver Group (DRV)

Positive conclusion to FY18, ahead of forecast | N+1 Singer, 16 Oct

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"Driver continued to trade positively throughout H2, with FY18 results expected to be ahead of expectations. As a result we have increased our EPS forecasts by 9%/12% in FY18/19 (0%/16% including share based payments). The outperformance was driven primarily by higher utilisation rates (80% in FY18 vs. 76% in FY17) and a focus on higher margin work (e.g. growth in services provided by Diales)..."

GVC (GVC)

3Q18 Trading & new CFO | Whitman Howard, 18 Oct

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"Solid 3Q18 KPI’s from GVC, following on from the solid current trading statement at interims. Strong growth despite a strong 3Q17, Sports brands +31% in constant currency, clearly taking market share and GW margin +80bps, Games brands +18% in cc, slight improvement since statement at interims, Europe retail +22% in cc, slightly down. Improvement in retail is encouraging -2% in cc was - 4% in statement at interims, overall group NGR +14% YoY in cc. Rob Wood, former CFO of Ladbrokes Coral UK Retail appointed new CFO, effective 5 March 2019..."

Bioventix (BVXP)

FY 2018 results – 12% upgrades to FY 2019 | finnCap, 8 Oct

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"Full-year adjusted EPS was 11% above our expectations, driven by higher revenues across the majority of its product range. A 55p special dividend was proposed, resulting in full-year dividend growth of 27% to 116p. Strong underlying revenue growth (c.28%), which excludes c.£0.8m of backdated royalties and the loss of a c.£1.0m royalty stream, bodes well for future growth. This was despite a weak start for troponin sales in Europe, which we expect to benefit from Siemens’ US launch in July..."

Marks And Spencer Group  (MKS)

New Season | Not going to plan | Whitman Howard, 12 Oct

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"Although investors have been relatively re-assured that all is in order with the M&S renaissance we believe that the current evidence is of the type of operational failure that is prone to happen during times of high people change..."

Sopheon (SPE)

Revenue visibility improves further | Progessive Equity, 8 Oct

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"The strong momentum seen in Sopheon’s first half has continued through Q3, with the Group announcing that revenue visibility now exceeds $30 million for 2018 – up from U$27.2 million at the time of the interim results. This reflects a record Q3 performance with a number of transactions, including the addition of two new contracts of material size - one with a new customer and one an extension with an existing customer – which were booked towards the end of the third quarter..."