Most popular equity research this week | 28 Jan - 1 Feb

Quarterly Research Outlook | Arden, 31 Jan

7Digital | Abbey | Advanced Medical Solutions | Anexo | Asiamet | Atalaya Mining | Avon Rubber | BowLeven | Brighton Pier Group | Castings | Central Asia Metals | Cloudcall | Consort Medical | Crimson Tide | Dart Group | Deltex Medical | Elementis | Empresaria | First Property | Frontier Smart Technologies | Gateley | Genel | Grainger | Great Eastern Energy | Hardy Oil & Gas | Harvest Minerals | Haydale Graphene | Headlam | Hill & Smith | Hunting | Hurricane Energy | iEnergizer | Independent Oil & Gas | Indus Gas | James Halstead | Jersey Oil And Gas | Keystone Law | Kin and Carta | Knights Group | Lamprell | Macfarlane | MOD Resources | A&J Mucklow | Oxford Instruments | Palace Capital | Park Group | Premier Oil | Rainbow Rare Earths | Rambler Metals And Mining | Redde | Renishaw | Renold | Rockhopper | Rosenblatt | Rotork | S&U | Scapa Group | Shanta Gold | SolGold | Trackwise Designs | Trakm8 | Trifast | Vianet | Vitec | Zotefoams

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"The market has not faced quite so many conflicting challenges for a number of years, whether related to global geopolitics, trade wars, ongoing Eurozone issues or the “will they, won’t they” saga of Brexit. In our Best Ideas, we sought to highlight stocks that present investors with interesting opportunities following recent market moves. Those stocks, we believe, warrant investor attention, in many cases for uncorrelated or stockspecific reasons, regardless of the near-to-medium term market direction. These stocks, in general, represent attractive and well-managed businesses or assets, with share price catalysts and where valuations or recent stock performance provide investors with a good entry point..."

Warpaint London (W7L)

2018 trading update | Stockdale, 29 Jan

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"In Warpaint’s trading update for FY2018, management expects to report adj. PBT of £8.25m on sales of £48.5m. The adj. PBT is marginally below the £8.5m10.0m range, while the revenue range was £48.0m-52.0m. We have updated our FY2018 forecasts to reflect these numbers but with no further details given at this stage, we have made no changes to our future forecasts ahead of the final results, scheduled for April 2019. Similarly, we have retained our DCFderived 250p TP and view the share price weakness as a buying opportunity..."

IQE (IQE)

Assessment of short-term VCSEL slowdown | Edison, 29 Jan

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"IQE’s post-close trading update shows that the short-term dip in production for one of its volume VCSEL programmes had a more severe impact on FY18 performance than management originally estimated. Although we are cutting our FY18 EPS estimate by 10.6%, we note the underperformance compared with management’s guidance given in November appears confined to FY18. Importantly, it does not affect the prospects for photonics growth in the medium term, which are based on multiple VCSEL opportunities. Our revised estimates give an indicative value of 73p/share..."

Sopheon (SPE)

A strong finish to 2018 | Progressive Equity, 29 Jan

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"Sopheon’s brief trading update earlier in January stated that revenues for the year ended 31 December 2018 would be ‘comfortably in line’ with market expectations, with early indications that EBITDA and pretax profits would show stronger outperformance. Today’s announcement expects that reported revenues for the year ended 31 December 2018 will be over U$33 million compared to our estimate of U$31.6 million. With lower costs than planned, EBITDA and pre-tax profits are ‘significantly ahead’ of market expectations. Sopheon ended the year with net cash of around U$16.7 million – well ahead of our estimate of U$12.8 million..."

eServGlobal (ESG)

Mastercard’s Earthport bid highlights HomeSend value | finnCap, 25 Jan

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"Well ‘the game is afoot’. Today’s news that Mastercard has trumped Visa’s agreed bid for Earthport by 10% highlights the opportunity eServGlobal has in HomeSend (HS). This bid demonstrates Mastercard’s determination to be the industry ‘gorilla’ in the global money transfer/payment solutions industry and it follows that sooner, rather than later, it will want to take complete control of their HomeSend JV through bidding for eServGlobal’s 35.69% stake..."

Flowtech Fluidpower (FLO)

Q4 trading update | finnCap, 31 Jan

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"The year-end trading update highlighted that the board expects adjusted PBT in the range of £10.6m to £10.8m. The group has seen a strong finish to the year, delivering a 42% increase in sales, with 6% organic growth and stable gross margins. The acquired Balu operations are trading in line with expectations. Net debt is higher than expected due to stronger Q4 trading and some additional pre-Brexit stock. Accordingly, we raise our sales forecast and trim our profit forecast by £0.1m..."

Cloudcall Group (CALL)

Balance sheet bolstered | Arden, 30 Jan

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"We believe CloudCall’s ABB to raise £2.4m this morning has substantially de-risked the balance sheet and clarified the investment case. CloudCall’s shares now trade on 2.2x FY19E EV/sales, at a 9% discount to the AIM Tech sector, in spite of superior sales growth (38% FY19E vs. 13%). We believe this is unwarranted in light of an improving risk-reward balance and a compelling growth story. We reiterate our Buy rating..."

Zoo Digital Group (ZOO)

오내동물원 ! (Oh my Zoo!)+ | Arden, 31 Jan

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"We believe Zoo offers compelling exposure to secular trends in media consumption through a fast-growing and cash generative business model. Early success in the group’s recent expansion into dubbing and an expanding client list underpin our confidence in the group capturing buoyant market growth. The shares have corrected by c.50% since peaking in July 2018. We view the current price as a compelling entry point and initiate coverage with a Buy rating. Our 12m PT is 140p..."

Flowtech Fluidpower (FLO)

FY18 pre-close: revenue ahead, profit in line with expectations | Zeus Capital, 31 Jan

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"Revenue is expected to be £111.1m an increase of 42% yoy in constant currency. This is 3.3% ahead of the £107.5m ZC forecast and has been driven by a strong performance in the last two months of the year from the lower margin PMC division. Importantly, organic revenue growth is estimated to have been a solid 6%. Profitability is stated at between £10.6m and £10.8m, the ZC forecast is between the range at £10.7m. The good performance from the PMC division and an inventory build-up ahead of Brexit has increased the working capital commitment of the business at period end..."

Blue Prism Group (PRSM)

Full year | Placing and big upgrades to 2020 sales | Whitman Howard, 24 Jan

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"Blue Prism Full year results are in line with the 27th November trading update as you would expect. Revenues were £55.2m vs £54.1m. Cash was in line at £50m and adjusted EBITDA was in with a loss of £21.6m. Exit MRR was £5.6m, an ARR of £67.2m. No change to recently upgraded outlook for this year, BUT now expect the 2020 revenue number to be above the top end of range which is £154m we were on £114m. The EBITDA loss will increase significantly as half the placing proceeds will be invested in opex. We upgrade our forecast and retain Buy PT2200p..."