Small Cap Breakfast

Creo Medical group—Schedule 1 update.. £20m raise. Expected market cap £61.2m, admission expected 9 December. ECSC—Schedule 1 from provider of cyber security services. Raising £5m. Vendor sale £0.8m. Target date 14 Dec. Expected market cap £15m. RM Secured Direct Lending - The secured direct lending fund intends to float on the Main Market on 15 December raising up to £100m

The Monthly November 2016

Share prices are built on expectations - expectations about all sorts of things, such as a company’s future sales growth, the trend in margins and the profits it can return. Understanding those expectations and how they move is critical to share price formation. Listing rules require quoted companies to update investors on progress relative to expectations. What managements often fail to understand is that many of their key investors do not have access to brokers’ research and, thus, cannot put

The Monthly

Many commentators realise that the traditional institutional broking model is no longer sustainable. However, the reduction in the quantity of non-corporate coverage that has already occurred, even before MiFID2 comes into effect, will still come as a shock. The evidence shows that there is no commercial sense in brokers covering non-corporate companies with less that £200,000 daily turnover in their shares.

The Impact of Brexit

The dramatic – and historic – vote on June 23rd for the UK to exit the EU caught many organisations short, not least the EU itself. Both stock markets and currency markets were anticipating a narrow majority for the UK to remain within the EU – on a similar basis to the 2014 Scottish referendum. But it was not to be. As a result, the financial markets have reacted sharply in recent months, although other non- Brexit factors have also come into the equation.

The Monthly August 2016

‘Smaller UK public companies, typically those below £100m in size, face many barriers to accessing growth capital from the stock market. Poor liquidity results in these companies being perceived as private companies with a quote’.

Hardman Monthly July 2016

In recent years, various sectors have seen dreadful share price performances, not least the banks once the magnitude of the 2008 credit crisis became all too apparent.

Hardman Monthly

Our key feature article, titled “The Capital Cycle of a Growth Company”, looks at two key related issues that many growth companies typically face with insufficient consideration: 1) Who will be their next investors? 2) What will their investors expect from in return? The author, Antony Gifford, has had a distinguished career as an investment manager for 19 years, having worked for Hardman Global Investors, Deutsche Asset Management and Flemings.

Hardman Monthly - May 2016

Nigel Hawkins is again our feature writer of the month. Last month it was a review of the UK/ EU Electricity Sector – this time he has again turned his attentions to UK/EU Relations by assessing the risks to the UK financial and business sectors from our possible exit from the EU. The main conclusions from Nigel’s analysis are: The £ Sterling will be volatile, especially if Brexit prevails. Few of the largest FTSE 100 stocks are heavily exposed to the EU- Vodafone being a notable exception. A vo

Hardman Monthly – March 2016

This month’s feature article is the first publication of the top 15 drug companies in the 2015 global industry ranking and how this has changed over the last decade. In trying to analyse the changes that have taken place, we have looked at different strategies used by management teams. Many companies are featured, but there is emphasis on GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), AstraZeneca (AZN) and Shire Pharmaceuticals (SHP). In addition, we have analysed how drugs derived from antibodies have driven market gr

February 2016 Monthly - Feature Article: Patient Investing in Step Change Innovation

Grafenia (GRA): We anticipate a trading update later this month | MedicX Fund (MXF): 8th February- EPRA NAV update: 71.2p (+2% vs end September) | Primary Health Properties (PHP): 4 th February Final Results announcement | Purplebricks Group (PURP): 26th January- interim results. Real Good Food (RGD): 7th February Trading update.

November 2015 Monthly

The Financial Conduct Authority fears that the lack of transparency in investment and corporate banking and bundling reduces competition. They are in the process of a major study into this whole field. Any action they take is likely to hit the revenue model of these firms. Perhaps the traditional and unique British model of corporate broking will not survive.

October 2015 Monthly

The Office for National Statistics has just published its bi-annual report ‘Ownership of quoted shares for UK domiciled companies’ using 2014 data. For the first time, data for AIM companies has been split out from the whole market. It shows that retail investors form the largest cohort of investors in AIM, constituting 30.9%. We would argue that they are even more important because they provide the daily liquidity from which the share price is set; retail investors are not just the ‘marginal bu

Plantation Develops As Supply Squeeze Looms

United Cacao Ltd SEZC (UCL), the AIM listed cocoa plantation company with operations in Peru, has announced its interim results for the 6 months to 30th June 2015. UCL is deep into the development of a plantation that will extend to 3,250 hectares (ha) of freehold land zoned for agriculture, when fully planted. Some 70% of the plantation will be cultivated with high yielding clonal varieties imported from Ecuador and the remainder will be given over to fine flavour varieties, some native to Peru

September 2015 Monthly - MiFID II – Why every investor and company needs to think about the implications

Alliance Pharma | City of London Investment Group | Empresaria | Futura Medical | Grafenia | MedicX Fund | Lombard Risk Management | Murgitroyd | Primary Health Properties | PPHE Hotel Group | R.E.A. Holdings | Real Good Food | Sanderson | Tethys Oil AB | United Cacao Limited SEZC | Verona Pharma

August 2015 Monthly

Alliance Pharma | City of London Investment Group | Empresaria | Futura Medical | Grafenia | Lombard Risk Management | MedicX Fund | Murgitroyd | PPHE | Primary Health Properties | R.E.A. Holdings | Real Good Food | Sanderson | Tethys Oil AB | United Cacao Limited SEZC

Premier Foods+ (PFD, House Stock, 139p) - Pension cash contributions suspended

LIBERUM: Genus: Time to go the whole hog?

Carr's Group - An enhanced value creation strategy

Carr’s Group has announced an updated strategy that offers the potential for value realisation and creation from a number of avenues. These include: value realisation of the Engineering Division; the ability to significantly reduce central costs; and longer-term value creation in the Agriculture Division as a focused business with recovery potential and a strategy to leverage its strong market positions for growth.

Greggs - Showing us how it's done

The second full year of Greggs’ five-year growth plan to double revenue by FY26 should be marked down as very successful, especially so given the challenging external environment. Unlike many consumer-facing companies, high selling price inflation was accompanied by volume growth, leading to good market share gains. The consumer is responding well to new initiatives to grow revenue in new dayparts and digital channels. Profitability was well-managed with better recovery of input cost inflation t

BWMX: 1Q Preview: Moving to the Offensive; Reiterate Buy, $22.50 PT

We are reiterating our Buy rating, projections and $22.50 price target for Betterware de Mexico with the company announcing 1Q24 (March) results after the close on Thursday. We believe, with momentum returning at the Betterware division, JAFRA remaining on a new product and marketing focus, the United States market becoming a larger emphasis and BWMX continuing to offer a compelling (and secure) dividend yield of 8.5%, BWMX remains well positioned to reward investors on multiple levels, and we r

Hardman & Co Healthcare Index: 2023 – Capital demands dent performance

The Hardman & Co Healthcare Index (HHI) has been running since 2009. Its main function is to highlight the attractions of life sciences investments over the long term. For the second year running, apart from global economic influences affecting world markets, performance in 2023 was dented by the capital-intensive nature of the sector. The HHI fell 3.7%, to 483.8, underperforming the main London markets – FTSE 100 (+3.8%) and FTSE All-Share (3.8%) but outperforming the FTSE AIM All-Share Index (

BWMX: Snapping the Catalog: 1Q Registered Progress; Reiterate Buy, $22.50 PT

We are reiterating our Buy rating, $22.50 price target and projections for Betterware de Mexico after reviewing the March catalog. March completed a 1Q with material YoY positives, from higher SKU counts, rising cadence of new and debuting products, a return of key favorites and continued reductions in overall discounting levels. We believe Betterware management has been able to capitalize on the return to normalcy for their supply chain to roll out compelling new items, offer normalized pricing

Anpario+ (ANP) - House Stock (from Buy), 208p - Appointment as NOMAD & Broker leads to withdrawal of recommendation.

Anpario+ (ANP, House Stock at 230p) - FY24F upgrades - recovery play

Cake Box Holdings+ (CBOX, House Stock at 161p) - Robust trading - a modest upgrade

Morning Note – 23 January 2024