Hybridan Small Cap Feast 24/11/2022

Dish of the day Joiners: One Health Group plc (AQSE: OHGR), joins the Apex segment of the AQSE Growth Market. The group provides medical services, in the form of elective surgical care, to support the NHS in the management of patients, through a growing network of community-based outreach clinics and independent hospitals. Market Cap on admission £15.05m. Leavers: No leavers today. What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?** Kistos Holdings plc, intends to join AIM. The Company was incorporated to act

Morning Note – 24 November 2022

Mothercare - More outward looking

The loss of Russia as a key market is, of course, painful but there is much to commend in Mothercare’s interims: the business remain profitable, underlying retail sales were +15%, the new product pipeline is pregnant with new ideas, the pension deficit continues to shrink, and it has successfully refinanced. Mothercare is becoming more outward looking after a long period of introspection; it has barely scratched the surface of opportunities available to it and the new CEO, who joins in the New Y

Shopping Trolley - finnCap Consumer quarterly sector note

Fulham Shore’s Franco Manca value-for-money brand is perfect for current market conditions in our view, despite pizza being a crowded segment. Pizza travels well, allowing the business to flex to delivery and take-out according to market conditions. The combination of high gross margins, net cash on the balance sheet and excellent FCF generation should allow it to cope with tougher market conditions AND still protect its expansion capex plans to increase EBITDA by +55% over the next three years.

Mothercare - Balance sheet strengthened despite tough trading

Mothercare’s FY22 results are at the top end of expectations and current trading, ex Russia, is ahead of last year. Mothercare continues to strengthen its balance sheet and FCF should remain positive, despite the loss of half of group EBITDA from the exit from Russia. The pension deficit continues to shrink and a revised contribution plan reduces payments by £30m over the next five years. Mothercare has also extended the Gordon Bros loan by 12 months, albeit on slightly worse terms, but it is a

Morning Note – 11 April 2022

Mothercare - Good news on pension deficit offsets tougher outlook

Today’s trading update from Mothercare demonstrates that the hard work of restructuring and refinancing in recent years has borne fruit with underlying FY22 EBITDA expected to be in line with our forecasts despite the loss of the key Russian market in March. The pension deficit continues to shrink rapidly (as defined by a second desk exercise) and we now expect pension cash payments to halve. FY23 will be a tough year but we expect the business to pivot quicker to new growth opportunities to com

Mothercare - All business suspended in Russia

This morning, Mothercare announced that all business in Russia has been suspended, including shipment of all products. The territory is operated under franchise by Alshaya, which has confirmed that it will be immediately pausing all operations in 120 stores and online. Russia represents 20%-25% of global sales and £0.5m of group profit/month for Mothercare (pre any mitigating actions). We have adjusted our P&L forecasts accordingly, more important is cashflow. We estimate that Mothercare should

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 09/03/2022

Dish of the day Joiners: Invinity Energy Systems plc (AIM:IES), a leading global manufacturer of utility-grade energy storage has dual listed on the Aquis Stock Exchange. Leavers: No leavers today. What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen? New Energy One Acquisition Corporation Plc, intends to float on Main Market. NEOA is a special purpose acquisition company incorporated in the United Kingdom that has been established to focus on pursuing a Business Combination with targets that are positioned to par

11 for 22 - Investment ideas for 2022

Where next for markets in 2022? In our view, if COVID is not on the way out, we are just going to have to live with it now and it will have less and less impact on economic forecasts going forward. Instead, the bigger issues for investors to deal with in 2022 are cost inflation and staff shortages for business (which are already hitting earnings momentum), energy cost inflation and higher taxes hitting the consumer wallet, and markets that start from very elevated valuation multiples compared wi

Morning Note – 25 November 2021

Morning Note – 18 August 2021

Mothercare - Reborn

Throw away your old preconceptions – it is time to take a fresh look at Mothercare. It is no longer an ailing UK retailer; rather Mothercare has been reborn as an asset-light franchise brand represented instore and online with 18 franchise partners operating in over 700 dedicated Mothercare stores and 400+ additional stores that carry a selection of products from the brand and with a small but fast-growing online presence. Mothercare is profitable again and expects to make +£15m EBITDA post-COVI

Morning Note – 24 January 2020

Mothercare (MTC): Corp Transformation plan update

Boohoo Group plc (BOO LN) - Controlling the controllables

• Trading update: Group revenue of £637.7m is 10.7% lower YOY (P3 FY22: £714.5m), in line with previous guidance and Zeus forecasts. Performance was softer across all markets and almost all Group brands and reflects the normalisation of the channel shift online over the last twelve months. UK revenue of £400.8m is down 11.1% YOY (P3 FY22: £451.0m) suggesting a softening in demand versus H1 FY23: (4.4)%, but against a strong prior year comp (P3 FY22 UK revenue growth: 26.4%) as the outbreak of Om

Top Picks for 2023 - 2022 review and outlook for 2023

On 10 January last year, we set out our ten top stock picks for 2022, in what turned out to be a very poor twelve months for global equities, due to war, accelerating inflation, political instability and recession fears. Between 7 January 2022 and 31 December 2022, the AIM All-Share Index declined 30.0%, whilst the average performance of our ten top picks was -24.7%, a modest relative outperformance. In this note we discuss the performance of our 2022 top picks, equities trends in 2022, and our

Surface Transforms - Pre-close trading update, short-term production glitch

The group’s year-end trading update highlights that revenue for November and December was affected by some technical production issues, occurring as production was being significantly ramped up. These issues have been addressed and the wider capex of phase 2 is on track to be operational by Q3 2023. The group is capacity-constrained in H1 2023, not demand-constrained, with customers fully supportive of the remedial actions and planned capacity expansion. We reduce revenue expectations for FY22 b

LIBERUM: Accrol Group Holdings Plc* - A journey of growth, profitability and returns

Frontier Developments (FDEV LN) - Superior strategy

Frontier is a leading developer and publisher of simulation, management, strategy and non-linear games. These genres allow Frontier to continuously offer additional content, attract loyal fanbases and face less competition. Our analysis confirms Frontier’s games have higher player retention after twelve months (28% vs. average of 14% for peers) and engagement (162% higher average playtime), and that its chosen genres generate over 50% more revenue per game whilst facing half the competition of a

LIBERUM: Superdry* - Retail surging, progress made but work required to re-ignite wholesale

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 25 Jan 23

25 January 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment object

Accrol Group Holdings (ACRL LN) - Growth in every area

Accrol has delivered strong H1 results, reflecting impressive market share gains with strong growth in volume, revenue, and profit. Cost recovery and margin control has been impressive in what remains a challenging inflationary backdrop. We are upgrading our forecasts in anticipation of a strong H2 performance. The outcome of the Strategic Review sets out a clear roadmap to Accrol emerging as a £250m+ business over time in our view, including confirmation of plans to construct of its own paper m

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 12 Jan 23

12 January 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment object

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 23 Jan 23

23 January 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment object

Morning Note – 16 January 2023

Character Group - Update

The Character Group (Character), which reported full year results in December, has issued a trading update ahead of its AGM being held today. In essence, the announcement states that in what is a challenging year for the industry, sales and profit before tax are expected to be marginally below current market expectations. We are therefore revising down our FY23 revenue and PBT expectations by 7% and 9% respectively. Given typically strong cash generation and a sound balance sheet our dividend fo

WHI Support Services Sector Comment: Challenges and opportunities

Bleak expectations for the UK economy in 2023 anticipate underperformance against other G7 countries based on factors such as (a) the UK's higher than average mortgage rate sensitivity and (b) relative exposure to high gas and energy prices. Some measure of political / economic stability has returned, though this arguably remains a brittle quality, given the scope for dissent within the Conservative party and the unpredictable impacts of industrial action, among a range of factors. All of this s

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 18 Jan 23

18 January 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment object

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 24 Jan 23

24 January 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment object