Morning Note – 10 September 2024

Agronomics - Formo Series B close

Agronomics’ portfolio company, Formo has announced the closing of its Series B financing round, securing $61m of investment. The round was supported by both existing and new investors, though Agronomics did not participate in this round. Formo has developed and launched cheese alternatives that are based upon its fermented protein product, Koji Protein. These cheese alternatives are free from lactose, hormones and additives and have a far reduced environmental impact in comparison to conventiona

Excessively discounted

Agronomics - Portfolio company receives UK clearance for pet food

Agronomics has announced that its portfolio company, Meatly (previously known as Good Dog Food) has received UK regulatory clearance for its cultivated chicken to be sold as pet food, allowing this product to be sold in the UK. Agronomics believes this is the world’s first approval for a cultivated meat product to be sold for pet food. This announcement builds on a strong year-to-date, with Meatly announcing it had made significant progress towards reducing the cost of producing its cultivated c

Morning Note – 5 April 2024

Emphasising precision fermentation and portfolio progress

Portfolio visit: Clean Food Group for sustainable palm oil

Agronomics - 2023 in review

With the publication of Agronomics’ FY23 (to June 2023) financial results, we provide an overview of the results and a review of calendar year 2023, detailing the investments and progress made during the year. Agronomics invested £19.5m (FY22A: £42.0m) through the fiscal year (FY23), leading four funding rounds into All G Foods, Clean Food Group, Liberation Labs and HydGene Renewables. We also note the regulatory developments in the US that saw two companies, UPSIDE Foods and Eat Just, achieve t

Continued successful portfolio deals

Cenkos: Agronomics Ltd -- US approval and updates

Agronomics has noted the approval of cultivated meat for sale in the US, which clearly represents a significant milestone for sector as a whole. Two companies, UPSIDE Foods and Eat Just have achieved the three regulatory milestones from the USDA and FDA to allow the sale of their cell-cultivated chicken to consumers in the US. We also note Agronomics' portfolio company, Good Dog Food's partnership with Pets at Home in the UK, aimed at providing cultivated meat-based dog food and a separate portf

Cenkos: Agronomics Ltd -- NAV update and GDF financing

Agronomics has provided a NAV update as of 31 March 2023 and announced a further investment in its portfolio company, Good Dog Food. The company's NAV per share at the end of March 23 stood at 16.14p, broadly in-line with the December 23 level of 16.37p and we note the new investment ($0.5m) in Wild Microbes, held at cost on the balance sheet, announced during the quarter. On 4 May 23, Agronomics announced the follow-on investment of £1m into Good Dog Food's (GDF) Seed financing round, which tri

Cenkos: Agronomics Ltd -- Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub

We note the UK government's recent investment in the cellular agriculture field. As announced earlier in April and funded through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), £12m of investment will be made into a new research centre, the Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub (CARMA). The new centre will run for seven years and be led by Professor Marianne Ellis, at the University of Bath. We believe this investment, by the UK government, demonstrates an increasing interest i

Zeus Industrials Round-Up - 13 September 2024

The UK industrial sector continues to show promising signs of recovery, with manufacturing PMI reaching a 26-month high of 52.5 in August as all survey indicators but one expanded. Economic data has also been encouraging, with UK pay growth cooling to a two-year low and inflation rising only slightly in July – supporting the case for further interest rate cuts this year by the BoE.

JPMorgan Emerging Markets

JMG is trading on a wide discount relative to its history…

THE MONTHLY January 2020

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is due to publish its most up-to-date survey on share ownership in mid-January, which identifies the beneficial owners and decision- makers of the stock market. Hardman & Co has worked together with the share analysis service, Argus Vickers, to jointly produce its own survey, which anticipates the conclusions of the ONS survey but goes into much greater detail. Our work does not use a sample of 200 quoted companies as the ONS historically has, but rather

Gore Street Energy Storage + (GSF, House Stock at 58p) - Q1 NAV - construction assets on track

Facilities by ADF - An Autotrak-tive acquisition opportunity

ADF has raised £10m at 50p in an equity placing to acquire Autotrak, the market leader for portable roadway hire in the UK film and TV sector. This moves ADF closer to its medium-term targets of being a one-stop-shop provider of premium serviced production facilities to the UK film and TV industry and generating £100m of revenues. Our base case has EPS accretion of c.12% and our upside case shows nearly 20%. The valuation looks compelling, given it trades on an FY25E Adj P/E of just 5.5x vs equi

SP Angel Morning View: Copper prices rise alongside iron ore as China restocks

JPMorgan American

JAM’s outperformance puts it in the spotlight as a low-cost, core option for US equities…

PANMURE LIBERUM: PayPoint: 9.5% organic net revenue growth

PANMURE LIBERUM: Harworth: Strong progress continues

LIBERUM: SAS UK SMID Monthly: Should we expect a rally in retail stocks?

PANMURE LIBERUM: Speedy Hire: We expect a much stronger H2

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund - Revenue recovery to provide base for growth

Gresham House Energy Storage Fund (GRID) is the largest UK fund investing in utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS). The BESS sector has faced challenges over the past year due to unexpected revenue declines and the slower-than-expected utilisation of BESS by the UK’s Electricity System Operator (see our February note). This has adversely impacted GRID’s NAV and share price, which is currently trading at a 50% discount to its latest published NAV. However, a H124 trading update rele

Volta Finance Limited (VTAS): FY’24 - another year of outperformance

Volta’s monthly to its FY-end of July reported an NAV total return of 19.7% while annualised cash receipts are 22% of the July NAV, consistent with levels seen since mid’22. For 16 consecutive months, it has generated positive NAV returns. In this note, we detail the different elements that have driven this performance. We note both positive markets and incremental value added by the manager. To put Volta’s returns into perspective, YTD to end-July, there has been a +10.8% total NAV return, more

Ambitious winds of change

M&G’s FY 22 results were strong. It was also the opportunity for new CEO Andrea Rossi to depict clearly his strategy for the upcoming months. While the impetus is clear and the objectives are ambitious, we rather believe in a structural improvement of the business (driven by the higher rates environment) than a commercial one.

Avation (AVAP LN) - Sale of ATRs validates fleet carrying value

Avation, a lessor of 32 commercial aircraft, has announced the sale of two ATR 72-600 aircraft this morning, realising $10m of net cash proceeds after repayment of associated debt. With the sale being completed at book value, the sale price provides a positive validation of the book value of Avation’s fleet, contributing to a net asset value which currently stands at a substantial premium to the share price (NAV: 256p as at 31 December 2023). Sale proceeds should enable Avation either to continu