Norcros (NXR LN) - Capital Markets Day – taking the next step

Norcros recently hosted a Capital Markets Day (CMD) signalling a change in how the business communicates with the market. In recent history it has focused on growing its share of the highly fragmented bathroom and kitchen product markets organically and through acquisition. This has resulted in a portfolio of businesses with varying degrees of capital intensity and profitability but created a Group of scale (c. £450m revenue) with strong positions in its end markets. Last week’s CMD was evidence

Zeus Building Products and Construction Round-Up - 3 May 2024

Market sentiment turned more cautious in the month of April, particularly regarding interest rates, with economic data producing mixed results. Despite housing transactions and net mortgage approvals continuing an upward trend, with the latter at an 18-month high and +20.1% YoY and +1.4% MoM to 61.3k (seasonally adjusted), Nationwide’s House Price Index dropped 0.4% MoM (seasonally adjusted) in April, below the +0.2% expected. This comes as mortgage lenders nudge rates up to factor in the potent

Norcros - Sale of Johnson Tiles UK agreed

Norcros’s disposal of Johnson Tiles is the latest strategic activity taken by management to better allocate capital to fit with priorities. Last year it closed its UK adhesives operation. Norcros has a compelling investment case, where its new product development initiatives, market positioning and self-help initiatives allow it to take market share in both the UK and South Africa. Its rating is low at 6.0x FY24e P/E, which is attractive, especially when compared to its yield of 5.4% on its well

Norcros (NXR LN) - Sale of Johnson Tiles UK streamlines the business and improves operating margin

Norcros has announced the sale of its Johnson Tiles UK business to the current management team for a consideration of £1.0m, with a further modest earnout based on the equity value of the business, both payable in April 2028.

Norcros - FY24 trading in line with expectations

FY24 trading underpins Norcros’s compelling investment case, where its new product development initiatives, market positioning and self-help initiatives allow it to take market share in both the UK and South Africa. We believe that Norcros’s key strengths are underappreciated and that legacy issues have been resolved. Its rating is low at 5.6x FY24e P/E, which is attractive, especially when compared to its yield of 5.7% on its well-covered dividend. We retain our estimates and value the shares a

FY24 matching up to our expectations

In meeting expectations for FY24, Norcros has demonstrated business resilience in the face of challenges in both of its primary markets. A positive cash flow performance has also left year end pre IFRS16 gearing below 0.9x underlying EBITDA. In our view, neither virtue is reflected in the company’s valuation and the 1 May Capital Markets event should help to shed more light on the company’s strategy, market positions and medium-term prospects. Encouragingly, UK margins improved further where

Norcros (NXR LN) - FY24 trading update

Norcros has provided a FY24 trading update for the year to 31 March 2024 showing revenue and profitability to be in line with expectations. Reported revenue of c. £390m is down 11.1% yoy but broadly in line with Zeus forecast of £395.5m.

Norcros (NXR LN) - Initiation: Strong historic growth, steep discount to peers and SA undervalued

Norcros, a market leading provider of high quality, design-led bathroom and kitchen products in the UK and South Africa, is trading significantly below Zeus’ estimate of intrinsic value. This note focuses on the market leading positions and performance of its UK business whilst arguing Norcros South Africa (NXRSA) has become underappreciated despite consistently growing over the last decade to become a major player in the SA market. Zeus initiate today introducing FY24-FY26 forecasts. Based on t

Zeus Top Picks for 2024 - 2023 review and outlook for 2024

On 9 January last year, we set out our ten top stock picks for 2023, for what turned out to be another relatively poor twelve months for UK equities due to two wars, stubbornly high inflation and further tightening of monetary policy. This was even as other major markets, such as the US, largely recovered in the year. In the 2023 calendar year, the AIM All-Share index fell 8.2% and is still 42% off its 2021 high. From the release of our 2023 top picks note, the average total return (assuming div

Norcros - UK margins up materially, South Africa stabilising

Norcros’s compelling investment case was underpinned at the half year where underlying operating profit was down less than 3% despite material revenue pressure. Group operating margins rose 60bp, the UK business reported record underlying profits and Norcros continued to take market share in both the UK and South Africa. We believe that Norcros’s key strengths are underappreciated and that legacy issues, notably the pension deficit, have been resolved. We retain our estimates and value the share

Morning Note – 13 May 2024

LIBERUM: Luceco: Trading comfortably in line

LIBERUM: Currys: Improving momentum drives material beat and third consecutive upgrade

SP Angel Spec Sits HERC.LN: Positive trading update

Hercules is likely to report growth in H1E of over 27% YoY. H1E is the seasonally weaker half and the reported likely outcome for revenues in H1E represents half of our FY24E revenue forecast. As the seasonally stronger half of the year progresses, upwards pressure could materialise on our forecasts. Together with a prospective lower interest rate environment and a potential re-rating of the infrastructure sector, we see share price upside ahead.

SP Angel Morning View: Gold pushes higher as rate cut optimism resurfaces as labour market cools

Ultimate Products - Q3 trading update: tougher short-term, better longer-term

Ultimate Products’ Q3 trading update reveals that tougher short-term trading trends are now likely to persist into Q4, but the longer-term trends are now more positive due to growing order visibility from its bigger customers. We are downgrading our EPS (Dil. Adj.) forecasts by 22% to 12.5p from 16.0p for FY24E, by 15.3% to 14.8p from 17.4p in FY25E and by 12.6% to 16.6p from 19.0p for FY26E. We reduce our target price to 185p (was 210p) to reflect the new forecasts. Shorter-term issues should r

OPG Power Ventures - Interim results – solid progress, FY24 forecasts maintained

OPG Power has published interim results for the period ended 30 September. The company reports a strong balance sheet position and a sharp increase in plant utilisation driven by new supply contracts as discussed at the time of the FY23 results release in November. We believe that OPG continues to make a strong recovery following the coal price spike which impacted FY23. We are raising our target price to 27p, which represents 108% upside to the latest closing price.

Hardman & Co Insight: 2023 was an annus horribilis for Quoted UK Infrastructure and Renewable Energy

The focus of Hardman & Co Research is on the nine quoted Infrastructure Investment Companies (IICs) and on the 22 Renewable Energy Infrastructure Funds (REIFs): the stocks analysed are all members of the Association of Investment Companies (AIC). We are updating our publication of January 2023, assessing both the lacklustre share price performances during 2023 and the key issues, including interest rates, inflation and power prices. As a 31-strong group, its combined market capitalisation is no

Hercules Site Services - Trading in-line with expectations

Hercules has released a positive H1 trading update, with revenue up 27% YoY to c.£47m and growth delivered across all three of the group’s divisions (Labour Supply, Civil Projects, Specialist Plant Services). Trading remains in-line with expectations for the full year as demand for infrastructure remains robust. We leave our forecasts unchanged, but note that Hercules has already achieved 49% of our FY24E revenue projections (vs an average of 42%/58% H1/H2 split over the past three years), which

Near term disruption, but growth case remains strong

Ultimate Products announces today that sales revenue fell by 7% in its FY2024 third quarter and is anticipated to remain in negative territory in Q4. As a result, the company believes that EBITDA will now be in the range of £17.5m to £18.5m compared with a current market consensus figure of £21.5m. Given the 17% cut in current year EBITDA expectations it seems prudent to adjust our fair value / share figure by a similar amount. So, we reduce it by 20% from 250p to 200p. However, current sales s

Further good growth in H1, in line with expectations

Hercules’ H1 trading update confirms another period of strong growth, in line with expectations. Revenue in H1’24 is expected to be over £47m, an increase of c.27% over H1’23. This represents c.50% of our FY’24 forecast (£94.7m), suggesting the Group is well on track at the half year stage. All income streams grew, underpinned by substantial demand from the infrastructure sector, as well as the Group’s own growth initiatives. Contract momentum remains positive, and we note an encouraging trend

Zeus Industrials Round-Up - 9 May 2024

Economic and industrial data has started the second quarter on slightly weaker grounds than Q1 as Manufacturing PMI in the UK, Eurozone and US all reported April indexes below March levels. Cracks seem to be appearing as recent drops in new orders and rising input costs are quickly dampening confidence. Inflation did, however, fall MoM across the board with the exception of the US, where volatile energy prices caused a modest MoM increase in the inflation rate.

LIBERUM: Ilika: Proposed placing to drive Goliath roadmap

Eden Research - Fruitful year

Eden Research has reported its interim results for the 12 months to December 2023. The company generated revenues of £3.2m, slightly ahead of the January trading updated expectation of £3.1m and c15% ahead of our forecast. We note the company generated strong gross profits and an adjusted EBITA ahead of our forecast, both of which we believe were supported by the first commercial sale of Ecovelex. The company closed FY23 with cash slightly below our forecast, which we believe was impacted by the

Morning Note – 10 May 2024