Support Services, a cornucopia of companies

Support services can mean many things to many organisations but essentially the sector can be seen as a lubricant that helps the wheels of the economy continue to turn. A common thread is outsourcing activities that are most economically and effectively performed by a specialist rather than keeping in house. Companies in the sector tend to provide business critical services to their customers, thereby providing an element of stickiness. The sector benefits when the economy grows, but also offers

Eastern European ATTRAQTion, MX Oil* to roll out the barrels, GOAL exports real football stateside

ATQT New Contract Win, BOOM Agreement, AVN Contract Win, CNIC Agreement, COS Final Results and Partnership, GOAL Trading Statement, IVO Funding Found, MIRA Final Results, MXO Investment and Placing, NRR Acquisition, OPTI Contract Signed, PNA Market update, RSTR Partnership, STAF Trading Update

A company for all seasons

Penna Consulting, the international human resources consulting group, was founded in 1973 and is widely recognised to be the pioneer of outplacement services in the United Kingdom, the activity which it continues to dominate, and is best known for. Outplacement can be defined as the efforts made by a downsizing company to help former employees transition to new jobs and help them re-orient themselves in the job market, a function usually outsourced to the likes of Penna. With this in mind one mi

OPG Power Ventures - Positive update for FY March 2024

OPG Power has released a positive trading update for the year ended 31 March 2024, and now expects to exceed previous market expectations at the EBITDA and revenue level. The company continued to benefit from a stronger revenue run-rate during H2/24 compared with FY23, reflecting greater availability of profitable supply contracts, which in turn have enabled OPG to run at higher levels of plant utilisation. We are raising our revenue forecast for FY24 by 22% to £162m, and our EBITDA by 34% to £1

LIBERUM: Luceco: Trading comfortably in line

Morning Note – 13 May 2024

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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