Tracking for significant growth in FY23

FY22 headline numbers are in line with the mid-May trading update. Adjusting for the closure of the Support business, group organic revenues grew by approximately 5%, rising to c. 6% c/c. Adj. EBITDA of £6.8m (PY £6.4m) is 3% ahead of our pre-trading update forecasts and AOP of £5.2m (PY £4.7m) 6% ahead. The progression is much stronger than it looks given the closure of Support activities, which contributed £2m in the prior year and just £0.3m in FY22. Eckoh maintains its guidance for a strong

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 17/05/22

e client of Hybridan LLP Dish of the day Joiners: BSF Enterprise. Following the successful reverse takeover of 3D Bio-Tissues Limited, a tissue engineering business based in Newcastle, UK, the Company announces admission of the enlarged group to the standard segment of the Official List and initiation of trading on the Main Market under the ticker ' BSFA '. The Admission follows a placing which raised £1.75m at a placing price of 7.37 pence per share. Leavers: No Leavers Today. What’s cooking in

FY22 AOP ahead of expectations

Having updated in April that FY22 revenues and operating profits were expected to be in line with consensus, Eckoh today updates that operating profits grew strongly in the period and will now be ahead of consensus. Revenues are expected to be in line. We suspect this means operating profits will be slightly above £5.0m compared to our forecasts of £4.9m. This de-risks our FY23 forecasts, where we are looking for AOP of £7.7m. We are forecasting FY23 AOP of £5.9m from the existing business, up f

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 20/04/22

What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen? Lift Global Ventures plc to join AQSE Growth Market. The Company's investment strategy is to operate as an enterprise company seeking acquisition or investment opportunities within the financial media and technology industries. Within these broad industries, areas of focus may include: Financial news websites and other forms of “new media”, Investment research providers, Financial PR, IR, design and marketing agencies, Production studios and visual content prov

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 04/04/22

Joiners: Asimilar Group plc (ASLR.L), currently listed on AIM, has joined the Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market (Access Segment). The Group invests in the technology and software sectors and aims to focus primarily on opportunities in the Big Data, Machine Learning, Telematics and Internet of Things areas. Whilst the Directors are principally focused on making investments in private businesses, they do not rule out investments in listed businesses if this presents, in their judgment, the best o

Trading in line – seriously oversold

FYMar22 has come in in line with guidance set back in May 2021. Organic revenue and AOP is therefore comparable to FY21 as the lingering effects of lockdowns and some headwinds from SecPay contracts that including deferred hardware and implementation revenues revert to pure software revenues. We make no changes to our FY23 forecasts which are driven by Eckoh’s May guidance of “material growth” in the in the core business and the consolidation and synergies from the Syntec acquisition. The upshot

Product enhancements capture new market opportunities

Significantly accretive strategic acquisition

Eckoh is acquiring Syntec for £31m, a provider of Secure Payments solutions that bolsters its leading position in US Secure Payments whilst complementing its UK operations. Syntec has a long track record of growth, profitability and FCF generation. It generated revenues of £5.8m in the 12 months to June 2021, up 26% organic yoy, driven especially by strong progress in the US, and an operating profit of £1m. We model synergies of £0.8m in FY23, leading us to upgrade earnings by 15%. We upgrade ou

Acquisition of Syntec

Interims in line. Continued signs of recovery.

An in line H1 coupled with continued UK recovery since period end, improving activity levels in SecPay, increasing global opportunity and cost savings going forward give Eckoh “significant confidence” in achieving guided flat revenues and profits growth in FYMar22. Guidance for double digit revenues and profits remains for FY23 (no changes to our forecasts). While H1 continued to suffer from CV19-related drag it is encouraging that the UK business was back at pre-pandemic levels by September. In

Increasing confidence in estimates

LIBERUM: Alternatives Daily

LIBERUM: Science Group* - Robust 1H results

LIBERUM: Alternatives Daily: TRIG | GSEO | HGEN | APAX | HOME

WH Ireland: Sector News and Views – Corporate - dollar earner picks in a changing landscape

A year on from the end of lockdown on July 19 2021, celebrations at the UK's economic bounce-back in H2-21 have long lost their fizz. Two intertwined themes have remained salient / gathered pace over the past six months since our mid-year sector review: exchange rates and inflation. As we write today, press speculation is focussing on the possibility of a 0.5% rise in UK interest rates in August, billed as the biggest move in 27 years. Looking further afield, economists are looking to the F

LIBERUM: Ricardo* - Strong order intake and cash generation

Morning Note – 4 August 2022

SHORE CAPITAL - Begbies Traynor Group+ (BEG) - House Stock at 142p - Property finance brokerage acquisition

Cenkos: Bidstack Group Plc -- Commercial progress accelerating

Bidstack released a trading update on 7 July indicating that H1/22 revenue had increased 160% to £2.1m with improved year-on-year gross margin (H1/21: 34.5%). Considerable commercial progress has been made in the period, notably the December 2021 agreement with Azerion guaranteeing a minimum US$30m revenue over a two-period, commencing on 1 March 2022. This is now ramping-up and performing in line with contractual commitments. PubGuard, Bidstack's ad-quality platform, has also secured a minimum

LIBERUM: Ricardo* - Divestment of Software business in line with strategy

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 01-08-2022

Dish of the day Joiners: No joiners today. Leavers: No leavers today. What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?** Inteliqo Limited, intends to join the Aquis Growth Market. Inteliqo Limited provides sales, marketing and distribution services to technology product owners under long-term distribution agreements. The Company has agreed its first such agreement in respect of the Ipedia iQ product range. The iQ product is a smart translation earphone (earbuds) system which offers integrated real time speech

Cenkos: The Week that was - Stocks in focus this week are Fulcrum, Mears, NWF and Serco

Enclosed is our weekly round-up of news and updates from the professional services sector.

H1 22: RELX looks recession-proof

RELX reported excellent H1 22 results in light of the current macro environment. The management said that the momentum remains strong entering H2 22 and that it continues to expect the FY22e performance to be above the historical trend.

Ergomed - Sustained growth momentum in H122

Ergomed’s H122 trading update re-emphasised its robust business model and resilient growth despite the challenging macro environment. Revenues grew 24.8% y-o-y to £69.9m, underpinned by strong and sustained demand for both the clinical research services (CRO) and pharmacovigilance (PV) segments. In February 2022, Ergomed acquired ADAMAS, which added supplementary quality assurance services to its portfolio, and we expect this to further enhance group margins in the forthcoming quarters. Importan

The Hardman & Co Monthly: August 2022

Feature article: Utility regulation – Changes afoot - Patching up a tainted model While the gas supply crisis – and its price implications – have dominated the UK price regulated sectors in recent months, other issues have arisen that have seriously tainted the price regulation system itself. Indeed, it is fair to ask whether it is ‘’fit for purpose’’. Back in 1984, price regulation, via an unsophisticated RPI-x formula, was introduced to prevent the privatised British Telecom (BT) from abusin

Deltic Energy Finals and Update

Deltic Energy had a highly successful 2021. The highlights were confirmation by the Shell-Deltic joint-venture of drilling at the Pensacola prospect on the Carboniferous/Zechstein fairway of the Southern North Sea (SNS) Basin, the Capricorn Energy (CNE.L) five licence farm-in on the same fairway and Capricorn’s 3-D seismic shoot over licence P2428.