PROGRESSIVE: CEPS: H1 performance shows strategy delivering

CEPS has continued to make progress with its companies, and key growth drivers remain intact despite the challenging economic backdrop. First-half revenue (to 30 June) increased 15.9% to £15.05m (H1 22: £12.99m), driven by improvements in both the underlying business and recent acquisitions. Profitability has continued to improve, with operating profit up 47% to £1.37m (H1 22: £930k). Recent acquisitions have integrated well and some challenges faced in FY22, such as input cost inflation and ski

PROGRESSIVE: CEPS: Solid FY22 performance

CEPS continues to deliver on its key strategic initiatives and growth drivers despite a challenging economic backdrop. Total revenue in FY22 (to 31 December 2022) increased 30% to £26.5m (FY21: £20.3m), driven by both an increase in the underlying business and recent acquisitions. Profitability has also improved, with operating profit up 31% to £2.1m (FY21: £1.6m). The subsidiaries have made good progress following the restructuring measures over the past three years and the ‘buy and build’ stra

PROGRESSIVE: CEPS: Solid H1 22 but cautious outlook

CEPS has delivered solid H1 22 results, for the six months ended 30 June 2022, against a weaker comparative period that was impacted by lockdown restrictions. Total revenue increased by 45% to £13.0m (H1 21: £9.0m) and operating profit by 15% to £930k (H1 21: £809m). The subsidiaries have made good progress following the restructuring measures over the past three years and the ‘buy and build’ strategy is proving successful. However, given the worsening economic situation, management has flagged

Full-year results demonstrate underlying growth

CEPS has delivered strong underlying growth despite the impact of lockdown regulations in the first half of the financial year. Group turnover rose by 70% to £20.3m (FY20: £11.9m), representing growth of 62% over the pre-pandemic FY19 trading year. Full-year performance has benefitted from strategic restructuring over the past three years. FY21 results demonstrate that CEPS is now a transformed entity, with its first ‘clean’ set of full-year results. We are encouraged that all the subsidia

Purchase of the business and assets of Impact Promotional Merchandise Ltd

CEPS has announced the acquisition by its subsidiary Aford Awards (AA) of the business and related assets of Impact Promotional Merchandise (IPM), a supplier of trophies and promotional customised goods such as sports bags and mugs. This acquisition reinforces CEPS’ strategy for AA to grow through the purchase of complementary businesses, where assets and clients can be integrated into the AA structure. We believe the IPM deal is likely to be immediately earnings enhancing and increase profitabi

Pension liability removed, funding headroom

CEPS has recently announced that the Trustees of its legacy pension scheme have entered into a buy-in contract with Aviva. While providing security for existing scheme members, this contract also removes investment and funding risk for CEPS. It is possible that there will be a surplus to be repaid to CEPS arising from the excess of scheme assets over scheme liabilities, although it is too early to determine how much this could be. In September, CEPS delivered its first ‘clean’ set of results (fo

Positioned for growth

Resilient performance in a tough year

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 17-09-2021

Joiners No joiners today. Leavers No leavers today. What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen? Responsible Housing REIT to join the Main Market (Premium) raising up to £250m. The Company's investment objective is to generate a consistent and sustainable income-based return from the provision of Supported Housing accommodation assets and aligned sectors. The Company is dedicated to the expansion of Supported Housing accommodation and aligned sectors in the UK and will acquire and create quality, fit

FY20 Resilience

Streamlined group ready to benefit from recovery

Hickton Group acquires Millington Lord

£1.1m acquisition funded from existing cash resources

Partnering for profitable growth

Building a cash-generative industrial trading group

Small Cap Feast

Kaspi.kz, the largest Paym ents, Marketplace and Fintech Ecosystem in Kazakhstan w ith a leading m arket share in each of its key products and services. GDR offering expected Oct 2019. In the first half of 2019, the Company generated total revenue of KZT226,862m (U.S. $598m), up 34% and net income of KZT77,001m (U.S. $203m), up 54%. Registration document approved for Helios Towers. The Group provides essential network services, flexible infrastructure solutions and reliable power supply to mobil

Small Cap Breakfast

Maestrano Group, a software company with operations in Australia (main country of operation), the UK, US and the UAE, is looking to join AIM. Offer TBC, expected late May. Yew Grove REIT—newly formed Company will pursue its investment objective by investing in a diversified portfolio of Irish commercial property. Offer TBA. Due Late May Team17 Group -video games label and creative partner for independent developers. Since 2014, delivered a revenue CAGR of 69% (31 December 2015 to 31 December 2

Small Cap Breakfast

I3 Energy –Schedule 1. Independent oil and gas company with assets and operations in the UK. Offer TBC, 26 May admission | Opera Investments –Reverse Takeover of Kibo Mining’s subsidiary Kibo Gold. Raising £1.5m. Expected mkt Cap £6.5m. 23 May | Verditek— Schedule 1 update. On Admission, the Company's subsidiaries will be involved in advanced solar photovoltaic, filtration and absorption technologies specialising in providing environmental services. Issue price 10p. Admission in late May | Flyin

Small Cap Breakfast

Rainbow Rare Earths has published a prospectus. It has raised $8m to fast-track fully permitted high grade Gakara ‘rare earths’ project to production in Burundi. Intends to join the Standard List of the LSE. Impact healthcare REIT— Intends to float on the main market. Seeks to raise £160m to acquire a portfolio of up to 58 care homes. Expected Admission 7 March. Diversified Gas & Oil—According to LSE website first day of trading on AIM now expected for 30 January.

LIBERUM: Plus500: Strategic progress pays dividends

Tatton Asset Management (TAM LN) - Record net inflows

Tatton, the leading on-platform discretionary fund manager (DFM) and IFA support services Group has released a trading update ahead of its results to 31 March 2024, due on 18 June 2024.

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

Ondo InsurTech FY24 Trading Update

Ondo InsurTech has released a brief post-YE update revealing its good progress continued through 2H24 and consequently FY24 will be in line with market expectations.

Foxtons Group (FOXT LN) - 1Q24 IMS shows real momentum

Foxtons Group plc first quarter revenue rose 9% to £35.7m (1Q23: £32.9m) with growth delivered across all business segments. Trading is in line with management's expectations.

BlackRock World Mining

BRWM’s managers: we see all the classic signs of high commodity prices...

Morning Note – 18 April 2024

NextEnergy Solar Fund - Attractive Refinancing

The refinancing of a £135m revolving credit facility and the extension of a similar £70m facility gives NESF firepower as development opportunities for new solar are especially attractive thanks to lower module prices in Europe. They give the fund key financial flexibility at a critical time as it pursues its capital recycling programme.

Foxtons Group - FY24 underpinned by market share gains

Foxtons Group’s Q1 revenue grew by 9%, supported by growth in all three divisions as the strategic initiatives continue to gain significant momentum, driven by investment in staff, best-in-class bespoke IT and data platforms. This implies that Foxtons’ medium-term targets are now coming into focus. Market share is being gained in all divisions, which puts Foxtons in a good position as the sales market stabilises. We maintain our valuation of 132p/share and believe that if interest rates stabilis

NextEnergy Solar Fund – High- and growing-income opportunity?

NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) is almost 10 years old. Since launch, it has built a £1.2bn, 933MW portfolio of 100 operating solar assets, powering the equivalent of over 330,000 homes, declared dividends totalling £333m, and avoided the emission of about 2.2 Mt CO2e. NESF is on track to pay 8.35p in dividends, with forecast dividend cover of about 1.3x. Share price weakness that has afflicted the whole sector means that dividend translates to a yield of 11.1%, one of the highest in its sector, a

The Hardman & Co Monthly: April 2024

Feature article: Steady as she goes, but could be better: A review of investment company liquidity since 2016 Liquidity is the lifeblood of equity markets. The measurement of liquid asset availability to a market or company is a way of gauging a market’s health. This article builds on our previous work, which analysed the liquidity data for non-financial trading companies, by applying the same analytical techniques to the investment companies (IC) space. We analyse liquidity for ICs as a whol

Initial Equity Trading Comments - 19 February 2024

M Winkworth+ (WINK, House Stock at 163p) - Solid FY23A results, well placed to grow

Hybridan Research: Sector Review: Artificial intelligence in UK cybersecurity: the human uplift 17/04/2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a double-edged sword in cybersecurity. Whilst new AI models, architectures, and innovations are emerging to protect the security posture of organisations, attackers are also benefiting from deepfakes, sophisticated phishing, and automation of malicious codes. To ensure the impact of AI on cybersecurity to be a net-positive, we need to pit good AI against bad AI. Point solutions enhanced with machine learning: Global cybersecurity has been built with point soluti

Resilient FY24, confident long-term outlook

Vp’s full year update highlights sector-leading results, once again benefiting from the diversity of its end markets and the quality of its specialist businesses. With results expected to be broadly in line with expectations, we trim our FY24 PBT forecast by c.5% to £39.0m, a shade below the FY23 outturn (£40.2m). We consider this an impressively resilient performance set against a mixed market backdrop. Under new leadership, a strategic refresh is underway and management is confident in long