The Joy of Techs - Cavendish Technology quarterly sector note

£23.3bn in enterprise value has been returned to AIM technology shareholders over the past six years in the form of 51 public to private takeouts, including 10 in 2023 alone with the takeovers of Smoove* and Tribal announced in early October. With UK valuations appearing cheap and looking more attractive to potential acquirers, we take a moment to reflect on the trends of corporate and private equity bidders targeting AIM-listed technology companies going back to 2017, through the uncertainties

Morning Note – 17 August 2023

Tialis Essential IT - 1H23 results in line, FY23 adj EBITDA nudged down

Tialis Essential IT reported 1H23 results to June 2023 last week, in line with updated FY23 expectations that demonstrate tangible benefits of the operational and debt restructuring programme. It has reported +72% yoy revenue growth to £11.6m, +28% yoy adj EBITDA growth to £1.2m, positive adj PBT to £0.8m (1H22: £-0.6m) and a managed £3.4m net debt position (FY22: £3.2m). One-off £0.4m restructuring costs reduced FCF to £0.04m (1H22: £0.5m). Frustratingly, Tialis received an unexpected notificat

Morning Note – 26 July 2023

Morning Note – 9 May 2023

Tialis Essential IT - FY22 sees benefit of restructuring

UK-based managed services provider Tialis Essential IT’s FY22 results describe £2m in adj EBITDA (FY21: £3.1m) from revenue of £14.5m and year-end net debt of £3.2m, demonstrating the benefits of a busy four-year period of restructuring across the whole Group. Improved working capital led to positive £0.7m FCF, which, combined with the November loan note conversion, reduced net debt to £3.2m from £16.9m in FY21, equivalent to 1.7x FY22 net debt/EBITDA. 85% revenue visibility of £22m in FY23E is

Morning Note – 2 February 2023

Morning Note – 20 December 2022

Morning Note – 1 July 2022

The Joy of Techs - finnCap Technology quarterly sector note

In previous quarterlies, we have focused on valuations, considering our tech indices for stocks below £1.5bn market cap and their performance as a herd. This time we focus on individual “zeitgeist” stocks: the stocks which confront a current theme – the indices over the period since the beginning of the year (finnCap Tech 40: -18%; finnCap Next 50: -17%) have shown unfortunate decline, therefore stock picking is more important now than ever. Median P/Es have declined 29x to 22x for the larger fC

Morning Note – 8 March 2022

IDE Group Holdings - Simplified and focused

IDE Group is a UK-based managed services provider delivering outsourced services as a strategic technology partner, primarily on behalf of systems integrators. After a series of acquisitions and divestments, the group is now wholly focused on IDE Group ‘Manage’, offering end-to-end solutions to enterprise scale end-customers, public and private, concentrating on end-user device management and on-site support solutions. Having delivered EBITDA of at least £2.5m from revenue of at least £14m in th

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 27/02/2022

What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen? Strip Tinning Holdings, an established supplier of specialist connectors to the automotive sector, intends to join AIM. Strip Tinning manufactures specialist flexible electrical connectors related primarily to heating and antennae systems embedded within automotive glazing and to the connection of the cells within electric vehicle (EV) battery packs, increasingly using flexible and lightweight printed circuit technology that also has growing application elsewhe

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 20/10/2021

Joiners No Joiners Today. Leavers No Leavers Today. What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen? Devolver Digital to join AIM, an award-winning digital video games publisher and developer in the indie games space. Recently awarded indie 'Publisher of the Year 2021' by GamesIndustry.biz. Offer TBA. Due early Nov. Life Science REIT to join AIM raising up to £100m. This will be the first London listed real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on UK life science properties providing investors with exposure

Small Cap Feast

Moonpig Group expected to join main market Feb. The retailer of curated gifts and personalised cards is targeting less than 2.0x net debt to EBITDA as at 30 April 2021. In connection with this, the primary offer of new shares is expected to raise gross proceeds of c.£20 million. The Offer would be comprised of a secondary offer of existing Shares to be sold by certain existing shareholders and a primary offer of new Shares to be issued by the Company Dr.Martens—Offer Price set at 370 pen

Concurrent Technologies - FY23 trading update – revenue growth accelerating

Concurrent Technologies has released a FY23 trading update stating revenues in the current year are expected to be ahead of market expectations. Strong order intake has continued throughout the year and the significant investment in product development undertaken to target design-in wins has brought new customers (especially large Defence sector prime contractors), larger average single order sizes, and an increasing diversification of end markets. So far this year, Concurrent Technologies has w

Journeo - The Merry Journey Continues

Journeo has released a positive trading update following strong business activity in October and November. The company references strong trading in its core Fleet and Passenger Systems divisions, as well as the newly acquired Infotec and MultiQ divisions. We expect that the investment made in the Infotec factory to facilitate higher production speed has contributed to clearing the prior backlog and the ability to win new orders. We believe the positive trading momentum will continue into FY24E a

Altitude Group (ALT LN) - Continued rapid growth

Altitude’s interim results show continued strong trading and operational progress, with a positive outlook for the remainder of the year. FY24 revenue and adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in line with market expectations. The Group’s pipeline for university campus stores (Gear Shops) remains healthy and growing, with further contract announcements expected between March and June next year. Our average valuation estimate is now 57.8p per share (previously 57.6p), but material Gear Shop contract

Celebrus Technologies - Encouraging interims, and name change

Celebrus (formerly D4t4) 1H24 interims to September are in line with the October trading update and unchanged forecasts. The typical 1H/2H revenue split eased a touch to 40/60 from 38/62, taking 1H EBITDA to breakeven (after £-1.2m in 1H23) and en route to £5.7m for the full year (FY23: £3.7m, including £4.9m in 2H23). The delivery of the larger of the two lower margin orders, together worth c£6m and postponed from 2H23, has boosted 1H24, with cash to follow in 2H24. Net cash (no debt) of £14.7m

Crimson Tide - FY23 update: FY23E adj EBITDA +136%, FY24E reiterated

Crimson Tide has reported an encouraging FY23 trading update highlighting operating efficiencies in FY23, and a strong pipeline of new business with increasing visibility to support profitable recurring revenue growth. As a result of more efficient operations, the company delivered reduced spend in FY23, reinvesting part of the savings in growth marketing activities, including partner acquisition in the US and UK. We upgrade our FY23E adj EBITDA to £0.4m (was £0.2m) to include the savings, upgra

Morning Note – 28 November 2023

Morning Note – 29 November 2023

New balance

Morning Note – 27 November 2023

GENinCode - Transition to De Novo

Following discussions with the FDA, GENinCode has agreed to transition the FDA approval pathway for CARDIO inCode-Score (CIC-Score) to a De Novo submission from the previous 510(k) application. This transition will create a new regulatory class for polygenic risk score medical device tests and, assuming approval, could see CIC-Score established as the ‘predicate’ device against which future polygenic risk score tests are assessed, potentially creating a barrier to future competition given the cl

Synectics+ (SNX, House Stock at 103p) - UK contract win

Tracsis - Delivering growth now and investing in the future

Tracsis’s FY23 results demonstrate that it is reaping the benefits of organic and acquired growth as the March 2022 acquisition of Railcomm adds US growth to existing UK and Ireland strength and growth. 19% group revenue growth (10% organic) was delivered from 26.5% growth in Rail Technology & Services (RT&S), including 8% organic; and 14% growth in Data, Analytics, Consulting & Surveys (DACE), all organic. £82m revenue (vs £81.5mE) yielded EBITDA of £16m as expected, with £15.3m cash, no debt,

Free shares in a new company

At last week’s investor briefing, GHT lifted the lid on Floe – a new product which materially extends Gresham’s value proposition beyond Clareti (regulatory and operational FS software) to front-end banking software as well, specifically corporate banking account management – a large (but poorly served) market. This attitude is seemingly shared by ANZ - which has been key to Floe’s development and will be first to commercialise the software. And - subject to a successful rollout – its deal

IQGeo Group - H1 organic growth of +83%, 4-5% revenue & EBITDA upgrades

In today’s H1 results, IQGeo has announced H1 revenue growth of +124% yoy to £20.5m, adjusted EBITDA of £2.7m, and EFCF of +£0.3m. Excellent execution of the land and expand strategy scaled exit ARR +64% yoy to £16.9m, net recurring revenue retention increased to 114% from 108% in FY22, and recurring revenue grew +61% yoy to £7.2m. The +122% yoy growth in services revenue to £8.8m reflects vigorous demand from customers to implement and leverage the differentiated solutions, and as customers ext

Journeo - Strong H1/23A Interim Results

Journeo has released a strong set of interim results in-line with the prior trading update and our recently upwardly revised expectations. Revenue increased 146% YoY to £21.8m and PBT similarly increased substantially to £1.7m driven by organic growth in all divisions and the new contribution from the Infotec acquisition. We leave forecasts unchanged following the two recent upgrades. Journeo looks compelling on an FY24E Adj P/E of 10.1x vs peers on 13.2x, and we reiterate our 1-year price targe