Charles Jillings, CEO of Utilico, energized by strong economic momentum across Latin America. Watch the video here.
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He of Liontrust, has increased his personal holding to just over 14%.
Good morning all :) The recent flurry of 3 RNSs this month of employees converting their options to shares...leads me to strongly believe that a maiden dividend announcement is highly likely :) Could be announced along with the results in Aug 17. Good luck all !
Well it had to come eventually...another cracking day with close to a new high backed by 4.5x usual daily volume. Technically, strong candle with no wicks and backed by volume and the candlestick pattern is called a Bullish Marobozu apparently..... hxxp://www.stock-trading-infocentre.com/marubozu.html "....When the trend is up, the price opens and with out a even a small down move the price trend up and closes without even a small pull back. That means the price opens at the lowest point for the time period and closes at the highest point for the time period. This produces a long white candle with out a an upper shadow and a lower shadow. This is called White or Bullish Marubozu Candlestick. Here bulls or buyers are in control from beginning to end. This indicates a strong up trend...." So if this candlestick interpretation is correct, then a strong share price is due to follow. I get the feeling that 70p will be taken out sooner than we expect ! Good luck all :)
Today's new share price high strongly supported by volumes is all the more interesting in the context of good share price gains over the current financial year. As it is not far off the financial year end, one would anticipate some selling pressure as investors would want to sell and lock in capitals gains to the extent of the CGT limit. Paradoxically, we have gone up ! ARC is not a leaky company so I find this intriguing. There was also a single 25000 shares transaction, which in ARC terms is unusual. So won't rule out some Director/PMDR buying and a RNS to follow. All said and done, good to see quite a strong breakout from the recent trading range. Good luck all :)
Finncap (corporate) research note: 06 March 2017 Target: 70p Arcontech Outperformance continues Arcontech has delivered 80% of our previous FY17 adj. PBT estimate in a strong H1, driven by strong underlying sales growth of +20%. We upgrade both forecasts and target price to reflect this progress; FY17E adj. PBT moves to £0.4m (£0.3m) and our target price to 70p. Underlying growth – when adjusting for a terminated contract that benefited 1H16 (announced Mar-15), h-o-h sales growth was an impressive c.20%, with the largest contributors being contract wins announced in September and December. Consequently, annualised recurring revenue increased from £2.0m (at the beginning of H1) to £2.3m by period-end (+15%). Costs stable – excluding SBP and (minimal) D&A, admin costs remained at £0.9m, such that £0.2m of EBITDA was delivered at a 21% margin. We see scope for margin expansion as Arcontech continues to grow given that incremental sales are c.100% gross margin and all revenue is recurring in nature, which means only a light sales force is required. Upgrading forecasts – FY17E sales increase from £2.1m to £2.3m and adj. PAT from £0.4m to £0.5m. We highlight that this assumes minimal new sales bookings in H2 and also a £100k h-o-h increase in opex to accommodate for an increase in S&M. Because of these prudent assumptions, we believe that risk is on the upside. We only make minor (but positive) adjustments to FY18E at this stage, such that assumed top-line growth is 9% (below the current trend) and therefore also leaves scope for outperformance. Significant runway for growth – over the past two years Arcontech has developed a new desktop software solution, dissimilar to any of its existing products which is in proof-of-concept trials with five Tier 1 banks. Although none have signed up on commercial terms yet, the quality of these customers speaks volumes for the potential value and opportunity for this product. Increase target price to 70p – we continue to believe that Arcontech’s current valuation does not adequately reflect the company’s qualities; excellent revenue visibility (c.100%); strong cash conversion (>100%); growth (+20%); and scope for margin expansion. Because of these qualities and earnings upgrades, we raise our target to 70p: 3x FY18E EV/Sales and 14x P/FCF.
Excellent news ! Good to see a 21% increase in recurrent revenue Full year earnings ahead of market expectations Cash about £2.089m New product POC testing at 5 Tier 1 Banks Appointment of a new marketing person in Asia Looks like divi after full year results
If last year is anything to go by, we should get a six month trading update in the coming week. Monday the 20th Feb, would seem to be as a good a day as any ! And if, just if, we get a maiden dividend announcement in the region of 1.1 to 1.2p (given that ARC are ultra conservative), I would be delighted. Won't be then surprised for us to motor by 5-6p. A rough guess would expect the cash position to be very healthy as well and possibly in the region of £1.4m+ Roll on Monday :) Good luck all !
Some early guesses as to what year end June 2017 post tax / net income could be...we could be in the region of £750-800k (without any further contracts being announced.) Market cap of around £5.8m, PE of around 7.6 and net income of around £750-800k and the likelihood of a dividend - what's not to like ? Any thoughts ? Good luck all :)
Given that our expenses are already more than covered for by existing revenue, I would surmise that these additional revenues are pure profit. So since Aug 2016...annual, recurrent revenue highlighting RNS include 18.08.2016 = £285k 23.09.2016 = £ 95k 02.12.2016 = £115k Total additional revenue pa = £495k The market will very soon realise how undervalued we are....wake up folks :)
Marketing - I did ask a question on these lines. It wasn't that they don't want to recruit marketing staff - I got the sense that they have tried before and for whatever reason it became more of an overhead rather than translated to revenue. They also mentioned that sometimes we are used as a bargaining chip by customers against the Reuters and Bloomberg to get a better deal from them. So the issue of employing people and given the time and training required to get them upto speed, has to be balanced with the revenue that they bring in. Apart from this, given the highly technical nature of our products, any customer requests re software modification pulls in the senior software architect so that in turn affects development work. At the moment, we appear to be focussing on getting more value per customer (through selling a wider range of products) rather than increasing our client footprint. Also banks wish to have a consistent point of contact and therefore it makes sense that our existing marketing team focus more on our current client base. However, given movement of staff between banks, some have actually been able to drum up interest in ARC interest from their new employers - which is a testament to the quality of our products. This may translate to new business in the fullness of time given the very long sales cycles which more often than not involves displacement of the incumbent vendor. So though it seems counterintuitive given our cash pile, the marketing issues have clearly been looked at very closely and an appropriate decision taken.
I attended the AGM and there were three other private investors and therefore a low key event. From the information shares, it appears that the company is making steady progress and it appears that we may hit double digit percent organic growth in the near future. There was a comment that “we have not scratched the surface” of the markets we serve indicating there were opportunities to cross sell and upsell to existing customers. When asked about increasing the sales force, we were told that getting the people with the right mix of marketing, technical and relationship skills for this very niche area product was time consuming and any recruitee would have to have some significant training before being able to make an impact. So on balance a conservative approach is being taken and it appears to be working. Our ability to customise software and adapt software architecture in a matter of weeks/months as opposed to years was appreciated by customers not accustomed to this level of service from the big boys of Reuters and Bloomberg. Our desktop product suite is attracting decent interest (as mentioned in one of the recent RNS). With the presence of NOMADs, there was no possibility of any forward looking statements, but I got the sense that an expectation of a progressive dividend policy would not be misplaced. This is my reading of the situation and I could be wrong. I asked about Brexit and was told that was not expected to affect our relationships with our customers or where they choose to base. With regards to the cash pile, I got the sense that given the long history and the uphill task and perseverance it has taken to get here, that the management was very conservative about its use. A right acquisition was not ruled out if the opportunity arose. Equally, any prospective predator would have to pay a good premium before major holders would be interested – given we may be heading to the sweet spot of solid growth in the coming years with the extremely sticky recurrent income. We were told that over the last 10 years, only 2-3 customers had terminated. Staff turnover was also reassuring low with a number of employees having taken equity stake in the company. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the company, ethos and culture albeit this being surmised from a short visit. My warm congratulations to Matthew Jeffs and the team and I had the pleasure of also interacting with Louise Barton, Richard Last, Michael Levy, Darren Lewis and Sarah Wisbey and they all came across as very decent, dependable, astute, well engaged and focussed individuals who will certainly build good share holder value with time. With consolidation now out of the way, I hope we have a continuation of the renewed energy, vigour and newsflow that we have seen over the last several months. Let's hope that consolidation is beneficial for our shareprice - I am optimistic it will be, though stock market history of consolidations indicates a pull back m
Following approval at the AGM held today, 27 September 2016, Arcontech Group Plc are consolidating every 125 existing ordinary shares into 1 new ordinary share. The new consolidated shares are due to commence trading on 28 September 2016.
Excellent news ...twice in a couple of months with numbers attached. I like the newsflow. Slowly but surely...we are growing in solid way and remember most of the new contract annoucement revenue will go straight to the bottom line. So these last 2 announcements (18 Aug and today) alone mean an additional £380k pa...which is almost double the current profits.Onwards and upwards ! Congratulations to Matthew and the team who are doing a great job :)
Finn Cap have released an updated projection - looks like 1p next stop (fingers crossed!)
Don't think it was reversed, but just a correction of the price - which was very slightly out.
I see GedW's buy of 3m at .36 by support manager's wife is reversed today, selling at .43. Does someone know something? BTW, website is down this morning, so couldn't check out the new look.
You are most welcome...and nice to see a new share price high today. More good news to come in the fullness of time and dividend payment is likely to draw wider market attention. Fincapp has a new 0.5p target and we are already at 0.45p. Good luck all :)
thanks for the summary :)
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/ARC/12935908.html
This provider of products and services for real-time financial market data processing and trading, is pleased to announce it has extended its agreement with an existing customer which will provide additional revenues of approximately £285,000 pa. With new Linux based software subscribed to on a recurring license basis, the client can now take advantage of Arcontech's continuous investment in keeping ahead of technological advances, for example the ability to interface with Open MAMA and Solace. The new agreement also sees the client subscribe to the Arcontech Symbol Mapper which as well as mapping one symbol to another will enable the creation of its own instruments from internal data and to re-purpose that content across the group. This reduces the requirement to source the same instrument prices from third party vendors. Matthew Jeffs, Arcontech's CEO, commenting on the new agreement said: "We very much enjoy working with progressive clients where our exceptional domain knowledge of real-time market data, coupled with our clients experience and wishes means we can offer the very best solutions. Our goal is to help create flexibility and choice for our clients against other suppliers who wish to lock them into their platforms. Ultimately our independent outlook means our clients can choose the most suitable content, transport layer and infrastructure for their data user's needs, whilst invariably making huge cost savings".
Hi thechukkers....share price has appreciated about 100% over last 12 months and has touched 5 year high. No debt, £1.6m cash, dividend imminent post share consolidation, new products now in trials with several Tier 1 banks, very sticky customers....directors and Anthony Cross hold about 40% between them. It's a boring stock but often the best shares are like that....I'm delighted to hold a good few :)
phoenixfire, common strategy on aim is to sell on news, no matter how good, the share price at that time may have appreciated due to expectation, therefore the expectation disappeared and so did the traders, but the sp had done well over the past months
a bit odd seeing a company making profit in aim (lol)...noticed the enormous amount of shares in issue, therefore there before dividends payed there will be a consolidation- no matter though, as it appears it is financially quite a stable company...any thought on whats to come ???
Seriously why the drop, am I reading the wrong results? Why are people buying at yesterdays prices and selling today. Can someone point out the red flag I have missed, however obvious it may seem to you.
My conservative guess as to what the full year to 30 June 2016 will be... purely finger in the air and nothing scientific about it ! Revenue: £ 2.27 - 2.28m Operating profit: £ 320 - 340k Cash balance: £ 2.2 to 2.35m Possible announcement of a small maiden dividend with abundant dividend cover. ...would invite those with an accounting background to hazard a guess as to the possible figures. TIA Hopefully another interesting and upward movement day today :)