re sp direction31 Jul 2014 00:25
BREE has been on my watchlist since the article below from growthcompanyinvestor:
Breedon Aggregates is (literally) the sort of solid business that many small-cap investors overlook. When talking about businesses such as Breedon I am in my element.
Not for me the spivvy chancers I am frequently met with in the natural resources space that are desperate to explain to me why their cash-burning African mining operation with £50,000 in the bank is ‘really worth a billion pounds’. For me companies such as Breedon Aggregates are the Toyota Corolla of the investing world. Boring, but highly dependable and unlikely to let you down at 3am in the morning on the North Circular Road when you desperately need them and want to get home.
Breedon specialises in aggregates - crushed materials such as sand, gravel and recycled concrete used in the construction industry. It operates a total of 38 quarries, based throughout Scotland, the midlands and the north of England. The group is also a heavyweight in the asphalt industry, running 22 plants to supply the asphalt used in roads, footpaths and driveways across the UK.
In addition its concrete products division sells pre-made walls, blocks and bricks, manufactured near one of its sites in Aberdeen. Breedon also runs a contracting arm, that lays down asphalt for roads for customers in the local authority and highway space. It also carries out highway repair and maintenance.
The company is steered by chief executive Simon Vivian, who cut his teeth at building materials giant Hanson, where he served as chief executive of its European business. He then took the reins at construction play Mowlem, until it was taken over by Carillion in 2006. Breedon was founded in 2010 after a reverse takeover by Marwyn Materials, the company he co-founded with chairman Peter Tom.
Tom himself in addition to his duties at Breedon is the chairman of Leicester Tigers rugby club. A veteran of the aggregates industry, he is the former chief executive of quarrying firm Bardon Hill Quarries who later helped the company merge with a number of other companies to form Aggregate Industries, which was itself eventually sold to Swiss building group Holcim for £1.8 billion.
A company that has delivered impressive growth in sales and profits since its formation in 2010, it has a wide network of quarries and distributors, as well as expertise in areas such as contracting. Although it has been a clear beneficiary of the housing boom, it is not the sort of business likely to ever see demand for its products disappear.
The small cap. mkt has fallen since around March, taking the good companies down with the not so good. May through to and including August is rarely a good time for investments so this might just need sitting out. My holdings are getting hit regardless of their fundamentals.
Not sure if the above helps but just to say many of us are in the same position as folks here.
Good luck an
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