Member Info for rivaldo

Lovely results - business is humming along.

Profits and EPS beat forecasts by a wide margin.

Adjusted EPS was 10.1c compared to forecast 8.5c. PBT was $3.1m compared to forecast $2.9m. Net cash is rising and now at $2.2m.

This year's forecast of 15.4c EPS is retained - i.e around 11.8p EPS.

Finncap's price target is raised today to 125p, but even this may be upgraded nicely with another contract win or two.

Terrific results, with 11.86p EPS slightly ahead of Edison's expectations and up 22% from last year.

Nicely confident outlook, with 2019 starting well.

Fire Solutions is roaring ahead post-Grenfell, but it's great also to see Access & Safety and Building Access also expected to continue to thrive.

Debtor days have reduced nicely to 88 days (from 97) and cash conversion continues to improve.

With 13.86p EPS forecast this year, a 124p share price looks extremely cheap imho.

The IC's Simon Thompson is still backing VLE - this was posted yesterday:

Https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/comment/2019/03/25/bargain-shares-on-a-tear/

"Viva Volvere

In a pre-close trading update, Aim-traded investment company Volvere (VLE:1,200p), a constituent of my market beating 2016 Bargain Shares Portfolio, has announced that its net asset value per share surged by 89 per cent to 1,248p in 2018.

As I noted when I last updated the investment case (‘Bargain shares: On the M&A beat’, 22 October 2018) after the company announced the disposal of its largest investment, Impetus Automotive, a provider of consulting services to the automotive sector, the sale would produce eye-watering returns for Volvere’s shareholders. In fact, the company has received net proceeds of £26.1m for its 83 per cent stake in Impetus, a thumping premium to the £4.8m carrying value of the investment and 21 times the £1.25m capital Volvere originally invested in March 2015. This also highlights the midas touch of Volvere’s founders, Jonathan and Nick Lander, who have the respective roles of chief executive and finance director, to successfully invest in distressed and undervalued businesses with a view to turning them around and exiting at a hefty profit.

The disposal leaves Volvere’s balance sheet is a rude state of health. Net cash of £34.1m equates to 1,093p a share, which means that the company’s 80 per cent stake in Leamington Spa-based food manufacturing business, Shire Foods, and a small software firm Sira Defence that develops products to help the police use CCTV effectively, are effectively in the share price for around 100p share, or £3.1m. That seems harsh given that Shire has just reported a pre-tax profit of £0.79m, up 23 per cent year-on-year, and Sira has entered into a number of reseller partnerships that are “expected to make a contribution in 2019 and beyond.”

True, Volvere’s shares are at an all-time high and have risen by 150 per cent on an offer-to-bid basis since I advised buying, at 419p, in my 2016 Bargain Shares Portfolio. However, given the Landers mightily impressive track record – Volvere’s book value per share has increased at a compound annual growth rate of 17 per cent since the company listed its shares, at 100p, on Aim in December 2002 – then they are still worth backing and I would run your profits ahead of news on the next turnaround situation they plan to invest in. Volvere’s annual results will be announced on Friday, 24 May 2019. Run profits."

Margaret Lawson, manager of the SVM UK Growth Fund, has highlighted WJG as one of three cash-generative businesses with strong balance sheets which are domestically focused and with potential to outperform:

Http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/182757/3-uk-stock-picks-for-growth.aspx

"Student Accommodation - Watkin Jones (WJG)

UK property has been under a cloud as investors became concerned about Brexit. The prospect of higher interest rates raising borrowing costs did not help. And, in the specialist sector of student accommodation, there was additional concern about the risk that European student numbers coming to the UK for education would drop. Now, the position is becoming clearer. The shake-out seems likely to benefit universities with the strongest reputations, at the expense of newer universities. Students now demand a good overall experience, and accommodation is key to this. Universities need to work in close partnership with successful providers of student accommodation to enhance the experience and operate efficiently.

Listed companies in this sector include Unite and Watkin Jones. Watkin Jones’ business model involves selling-on property to investing institutions and managing student property. The group is also betting that some of its skills can be put to work in private rented accommodation, building and managing flats for young people. The challenge over the next few years may be tighter credit conditions and economic slowdown. In that environment, cash generative businesses, with a well-defined business model and operating in a niche may find favour."

I sold my holding at the end of last week.

The company (and management in particular) are great. My decision was based on a simple risk/reward equation. I suspect that the cycle is indeed peaking now, or has already peaked. So there may be a little upside left here after a positive first few months of 2019, but not too much.

On the other hand any hint of stagnation in non-residential construction - which we may now be starting to see - or pessimism from investors, may see much larger downside.

I had a large holding here, so wanted to protect the 200% gain made to date.

Good luck to all here - now you'll probably see a bid at 450p!

Gailes5, I agree that on paper the spread is silly, but in practice investors can trade well within the spread - the buy today is at 1173p for example.

fwyburd has posted elsewhere an excellent additional summary of Jon Lander's presentation - I hope he doesn't mind me copying it here:

Https://www.stockopedia.com/content/small-cap-value-report-wed-20-march-2019-iqe-459743/

"Re: Volvere (LON:VLE) (I hold)

I attended Jonathan Lander's excellent presentation yesterday at a Blackthorn event in London.

In summary the net assets of £40.3m equate to @12.48 per share; cash of 34m equate to £10.95 per share. The balance sheet valuations of SIRA and Shire foods are at cost (£30K and £0.54m respectively). Shire made a PBT of 0.8m which conservatively should value it at 4.6m today. With the extra line they are putting in (from 2 to 3) profits should increase by a third and their product developments sounds very sensible (vegan; vegetarian; healthy pies). Might be opportunities to supply the major supermarkets although Lidl, Aldi and Iceland are alreary clients. It also sounds like they've learnt a lot about the industry which suggested to me he would contemplate more food manufacturing acquisitions.

SIRA sounds fascinating as it has unique IP for CCTV feed harmonisation (ability to convert multiple sources of CCTV imagery into one feed). Revenues currently £300K with 80 police forces around the world buying their services but they have been pushing IP licensing globally in 2018 and expect sales to ramp up in 2019 albeit from a very low base.

He recognises they have too much cash but will never pay a dividend (unless they have large underlying dependable revenues which they don't have at the moment); rather he prefers to buy back shares as its also better from a tax point of view. He said they might look at public transactions but will never compromise his goal of 17% compound growth yoy which they have achieved over the past 17 years.

As ever he was entertaining, transparent and straight forward.

cheers
Francis"

Agreed, good news. A vote of confidence from HSBC - extending banking facilities by a further £10m, and at reduced margins too.

So PTSG save money and have further security to allow further growth both organically and via acquisition:

Https://www.investegate.co.uk/premier-technical--ptsg-/rns/increased--50-000-000-banking-facilities-agreed/201903250700118032T/

Results are confirmed for Wednesday 10th April per today's RNS:

Https://www.investegate.co.uk/petards-group-plc--peg-/rns/notice-of-results/201903250700138055T/

Given the lack of further comment we can be pretty confident the results will be nicely in line with expectations of 2.02p EPS and a £1.4m cash pile.

Forecasts for this year remain at consensus 2.46p EPS.

today. Looking good for a decent re-rating to 450p-480p imho.

Here's my notes from VLE's presentation last Tuesday at Blackthorn Focus FYI....

GENERAL

- it would apparently cost £10m to build Shire's factory from scratch. Food for thought re the potential sale price for Shire......
- VLE prefer to acquire businesses with revenues between £10m-£100m, suggesting that they're open to purchasing larger businesses. No sector restrictions, prefer people businesses
- 30% IRR is minimum requirement
- VLE have "too much cash", so more share buybacks are on the cards
- this was the first time I've ever seen JL so optimistic and forthcoming about Sira Defence
- VLE might consider buying in the quoted co/PLC market (which they've done before with NMT)

SHIRE

- Shire has a 50,000 sq ft factory in Leamington Spa, with 160+ employees. They supply frozen (NOT chilled) pies/pastries to Lidl, Aldi and Iceland, and Morrisons to a smaller extent with party food
- party food represent a new product launch in 2018, alongside other launches like peppered steak, beef & vegetable, hunters chicken and veggie options like mushroom, stilton & cranberry, caramelised onion & goat's cheese, curried cauliflower & kale etc, for which input costs will of course be lower....
- Shire are concentrating on new healthy and vegan/meat-free/vegetarian lines
- the new third production line will be funded by extremely cheap bank finance directly to Shire, not with VLE's core cash pile. It should grow Shire's profits by "quite a lot"....adding another £9m of revenues to the existing £18m+
- Shire's principal competitor is Green Isle, owned by the huge Chicken King operation (as Pukka Pies do mainly chilled). Shire are probably the largest player...and are looking to expand into the larger supermarkets. Though of course Shire are already supplying the fastest growing UK supermarkets...

SIRA

- is now "the provider of the UK industry standard universal digital CCTV viewer"
- almost all its £300k revenues are recurring
- JL is "confident in 2019 we'll see the fruits of" new international partnerships
- used by over 80 police forces worldwide
- has unique IP

Looking very interesting - £47,000 of shares just bought at 398p. Hopefully the start of a run back to 450p+.

Https://www.investegate.co.uk/imimobile-plc--imo-/rns/imiconnect-available-on-salesforce-appexchange/201903200700113586T/

"IMImobile announces availability of its enterprise communications platform IMIconnect on Salesforce AppExchange

IMIconnect's AppExchange app enables Salesforce users to automate two-way customer interactions across 10+ communication channels

IMImobile (AIM: IMO), the global cloud communications software and solutions provider today announced the availability of its enterprise cloud communications platform IMIconnect on Salesforce AppExchange. This can enable businesses utilising the Salesforce Platform to rapidly launch and orchestrate two-way, trigger-based customer communications, across 10+ communication channels including SMS, WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, In App and Push, amongst others.

The IMIconnect for Salesforce App will augment the existing customer interaction capabilities of Salesforce Service Cloud, Sales Cloud, Commerce Cloud and Field Service Lightning to enable proactive customer engagement and reduce the cost of serving customers across touchpoints. Enterprises will be able to automate communications, such as order and delivery notifications for retailers, engineer appointment bookings for utility providers and customer welcome journeys for mobile operators, among many others, with ease of integration into Salesforce.

etc"

IDEA are looking to double in size in the next 3 years, and are creating another 30 jobs......

Https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/thirty-new-jobs-up-grabs-2660908

"Thirty new jobs up for grabs at Nottingham software firm Ideagen

The decision is part of it's project to become a 'destination employer'

A Nottingham-based global software firm is creating 30 jobs at its Ruddington offices.

Ideagen is a UK-headquartered, global technology company that provides software and services to organisations within highly regulated industries such as banking and healthcare.

The firm, based in Ruddington Fields Business Park is now in the first phase of its ‘destination employer’ project, and is creating 30 new jobs locally.

The recruitment drive will see the creation of 14 software development roles, along with 10 internal sales, three customer success and three technical content roles.

CEO Ben Dorks said: “As we prepare to record our tenth successive year of growth it is crucial that we continue to invest in the business.

“One of our key strategic goals as a company is to become a ‘destination employer’ across the globe and these roles are absolutely crucial in helping us to achieve that."

Mr Dorks explained that becoming a 'destination employer' means they hope people would be drawn to working there as the company continues to grow.

He added: “Ideagen is evolving into one of the largest software companies operating in the governance, risk and compliance (GRC) space.

"As we secure more complex and technically challenging projects, it is imperative that we continue to invest in the business and in our people.”
There will be jobs available across software development, internal sales, customer success and technical content.

Mr Dorks said the new staff would be joining Ideagen at a time when the company is set to double in size, both organically and through acquisition, over the next three years.

He said: "At Ideagen, people can grow, develop, have fun and in return for hard work, people are valued and are provided with new experiences, and challenges.

"We value people who want a challenge and are prepared to work with our global teams and work towards success."

Mr Dorks said 80 percent of their staff go on training courses every three months.

The recruitment drive is part of Ideagen’s global growth strategy as it looks to create 100 jobs across four Centres of Excellence in Nottingham, Glasgow, Kuala Lumpur and North Carolina.

Globally, the company now has more than 500 staff across its operations in the UK, Europe, US, SE Asia and UAE.

It’s Nottingham HQ is a 200 capacity facility which is set to become a Centre of Excellence for the company’s Research & Development, Sales, HR & People and Accounts functions.

Mr Dorks added: “By touching key operational functions within our Nottingham Centre of Excellence – from sales and development to technical and customer services – it will ensure we ar

Activity has picked up a tad this week prior to results, which are on 27th March so only eight days to go. Consensus is 1.57p EPS, with a 0.6p dividend.

Forecasts for this year are 1.8p EPS, with a 0.7p dividend.

Finncap have increased their target price to 120p (from 115p).

Looking good, with EBITDA slightly ahead of expectations.

I love the 53% of recurring revenues (up from just 19%!).

Acquisitions have been integrated well, more will be in the pipeline and there's confidence going forward. Plus the small matter of a $40.4m cash pile.

Excellent - a decent-sized maiden contract win for a new product in the potentially highly lucrative mobile advertising space:

Https://www.investegate.co.uk/pelatro-plc--ptro-/rns/contract-win/201903190700041648T/

"the market for Pelatro's DMP itself is estimated to be about US$1.8bn, assuming revenue sharing of 20%. This is the potential market that Pelatro has entered with the launch of its DMP and this contract win"

As predicted, the trading statement is out today:

- 1248p net assets per share, including a £34.1m cash pile (against a £33m m/cap)
- Shire Foods increased core PBT to £0.79m. The prognosis sounds more encouraging than I hoped, with customer growth and new product lines. They're throwing significant investment at Shire - I trust their judgement, but any sale price will have to be quite significant for decent profit over the acquisition price and subsequent investment
- even Sira is looking promising, with a £60k PBT, and "a number of reseller partnerships were signed in the period, which are expected to make a contribution in 2019 and beyond"
- the overall group profit was affected by £2.5m of Impetus sale bonus payments. Frankly these are large, but we have to accept that they're well deserved - if it hadn't been a multibagger then no bonuses would have been due

The core value of the cash pile plus Shire Foods (including the £2.6m freehold property) plus Sira remains quite a way above the current share price, and much more so once that cash starts getting reinvested.

As predicted, the trading statement is out today:

- 1248p net assets per share, including a £34.1m cash pile (against a £33m m/cap)
- Shire Foods increased core PBT to £0.79m. The prognosis sounds more encouraging than I hoped, with customer growth and new product lines. They're throwing significant investment at Shire - I trust their judgement, but any sale price will have to be quite significant for decent profit over the acquisition price and subsequent investment
- even Sira is looking promising, with a £60k PBT, and "a number of reseller partnerships were signed in the period, which are expected to make a contribution in 2019 and beyond"
- the overall group profit was affected by £2.5m of Impetus sale bonus payments. Frankly these are large, but we have to accept that they're well deserved - if it hadn't been a multibagger then no bonuses would have been due

The core value of the cash pile plus Shire Foods (including the £2.6m freehold property) plus Sira remains quite a way above the current share price, and much more so once that cash starts getting reinvested.

SCSW updated on IMO in their March'19 issue, and enough time has now passed to paste it here:

"IMImobile

(Sharewatch) A long standing overhang in IMImobile’s shares finally went with Gresham House picking up the slack and taking its interest from 6.1% to 9.9%. Well played to them - they were the ones who knocked the shares off their highs by reducing their holding from 14.5% last year.

Broker Panmure notes all geographies are performing well with healthy double digit organic growth with the exception of the Middle East & Africa (c.15% gross profit) where now that IMImobile has zeroed its Nigerian exposure, organic growth should pick up in the year starting April (Panmure expects >7%). At the same time, a new CEO has been appointed in the US market to consolidate the three mobile communication platform providers acquired in the past 18 months. Buy."