Member Info for rivaldo

Now up over 10% on over 750k shares traded, so hopefully any sellers are being squeezed out.

Cavendish summarise in today's note as follows:

"Delivering organically

Venture Life Group has released a positive trading update, with revenues expected to be in-line with our forecasts at £51m +16% YoY and a c2ppts uplift in EBITDA margin. FY23E revenue growth was delivered completely organically, a first since 2019, in-line with the company’s near-term focus on organic growth. Significantly, cash from operations increased over 70% to c£9.5m (in-line with expectations) supporting our analysis of free cash generation and yield. Cash generation also supported a reduction in group net leverage, which was 1.25x at December 2023 versus 1.65x at the close of 2022. Looking forward, Venture Life aims to build on its momentum through targeted investment in sales and marketing to position the group for sustained future growth and profitability."

And:

"Cash – The group delivered strong cash from operations, generating c£9.5m (Cavendish est. £9.5m), up over 70% YoY. This cash flow has helped further lower group net leverage to 1.25x at year-end 2023 versus 1.65x as of December 2022. The company notes further improvement to c1.1x post period end.

- Operational – Management has seen encouraging sales from newly developed products, noting improved sales volumes supported by price increases through H2/23A, which will clearly be supportive into FY24E. The company’s digital transformation strategy delivered online sales growth +40% to £3.8m for the year (H1/23 £1.6m). Through the year 28 new listings were achieved across UK retailers, which will further support our FY24E revenue growth expectations."

Big news late last night - GMAA are scaling up their helicopter special mission division.

They've paid just £280k to administrators for a forecast £27m of turnover in acquiring Specialist Aviation:

Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/gama-aviation-GMAA/share-news/Gama-Aviation-PLC-Gama-Aviation-strengthens-Special-Mission-offer/93177831

Of course there are added wrinkles. Transaction costs etc will take the total cost to £3m, and there are lease obligations on helicopters and property to take on.

Nevertheless, this could be an absolute bargain price given the likely synergies and cost savings etc, with H2'24 and onwards likely benefiting nicely.

After today's update, Finncap have reiterated their 68p target price and their forecasts of 5.4p EPS for last year, rising to 6.4p EPS this year.

Net debt is due to fall to a mere £5.3m at the end of this year (from £16.6m at the end of 2022).

Which puts VLG on a current year P/E of just 5.3.

A sizeable 150,000 shares bought back by MWE at 35.45p yesterday, and they now have 470,000 shares sitting in treasury.

These are unusually large buybacks for MWE. One would hope that they're buying these amounts back in the knowledge that any upcoming trading update or numbers relating to last year are likely to be positively received by the market and prove that the current share price is cheap as per the fundamentals posted by Robsy2 above. Otherwise this would be an extremely strange route to take!

Excellent - a solid trading update in line with expectations, and with no hiccups whatsoever:

- cash coversion and net debt both improving nicely

- own brands revenues growing well organically and now 59% of total revenues

- margins up and benefit of price increases still to come

- and a strong, confident outlook:

"Benefiting from our robust growth, clear strategic priorities aimed at refining our operation, substantial generation of free cashflow and a strong balance sheet, we are now in a prime position to deliver strong shareholder returns"

Time for a re-rating.

FNX have won an appointment as Suprnation's mobile payments provider:

Https://www.fonix.com/blog/suprnation-select-fonix-as-their-mobile-payments-provider/

I note that Suprnation were acquired in November by DoubleDown for £30m. More importantly, DoubleDown have around $75m quarterly turnover so are a very substantial company, and they said this in November:

"DoubleDown Interactive says it plans to use its recent acquisition of SuprNation to build on its success in Q2 and pursue “high-growth” opportunities in markets around the world"

which should mean lots of opportunity for FNX in Suprnation and potentially opening doors in DoubleDown globally:

"SuprNation select Fonix as their mobile payments provider

31/01/2024

SuprNation has launched our Pay By Mobile solution on Duelz, VoodooDreams and NYSpins, making Fonix their mobile payments partner and allowing them to offer players direct carrier billing. Initially launching in the UK, Fonix’s Pay By Mobile will be used to drive new acquisitions, introducing new players and providing them with a frictionless deposit option. With growth as a key objective, direct carrier billing will bolster the cashier user experience and bring further innovation to the SuprNation sites.

etc"

Hybridan have a new note out today after the contract win.

They forecast £0.3m PBT and a £0.5m PAT this year.

They see the cash pile growing to just over £2m by December against the £2.49m m/cap.

There's some useful info re QRO and the new contract win:

"The cameras will be installed at several strategic highway locations in the UK

allowing QRO to showcase the Harrier AI nationally to existing and potential police force customers.

The Harrier AI camera was designed and built by QRO in the UK and launched in December 2023. Empowered by Nvidia’s Jetson processors, it delivers real-time analytics ANPR software-enabled data processing and is powered by machine learning algorithms, making it adaptive and responsive to ever-changing road conditions and offering functions such as vehicle make, model and colour detection and traffic flow analysis."

"Hybridan’s view: QRO Solutions designs, manufactures, and installs cameras for roadside, overbridge and in-vehicle deployment and offers android handheld alerting software, database software and field services. QRO Solutions has an estimated 35% share in the UK police market for ANPR cameras. We believe that QRO Solutions will pursue growth opportunities in ULEZ (ultra-low emission zone) charges and car parks in the UK and perhaps expand its footprint to overseas markets.

Petards’ FY22 annual report indicates that QRO revenues increased 17% in 2022, despite the shortage of microprocessors in the early part of 2022 and QRO’s revenues had tripled since 2017, i.e., the first full year of Petards ownership. We believe that the success of QRO demonstrates Petards’ ability to acquire and integrate acquired businesses."

Good to see the share price creeping back up again.

WH Ireland have today initiated coverage on SOLI with a 1650p fair value price target, and an "undemanding" current valuation.

They summarise in a 24 page research note:

"Valuation attractive for high-quality business:

With multiple avenues for growth and a record of surpassing conservative earnings guidance, we view the current rating as unjustified for a company of this quality"

I've been buying back into these given the value on offer as outlined by previous posters. There could be very good upside given the cash pile backing up much of the entire market cap combined with a growing and global core business recovering nicely.

Excellent summary of TIME, including an interview with the CFO, by the always reliable Private Punter:

Https://martinflitton1.wixsite.com/privatepunter/post/time-isn-t-standing-still-30-01-24

Good to see all buying this morning after the positive trading update (one 10k trade marked as a sell is undoubtedly a buy), and the price moving up 2.5p on a modest £40k or so of volumes which suggests not much stock around.

Liberum have retained their Buy and 200p price target.

They conclude:

"A CY 24 P/E of 5.4x is attractive given the growth. Inspired has a low carbon beta, but that should change as its ESG credentials become more apparent. Growth in newer areas like Optimisation, Software and ESG, should accelerate growth and drive a re-rating. Our SoTP suggests a TP of 200p."

They also see a nice comparison with the recent sale of eEnergy:

"The eEnergy disposal supports our valuation of the Assurance division

We see the sale of Energy management by eEnergy, earlier in January, as relevant to Inspired. eEnergy’s FY 22 R&A says that its ‘Revenue is comprised of fees received from customers or commissions received from energy suppliers, net of value-added tax, for the review, analysis and negotiation of gas and electricity contracts on behalf of clients in the UK.’ It is therefore comparable to Inspired’s Energy Assurance business, which we view as Inspired’s lowest rated business, given its lower growth. The adjusted consideration appears to have been £30m or £40m including max consideration of £10m, and the FY23 adj EBITDA for that division was £4.4m, which suggests a trailing EV/EBITDA of 6.8x to 9.1x, which is consistent with our SoTP valuation of 8.0x."

Shore Capital reiterate their Buy and 1000p price target:

Https://citywire.com/funds-insider/news/expert-view-calnex-future-accrol-ssp-renew/a2435117

"Buy’ Renew, says Shore Capital

Specialist energy infrastructure engineer Renew (RNWH) has a lower risk profile than the market is pricing in, says Shore Capital.

Analyst Tom Fraine retained his ‘buy’ recommendation and ‘fair value’ target price of £10 on the stock, which closed at £8.50 on Tuesday.

The group announced trading momentum has continued into full-year 2024 ahead of its annual general meeting.

Recent updates on UK infrastructure spend have been positive for the group and Fraine said the group presents ‘an attractive opportunity for investors to benefit from the UK’s government’s commitment to spend £600bn on infrastructure from 2022 to 2027’.

‘We believe Renew is protected against economic downturns given that its revenue is driven by the public sector,’ Fraine said.

‘We continue to believe Renew has a lower risk profile than the market perceives, possibly due to associations with peers servicing much larger fixed contracts.’"

INSE is at last rediscovering its mojo.

Nicely in line with Liberum's forecasts at £25m EBITDA and likely £16.2m PBT, which implies around 13p EPS.

That's a historic P/E of only 5.6.

Net debt should come down sharp-ish from here and is also in line with expectations taking the January inflows into account.

Revenues are actually below forecast, which makes INSE's performance even better as margins are rising and product mix improving, so with continued revenue gains then profits should climb fast.

Above all, the business seems to be thriving and the outlook is confident. Optimisation is striding ahead up 13%, ESG is now EBITDA-profitable and growing revenues annually at 100%, and Software is also growing nicely at 15% with high margins.

The outlook is very strong:

"The Group started Q1 2024 strongly with substantial cash generation as the working capital investment in Q4 2023 unwound and is confident in the outlook for FY24.

This momentum is expected to continue, giving the Board confidence in its previously stated aspiration to maintain double-digit organic growth and, by FY27, double Adjusted EBITDA organically from that achieved in FY22. The associated cash generation will also lead to a deleveraging of the Group in relative and absolute terms."

Nice almost £200,000 buy at 863p just reported.

Good news for Fieldwork Robotics dated 21st December '23 not posted here before - note the £3m funding round too:

"Fieldwork wins Government Grant to Accelerate £1.1m BerryBot Project

Fieldwork Robotics Ltd. (“Fieldwork”), developers of selective, adaptive and modular harvesting robots is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a £515k grant from the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to accelerate its £1.1m BerryBot Project. Fieldwork will lead the project working alongside Performance Projects Ltd., leaders in agricultural robotics manufacturing and the Hall Hunter Partnership, one of the UK’s largest berry growers. The project is focused on increasing the performance and robustness of Fieldwork Robotics’ raspberry harvesting robot, Alpha, which will allow Fieldwork to offer an operational and profitable robotics harvesting service to UK raspberry growers by 2025.

The BerryBot Project will further develop the robot’s hardware, software and control/vision to enable picking at an enhanced rate. These engineering advancements will allow Fieldwork to offer an operational and profitable robotics harvesting service for UK raspberry growers.

Project partner Performance Projects Ltd. (PP) is a leader in robust mobile platforms for agricultural robots, which has among others developed the state-of-the-art GoFAR agritech platform driven by OxDrive hub motors.

PP’s experience with GoFAR is invaluable for this project and will be harnessed to create the mobile platform for Fieldwork’s robot to increase uptime and mobility.

As an end-user, the project includes the Hall Hunter Partnership (HHP) one of the UK’s largest berry producers. This will expand upon the existing collaboration between Fieldwork and HHP.

Throughout the project, the robotics technology will be tested regularly at HHP’s raspberry farms, enabling the team to make adjustments based on real-world usage helping to optimise the productivity of the robot. This collaboration will also allow the team to identify the optimum raspberry growing environment, further enhancing the benefit to farmers of Fieldwork’s technology.

This grant award follows a recent £3m+ funding round, which included a £1.5m investment from Elbow Beach Capital and a £1.5m+ Seedrs crowd fundraise.

etc"

From Mark Watson-Williams on Master Investor last night:

"Time Finance (LON:TIME) – Ready To Travel Higher

With its lending book standing at record levels after ten quarters of consecutive growth, this specialist finance provider is reflecting continued strong demand for its alternative finance products.

The Interim Results to end November reported revenues up 19% at £15.7m (£13.2m), while its pre-tax profits were up 35% at £2.7m (£2.0m), lifting interim earnings to 2.33p (1.73p) per share.

Non-Executive Chair Tanya Raynes stated that:

“These results show that our focus on own-book lending continues to deliver a strong trading performance.

This is particularly encouraging given the wider economic headwinds and demonstrates UK SMEs’ robust demand for funding from a truly customer-focussed, multi-product provider of finance like ourselves.

The strategic positioning of the Group within the market has enabled it to generate increasing levels of demand whilst also maintaining control of credit and spread risk.

As a result, the Group is well positioned to deliver further growth and increased value to our shareholders.

We look forward to being able to report on further progress at the year-end.”

Analyst Andrew Renton at Cavendish Capital Markets is looking for the full year to end May 2024 to show revenues up to £30.8m (£27.6m), adjusted pre-tax profits of £5.7m (£4.4m), hoisting earnings up to 4.6p (3.7p) per share.

The shares, which touched 39.80p in the middle of last month, did not quite break through the 40p level that I sought in my mention on 20th November last.

Having eased back to 32p by 16th January, they are now looking a lot firmer, closing on Friday night at 39.70p.

I really like this £37m capitalised group and see its shares going considerably higher yet."

Cavendish have this morning raised their target price to 38p (from 35p).

An excellent, confident update.

Guidance for this year of £62m revenues is already £1m ahead of Liberum's forecast - and £2m ahead of Cavendish's. And that's without any further contract wins etc.

Plus £37m net cash is way ahead of Cavendish's forecast £34.5m and Liberum's £30.6m.

Margins and order books are nicely ahead, there'll be a dividend too, and the ambition is to not far off double revenues.

Things are going pretty well!

Intriguing news - QRO has been awarded a £0.4 contract for Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled ANPR cameras.

It's the first such sale, so whilst the £0.4m is welcome it's the strategic value of the first such AI contract win which is most encouraging. Hopefully lots more to come:

Https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/petards-PEG/share-news/Petards-Group-PLC-Contract-Win/93160751