Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Tue 18 Dec - UNG, DLC, IPEL, QPP

Several interesting small cap RNSs today. Universe Group (UNG) is a £7.5m (at 4p/share) payment and loyalty systems group. It's hovered on my radar for years, and management impressed at a FinnCap/Mello Central event earlier this year.

Their pre-close trading update today looks good - profits will be ahead of market expectations. They are also confident about the outlook for 2013. I have an indirect shareholding in Universe, through Vianet (VNET), which holds 13.2m shares (7%) in Universe. The hideous bid/offer spread puts me off, although a good telephone broker can usually solve that problem by ringing round the various market makers to find shares priced well within the spread.

Anyone interested in a broker recommendation is welcome to email me privately, as I have a special arrangement with a proper broker which is priced very competitively, but only available to investors who trade in reasonable size/frequency (say £10k+ deals, several per month).

CAD/CAM software group, Delcam (DLC) continues its excellent performance, with a trading statement indicating profits will be ahead of current market expectations of £4.3m. Sales have reached a new high of £46m for the year.

Very good to see Delcam actually state what market expectations are, which few companies do. So often one is left scrabbling around trying to find out what figure a company thinks it is likely to beat! So let's hope more companies adopt this very helpful approach of specifying the market expectations figure which you are expecting to beat. It's surprising how often market expectations vary from one informational website to another.

On a PER of 17, and with a yield of just under 1%, Delcam doesn't exactly look a bargain, but high quality companies rarely do.

Specialist publisher of car repair manuals, Haynes (HYNS) puts out a trading update with somewhat mixed messages, but seems to overall be saying that conditions remain tough. This is another company which is struggling to find a direction to take in the move to digital. Although one would imagine that car repair manuals are one area where sticking with a hard-backed paper product makes a lot more sense than trying to go digital - I rebuilt a MkI Vauxhall Cavalier in my student days using a Haynes manual, and the idea of fiddling with an iPad whilst loosening bolts underneath the chassis, covered from head to toe in oil & grit, just doesn't make sense!

Beware of the published mkt cap with Haynes - I seem to recall that it has 2 types of shares in issue, so the apparently cheap £11.3m mkt cap shown on some websites is incorrect! The PER is about 10, which doesn't appeal to me, I'd want an entry price of half that for a company with an uncertain strategy & future.

A share which looks potentially interesting is recruitment company Impellam (IPEL). Their trading statement this morning confused me, as I mis-read it as saying that operating profit is going to be £3m lower at £5.5m. But if you look closer, it's actually saying that exceptional charges are going to be £5.5m, and that operating profit will be £3m lower than last year.
So I now have to look up what last year's profit was, which was around £24m, so it seems to be saying that profit this year should be £21m. Could they not have simply said so in the first place?! So Delcam wins this morning's clear RNS award, and Impellam gets the most confusing RNS of the day award. Please just keep it simple - we have to read so many of these things, clarity is everything.

They are proposing a £15m special dividend, which together with a PER which looks low, makes this one an interesting potential buy. Sadly the ludicrous bid/offer spread of 305p/325p rules it out - absolutely crazy for a £140m mkt cap company.

Yet buys seems to be going through at 317p, a full 8p within the quoted spread! Market Makers - why do you keep doing this?! i.e. publishing a ridiculously wide spread, then actually transacting at much tighter prices? Since most private investors use online brokers, not telephone brokers, this just puts people off from dealing at all. So the liquidity dries up, so you then make the quoted spread even wider still!

We all want to see more liquidity in smaller caps, and that will only happen if the Market Makers tighten the quoted spread to the minimum level they are prepared to transact at. Not an artificially wide spread which seems to be set wide, in order to deter anyone from dealing at all! Just quote the price we can actually deal at! Jesus, it's not rocket science, is it?!!!

Quindell Portfolio (QPP) puts out another positive trading update. I don't like this company one bit, it reminds me too much of all those dodgy car hire companies that never got paid by the insurance companies (Helphire, Accident Exchange, etc) - reporting bigger & bigger profits, and longer & longer debtors, until eventually it all implodes. Quindell may be completely different, but it set off alarm bells when I looked at it a while back, and it usually pays to listen to your instincts. I lost a lot of money on Accident Exchange, hence am not going anywhere near anything in an even vaguely similar area ever again.

10 comments:

  1. Paul,
    Did you look at Volex? They had a bad trading update last FRI which led to a 30% fall. Yikes!
    Manageable debt, but mgm't forecasts have been terrible, hence the loss of credibility. Problems seem fixable, but it's a thin margin competitive biz.

    CEO + Employee share trust sold some chunks before the latest update!
    PlayDumb

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    Replies
    1. Hi,

      Yes I bought a few VLX after the profits warning at 95p, but they didn't bounce, and I sold yesterday at 89p (Tweeted both buy & sell).

      I thought it looked cheap at first, but on reflection with quite a few problems perhaps not. I'll wait for the dust to settle, and then maybe consider it again if it drops to the 60p level.

      Cheers, Paul.

      Delete
  2. Man I remember doing up an old Cortina M3 with a Haynes :0)

    I think they're going to struggle either way myself , Hardback/Digital , for one very big reason , the Internet.
    For instance - and I'm no mechanic - I owend a couple of oldish ZAFs over the past few years and had a couple of minor issues at one time or another. Off to the web I went Google style. Not only did I find out what was wrong , but also found forums for just about every make of car giving detailed descriptions - with pics / videos - of how to sort said issues.
    So Sadly for Haynes , no manual required.

    DbD

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    Replies
    1. Hi DbD,

      Interesting point.
      There is indeed a lot of info & help on the internet in members clubs forums, etc. Although for most models, I don't think there is anything as comprehensive as a Haynes manual available online free. Cortinas are still popular, so perhaps better served than most models?

      I see Haynes as having a gradually shrinking niche, and the PER should reflect that, by being nearer 5 than 10, in my view.

      Cheers, PP.

      Delete
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  5. Typos , sorry missed out an important word . :0)

    Here we go ... fixed


    Just in the interest of research , this took me about 30 seconds , I'm NOT trying to dis Haynes by the way. I'm no good on the accounts side of this investing lark so trying make some sort of valid contribution.

    http://www.cortina-mk1classifieds.com/forum/

    http://www.buysellcortina.co.uk/forums/

    DbD :0)

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  6. Hi Paul,

    Your honest opinion sought.

    I have a small portfolio, but use Iweb for trades which are £5 and on other charges - I use them about twice a week because they are simple and backed by Halifax, so no worries.
    However I have noticed Club Finance charge only 50p per trade, as long as you pay £25 per quarter (£100 pa), which still works out dirt cheap.
    However would you trust a discount broker like this?
    Just your honest opinion sought and nothing else and judgement is our own to make...

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    Replies
    1. Forgo to add their link:

      http://www.clubfinance.co.uk/FrequentTrader/Frequent-Trader.php

      No way am I associated with them or profit from them

      Delete
  7. I have such experience and I think following link can help you in this matter.
    Wealth Me

    ReplyDelete