Regency View:
Update
TPX H1 revenue jumps 77%
TPX Impact (TPX) delivered an impressive set of Half-Year numbers this week…
The ‘digital enabler’ consultancy saw revenues surge 77% to £37.5m during the period and adjusted earnings jump 83% £5.3m.
Commenting on the strong performance, CEO Neal Gandhi said:
“We report significant organic, like-for-like growth versus the equivalent period last year as we take on larger, more impactful projects across our markets”…
On the integration of the acquisitions, he added:
“We expect the integration of our businesses to complete in the spring of 2022 but are already seeing the enhanced benefits of operating under this unitary structure”…
And he continued to add weight to their ambitious growth plans…
“We remain focused on executing our strategy in line with our 2025 commercial vision of delivering 10-15% organic revenue growth per annum and £200m run rate revenue by March 2025. We are confident of delivering significant further growth into H2 and beyond, in line with our recently upgraded expectations.”
TPX Daily Candle Chart
Marlowe makes ‘strong start’ to the second half
Marlowe (MRL) reported improved profits for the first half of fiscal 2022…
The safety-and-regulatory compliance specialist, which last week raised full-year guidance, reported a pre-tax profit of 1.6 million pounds for the six months to end September. This was up from £0.6 million a year earlier.
Revenue jumped 61% to £134.5m, and adjusted earnings nearly doubled to £21.8m.
Marlowe also said it has made a ‘strong start’ to the second half with good levels of organic growth.
Commenting on the results Alex Dacre, Chief Executive, said:
“We have delivered major progress in our Digitalise strategy to become the market leader in compliance software with over 20% of our current profits now generated from software.”
“Progress during and following the period underpins our confidence in materially overachieving against the financial targets we set in February 2021 to reach Group run-rate revenues of c.£500 million and adjusted EBITDA of c.£100 million by the end of FY2024.”
“We have made a strong start to the second half, with good levels of organic growth, and as a result we announced last week that we expect to trade ahead of market expectations for the full year.”
MRL Daily Candle Chart
Begbies anticipate an increase in insolvency activity in second half
We had a trading update from Begbies Traynor (BEG) earlier this month…
The financial insolvency firm said group revenue had increased to £52m (2020: £37.5m), with adjusted profit before tax growing to £8m (2020: £5.0m) – reflecting the benefit of acquisitions completed since January 2021.
Begbies maintained their strong balance sheet with net cash of £1.2m at 31 October 2021 and ‘significant levels of headroom’ within their committed bank facilities.
The group expect their Full-Year results will have a second half weighting, stating “we anticipate an increase in insolvency activity over the remainder of our financial year (to 30 April 2022)”…
“Overall, we remain confident of delivering market expectations for the full year, which will represent a year of significant growth”.
On the price chart, Begbies have become range bounce in recent months. However, given the shares long-term uptrend, we expect this trend to resolve itself in higher prices.
BEG Daily Candle Chart
IG Design say Christmas deliveries are on time
IG Design (IGR) released their Interim Results last week which confirmed the supply headwinds they had announced in an unscheduled update earlier this month…
However, despite the distruption, IG said Christmas orders were on schedule:
“Overall uncertainty remains over cost inflation along with raw material and transport shortages, however Christmas deliveries are on track to be with customers on time”.
Results during the period were robust with First-Half revenue up 11% year-on-year ‘reflecting primarily strong trading in the four months to July’ and profit before tax up 11% to $18.9m during the period.
Paul Fineman, CEO, commented:
“Demand is strong across our business and FY22 remains on track to achieve record revenues. Despite being constrained at the half year by extraordinary supply chain challenges, our opportunity for long-term profitable growth remains undiminished”…
“As with many businesses our current priority is managing the supply shortages and extreme inflationary pressures. Whilst in the short term we are not seeing an overall improvement in these dynamics, it is certain at some stage supply issues will improve and we will mitigate the cost pressures although it would be foolhardy to predict exactly when that will be.”
The upbeat rhetoric failed to inspire the market and the share have continued to consolidate near their lows.
Our stance on IG Design remains unchanged to earlier in the month, we are going to wait and see how their traditionally strong festive period plays out before we make any conclusions.
IGR Daily Candle Chart
Keywords Studios unveil new CEO
Keywords Studios (KWS) have announced Bertrand Bodson has joined as Chief Executive Officer.
Bertrand was previously chief digital officer at global healthcare company Novartis, where he led the digital transformation of the business.
He currently holds directorships at Tesco, Wolters Kluwer, Imalc and St Nicolas des Pres.
Keywords said Bodson will receive a base salary of £600,000 per year, a maximum annual bonus of 30% of his base salary and a pension of 5% of the base salary.
The remuneration package also includes a long-term incentive plan (LTIP). On joining, there is an LTIP award of £1.65mln which vests in May 2024, with entitlement to an annual LTIP award, based on the fulfillment of certain conditions.
KWS Daily Candle Chart
Science Group Sees Strong Operating Performance For 2021
Science Group (SAG) released a bullish trading update last week in which it said, “trading in all divisions continues positively”.
The ‘science as a service’ consultancy expects Full-Year revenues to remain ‘in line or slightly ahead’ of the upgraded guidance provided on 11 October 2021.
Science Group also announced that the acquisition of Magic Systech Inc (“Magic”) had been completed. Magic is a Taiwan-based company which specialises in Internet Radio technology…
For the year ended 31 December 2020, unaudited results for Magic reported revenue of $2m and a profit before tax of $0.4m. Magic will be integrated into Science Group’s Frontier business, but the Magic Systech brand will be retained.
Consideration for the acquisition was $4m, paid in cash, although at completion Magic held cash of $1.9m, giving a net valuation of $2.1m for the business.
Science Group’s share price has been going through a retracement phase in recent weeks, but we remain confident that the shares will perform well throughout 2022.
SAG Daily Candle Chart
EQTEC achieve financial close on Belisce project
EQTEC (EQT) have continued to make significant progress in commercialising their advanced gasification technology…
Earlier this month, EQTEC announced that it had achieved grant planning consent for the Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF) Project at Deeside. This allowed EQTEC to formalise an agreement with Anaergia to replicate the RDF project across other plants in the UK and ‘potentially worldwide’.
We also saw news last week that financial close has been achieved for the Belisce waste-to-energy project in Croatia and first phase funding for a second such project in Croatia, in Karlovac.
The projects are part of a joint venture with Croatian partner, Sense ESCO and will be funded through a mix of equity, debt and privately placed tradeable bonds.
On the price chart, the shares have hammered out a strong base of support and we expect the shares to push higher from current levels (see chart below).
EQT Daily Candle Chart
Xpediator CEO steps down
Xpediator (XPD) announced last week that Chief Executive Officer Rob Ross will step down with immediate effect.
The freight-management services provider said that Wim Pauwels will serve as interim CEO as the company looks for a replacement.
Xpediator said there is no change to the financial position of the business, and performance continues to be positive and in line with market expectations for the full year.
However, markets tend to hate uncertainty and the shares have drifted lower following the announcement. We expect the large positive price gap which occurred on Xpediator’s chart in January to provide support should prices continue to move lower.
XPD Daily Candle Chart
