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Even a few of our detractors have now come around
Call me a complete weirdo, but there is something about the name RELX (REL) which completely gets on my goat. There are a couple of reasons for this, but the only one I am going to share with you is that I thought the old name of Reed Elsevier is far classier. I wonder what the bill was (way back in 2015!) for thinking up the new name? All I know is, when you (still) have to provide a pronunciation guide (“REL-EX” if you were wondering), it ain’t a good look. Anyhow, the ‘X-factor’ of just sticking the twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet at the end of a logical name is so…2015 but I have to grudgingly admit that the company – which describes itself as a ‘global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers’ – is a good ‘un…
Something a little different this morning and that is another quick look at the AIM market-listed Abcam (ABC), which I last wrote about back in March. Back then I concluded about the "pretty fascinating company making, sourcing and selling a range of 'highly validated biological binders and assays to help study the important targets in critical biological pathways'" that:
As it is - for once - a warm Bank Holiday weekend, it feels perfectly appropriate to talk about insulation and that brings me onto a company I first mentioned on these pages a year ago, Kingspan (KGP)…
I think Malcolm commented on WH Smith (SMWH) a couple of years plus ago, but I am not particularly surprised that it has not troubled the ShareProphets scorers since. We all know the name, most of us visit the shops at least a few times each year and if you are in an airport, well, you can quite easily find yourself getting surprisingly little change from a tenner for just a couple of items. Local monopolies, eh?...
I have not written on Abcam (ABC) but given the nature of its last appearance on this website ("Abcam fat cats and useless 1%-er Non Execs") many will think just desserts about today's 11% share price fall (as I write)…
It is amazing what a 2% rise in revenues and some mumbling about a top end of range ebitda performance can do but - as I write - almost perma-dog BT Group (BT.A) shares are up over 6%. I should not be so cynical as I have liked the shares for a while as last expressed at length HERE. Today's update though feels like a corner has been turned. I say this for two reasons...
We all know UK retail is in a tough spot but problems for Kingfisher (KGF) are ironically not in the UK, where today's half-year numbers were correctly discussed as a 'solid performance' benefiting from continued growth at Screwfix and the self-inflicting wounds at peers that aided B&Q. The trouble is a 15% fall in underlying pre-tax profit mainly due to a 30% fall in profitability in the group's second-largest market France…
I am thankful to the Urban Dictionary (frequently a source of...insight), which tells me that to 'bunzl' someone is 'to prank someone gently, randomly, and inexplicably'. You learn something new everyday. 'Bunzl' (BNZL) is also one of the lowest profile members of the FTSE 100 and a description of its core activities - a focused and successful international distribution group providing customised solutions to B2B customers in 30 countries and six market sectors - is suitably opaque too…
Top of the regulatory news pile for me today is Kingspan (KGP), the insulation products company with Irish heritage, that claims, in its new presentation document today, that 'in 2017 total energy saved by our insulation systems is equivalent to over one hundred million barrels of oil or the annual output of sixty-one power stations'. Well how worthy…
You could have made a bit of money off my January reiteration that Dixons Carphone (DC.) was too cheap. The shares have pulled back from a slightly frothy 240p and are now trading just below the 200p level which is really building into a big resistance/support level. Today's numbers complicate matters a little more, with a second attempt by the new CEO to ensure he is starting the job at a suitably depressed profits outlook level by pulling down hopes for the next twelve months to just £300 million pre-tax profit versus not far shy of £400 million in the year just completed and over £500 million for the year before that.
As the old saying goes, 'where there's muck there's brass'. Rubbish and recycling company Biffa (BIFF) shareholders have had an alright ride since the company came back to the market in late 2016 but today's update contains the fascinating assertion that the company's CEO Ian Wakelin has 'advised the Board that he no longer wants to hold a full time executive role and that he therefore intends to leave the Company once the Board's succession plan has been implemented'.
Something a little different today from all those worthy growth at a reasonable price type companies I normally ramble on about. Whisper it quietly, but I think that FirstGroup (FGP) is cheap here. I know that a transport company is never the most popular name - and I await the opprobrium from the TransPennine Express train and related users in the comments section - but hear me out, after all, got to be greedy when others are fearful and all that.
Another day, another bunch of UK corporate earnings results. I see one of the FTSE-100's most complex companies Rolls-Royce (RR.) punched out some thoughts which have caused the shares to romp. I am still long the stock but the sentiment that I noted in this piece way back in time still holds. This is a long cycle stock because of all those lagged cash flows from aeroplane engines and should return to ten quid plus over time.
Back in August I wondered if advertising behemoth WPP's (WPP) name stood for 'What Profit Progression'. Well I got that bit correct judging by yesterday's results which were truly shabby with like-for-like full year revenue declines, a pulling back of medium-term growth hopes and rather desultory profit progression. No wonder the shares were down 8%, apparently their worst day this century. That hardly reflects the zip of the 'Mad Men' view of the advertising industry, more the drudgery of a new world where the big corporations are probing and prodding more their advertising spend.
Obviously great excitement at Bailey Towers today as Carolyn McCall hosted her first results presentation as CEO of ITV (ITV). I professed my attraction to her...management capabilities back in mid-November, when I observed that the bear case for the stock was overstated. Even though the shares have fallen back 5% today, we have lifted off that low point which is pleasing to see. So what's the tone of the update?
I had a bit of a rant yesterday about three FTSE-100 behemoths that were dividend-heavy but consensus buys and not offering - in my opinion - value. I don't think BT Group (BT.A) is in this grouping however despite being dividend-heavy and suffering a falling share price today because basically it is very out-of-favour.
I loved up DS Smith (SMDS)'s trading update just over a month ago and the formal half year numbers see a continuation of my enthusiasm. You cannot quibble with 5% organic growth, a 7% rise in the interim dividend, an 'excellent' bedding down of the new US expansion and it has even thrown a new cheeky deal in to show the continued scope for European expansion. In the world of packaging, paper and plastics I cannot offer you corporate violence and huge fluctuating excitements but I can offer you a decent growth-at-a-reasonable-price company.
