Tuesday 20 November 2018

I'll always play the long game!

In my last blog post I wrote a little bit about my stock picking journey and how an early investment in Trakm8 was life changing, and how Avesco put the icing on the cake. It's not meant as a boastful post, but I'm hoping it provides comfort to some novices as we currently endure a bear market in the small cap. sector.

I should re-iterate that bear markets are opportunities. "Be greedy when others are fearful". In Trakm8's case we might actually live the phenomenal share price appreciation again and then some more?

I previously mentioned that I started to invest seriously in the 2000's. What do I mean by that? Well to summarise, if you can't read a balance sheet, don't know what a p/e ratio is or TNAV or dividend yield etc then you should probably stick your money in a tracker fund. I'm not patronising, but you do need to (at least) find out about the basic financial measures to avoid many of the pitfalls. I also advise, as I did before, to read extensively about the "Great Investors" and their investing ideas. I did all those things before getting heavily involved in stock picking.

Anyway I digress. Why did I become a long term investor rather than a trader? Personal experience basically. Before my success with Trakm8 and Avesco, in 2002 I had invested in a company called Ashtead and a shipping company called Clarkson.

Starting with Ashtead. I bought my first tranche of shares in Ashtead for about 34p. At the time, I remember thinking that they were easily supported by NAV. Slightly naively perhaps, I hadn't taken into consideration their huge debt pile. I'm a little more clued up these days hopefully! Ashtead got into trouble and the share price fell to around 2p. "Oh dear, how sad for me" are words I didn't use at the time, my language was a little more colourful I seem to remember.

Anyway, I just held on and hoped for the best. Disaster was averted, and slowly but surely the share price began to rise. I bought more at 15p to average down, and let out a sigh of relief when I sold for a small 7% profit. Phew! Dodged a bullet there?

Have a look at the chart from 2002 to now. It's certainly not been a straight line journey, they never are, but even in today's market the share price stands at £17.12. My first purchase would have been a 50 bagger, and my second purchase a 115 bagger. Oops! Hang on, did I mention they also restored a dividend payment? They've paid out £1.39 in dividends since 2002. In fact last year's dividend alone would have given me nearly half my money back without selling a single share.

Clarkson is a slightly different story, but a similar theme. I bought Clarkson in 2002 for £2 a share. It was debt free and paid a 7% dividend yield. Pretty safe stuff I thought. I then watched the share price drop to £1.30 or so. Let's just fast forward shall we. I eventually sold mine for a handsome 74% profit. Not so handsome sadly! Today's share price is £23.65. The dividends paid out since 2002 amount to £7.30. So that would have been 3.65 times my money back in dividends alone, and a 12-bagger.

Now don't get me wrong, not everything you buy will become a multi-bagger and if you're a speculator i.e. having a punt on early stage oil or mining companies or low/non-revenue multi-million pound "story" stocks then prepare for lots of disappointment or even total wipeout. However, if you grasp "value" investing or GARP stocks or preferably companies exhibiting both characteristics then the chances are that in a portfolio of 10-15 companies (at least) 2 or more should prove to be multi-multi baggers in the long term, and eventually you won't really care what happens to the ones that don't. I might add that in the past 18 years, only one company has ever gone bust on me and that was a speculation.

I don't do advice or share tips, but this current market will throw up some absolutely fantastic buying opportunities if you've got the cash and if you're fully invested already then maybe switch off your monitor and do something else for a while.

ATB.




Saturday 17 November 2018

Market madness and setting personal goals!

Investing in illiquid small caps is not for the faint hearted. I should know since it's where I concentrate all my efforts. Yesterday I experienced the worst one day share price collapse in a company I hold (if memory serves me correctly) since I started investing seriously in the early 2000's. The company in question is Trakm8. I'll address yesterday's debacle later.

Of course these things work both ways. Yesterday largely reflects the panic and irrational behaviour of a current bear market in micro-caps pushing their share prices well below fair value. Bull markets do just the opposite with the exact same companies.

With all the above in mind, whilst I'm constantly banging on about being a long term investor, it's vitally important to keep personal goals in mind and act accordingly.

I bought all my shares in Trakm8 back in 2011 when the share price was even lower than it is now i.e. it was in the teens. Here's my blog post from that time:-

http://michae1mouse.blogspot.com/2011/09/your-m8-my-m8-trackm8.html

Trakm8 was one of my largest investments. It ticked so many of my personal investing criteria for a micro-cap.

Fast forward to Spring 2015 and Trakm8's share price had risen above £1, and I took a gamble. Trakm8's results were improving, trading statements were excellent and the share price had real momentum. I quit the day job with a (hopeful) £2 plus price target in mind which would make my dream of full time investing possible. In early October of the same year (2015), as the share price rose above my £2 target, I attempted to sell half my holding. I managed to sell a good portion, but given the huge illiquidity of the shares, I didn't sell all that I wanted to. As luck would have it, share price momentum continued and I actually sold the rest of that 50% for well over £3.

My two sales gave me a 12 bagger and a 20 bagger respectively. This translated into more than 6 times my original investment with the remaining 50% to hold for "free".

I hope this doesn't sound like bragging because it's not, I'm just trying to state the importance of having personal goals when making buy or sell decisions.

Trakm8 changed my life and I'll always be grateful to the management team that had done so well up until that point in their development. For regular readers, I hope this also goes some way to explain why in the past I've defended them so vociferously (and clearly I still hold 50% of my original investment).

My personal experience in the micro-cap sector has taught me to pick 10-15 such companies that you believe have significant potential. Carefully consider their financial situation and prospects before investing and buy them as cheaply as possible. Hold tightly unless the story changes or you've reached a personal goal. One or two of these success stories will change your life. There are other successful strategies of course, but buy and hold works for me. Never forget with all the best research in the world then you'll still need a bit of luck, but "the more you practice the luckier you'll get".

Hot on the heels of Trakm8 came another success story. Avesco. What I don't think I've mentioned about my investment here is that before I started the thread below, I'd bought a small maiden purchase at around 80p, which I thought was very reasonable at the time.

https://uk.advfn.com/cmn/fbb/thread.php3?id=20681152

How I laughed as the price plunged to as low as 20p. I kept thinking maybe I was missing something, but the shares seemed ludicrously cheap. That's when I bought the bulk of my holding. In 2016, Avesco was bought out for £6.50 and along the way investors enjoyed generous dividends that included a bumper £1.10 payout after winning damages against Disney.

http://michae1mouse.blogspot.com/2016/11/avesco-value-realised-after-recommended.html

This brings me back to yesterday's interims and trading statement from Trakm8.

The interims and trading statement were extremely disappointing there is no denying it, but a near 70% drop in the share price is just plain silly.

As a long term investor, what you need to decide is where will they be in 5 years or more?

I see a company that's still making good progress (albeit slower than hoped) but had a bit of bad luck in regaining momentum. It's recurring revenues make up 58% of total revenues which in 2018 are likely to be around £22m or so. Lexis Nexis and EE are two major contract wins recently announced and join the AA, Scottish Power, Direct Line, Marmalade, E.ON etc in employing Trakm8's cutting edge technology. Reading yesterday's report again, I still believe the company has excellent medium and long term prospects.

I don't give advice, but I'll be holding my shares now until the end game which I'm hopeful will conclude in a few years time in a similar manner to Avesco i.e.  huge capital appreciation, dividends when appropriate and an eventual buyout at a premium.

ATB to regular readers, and if you're relatively new to investing then don't be depressed by the current sell off in micro-caps, it's an opportunity and not a negative.

As ever, AIMHO and please do your own research.








Wednesday 7 November 2018

How much longer can AEO be ignored?

AEO (Aeorema Communications) released their full year results this morning:-

https://londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/AEO/13857561.html

I've written about this company before. Here is my last blog post from around the same time last year:-

http://michae1mouse.blogspot.com/2017/11/update-aeo-no-brainer-now-surely.html

Since that time the share price has largely remained unchanged, but the company is making excellent progress. Undervalued/unloved stocks can be ignored for very long periods, but in my experience it's always worth the wait in the end.

In my last blog post, I said AEO was undervalued. Following today's results I'd suggest it's even cheaper.

This morning they recorded a 16% leap in revenues to £4.8m (2017:£4.16m) and a profit before exceptional items of £289,650, a year-on-year increase of 17% (2017: £248,368).

They maintained a strong cash position with £1,436,314 in the bank, and have proposed a final dividend payment of 0.75p (2017: 0.5p), up 50% on last year.

Taking the profit (post tax) before the exceptional items gives EPS of around 2.6p, and hence a p/e ratio of just over 10.

The exceptional items were in relation to the departure of its two founders, Peter Litten and Gary Fitzpatrick, from the board of directors.

The new management team are more focussed on growth than Litten and Fitzpatrick, and although they intend to keep paying dividends when possible, they will "use the cash reserves to invest in new talent capable of driving the business forward organically, as well as exploring new acquisition opportunities which can help the Group increase in scale and drive increased revenues and profits." 

They've certainly made an excellent start whilst maintaining a very healthy balance sheet boasting cash of £1.4m and remaining virtually debt free. 

The growth story moving forward is looking very promising indeed. The average growth in revenue from their top five clients this financial year was 29% and although some of their larger individual projects continue to be repeated every two to three years, they have added some new annual large-scale conferences to their calendar and continue to seek out repeating six figure revenue generating events to support their growth plan. They are especially pleased to report that their pitch to win ratio has increased by approximately 40%. 

Their outlook statement reads very positively:-

"Looking forward to the financial year ended 30 June 2019 and beyond the outlook is very positive. The strength of the new team has led to an excellent series of new business gains since the year end with both existing and new clients. These gains include a major new client in the technology sector and a new global brand within the media sector. The Group continues to win new film production projects and the appointment of Julian Staveley as Experiential Director is also proving successful, with the Group recently winning a roadshow event for a global electronics company."

Everything points to a company achieving excellent growth with a solid balance sheet, a forward p/e ratio in single digits and a respectable 2.7% dividend yield. At a market cap. of just £2.4m it's an opportunity to pick up a value company with very good growth prospects. Surely, AEO can't be ignored for much longer?

I am a shareholder of AEO, and no advice is offered or given in this blog.




Monday 5 November 2018

Zesty interims!

Mediazest released their interim results this morning rather earlier than I'd anticipated (in 2017 it was mid December). I'm impressed, pleased and will continue to hold my existing shares in the company. I last commented on Mediazest in September:-

http://michae1mouse.blogspot.com/2018/09/zesty-and-promising-or-just-lemon.html

This mornings interims were very much in-line with the encouraging trading update and the key metrics are as follows:-

Revenue up 36% at £1.819m, EBITDA at a healthy £156,000 (they recorded a loss in 2017) and a maiden profit of £90,000 (they made a loss of £149,000 in 2017 at this juncture).

As mentioned in my previous blog post, the cash position is the worry for Mediazest, and on the face of it cash of £12,000 recorded at period end is insufficient. However, this is because of a late payment of EUR130,000, the bulk of which has now been received and cash is therefore healthier than the headline figure.

Gross margins have improved by 3 percentage points to a healthy 51% largely driven by their pursuit of recurring revenues which currently stand at around £700,000. They hope by year end these will increase to around £800,000 and cover 50% of costs on an annual basis.

Whilst we're all aware of uncertainty in the UK retail market, Mediazest are having considerable success overseas and :-

"the Group is developing, currently, several roll out / substantial deployment opportunities which would enable the Company to show further progress both in the current and future reporting periods." Their client list remains very impressive, and as far as I'm aware, this is their best half-year performance to date? Given all the above and a lowly market cap of around £1.4m, I don't see any reason not to stick with the shares I already own and see how things develop in the future.

Thursday 1 November 2018

Jam delivered and currently stuck in a jam!

There were very few RNS announcements in October from companies that I'm interested in, but November has started with a terrific trading update from Biome Technologies:-

https://londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/BIOM/13850420.html

This was a Q3 update to 30 September. It reads very well indeed.

Firstly, overall revenues are £7m for the first 9 months of 2018 which is a 56% improvement on last year. Significantly, this 9 month revenue figure is already well ahead of the full year figure from 2017 which came in at £6.2m.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, it's the RF division that's outperforming at the moment with £5.5m of the £7m revenues generated coming from the exceptional demand for fibre optic furnaces in 2018. The remainder of 2018 also looks strong for this division, and the outlook for 2019 sounds optimistic with orders "reasonably strong" at this stage.

The Bioplastics division is the laggard at this juncture, but I believe that this division has huge potential given the publicity regarding the environmental damage being caused by conventional plastics. 

Whilst the revenues generated in 2018 by the bioplastics division are marginally down on last year at £1.5m (1.7m in 2017), 2019 could see a significant uplift in revenues. Most of the revenues from this division are currently "for the commercialised outer packaging and non-woven filter mesh for the US coffee pod market." It's worth noting that "a contract for the supply of material for the rigid ring material in this coffee market sector has been signed recently and commercial revenues are expected to commence in Q1 2019 following the completion of final validations."

Even more significantly, there are two projects underway, one in the US and one in Europe, that could lead to substantial revenues in 2019 and 2020 with "further new customer relationships (are)underway within this division which should lead to exciting projects emerging in 2019."

I'm still very excited by the prospects here, and it's a long term hold for me. The shares rose sharply this morning, but they are extremely illiquid and have since fallen back a little from profit taking (the shares are up around 4% as I write). 

At the opposite end of the scale, 7digital's share price has been falling sharply in recent weeks. There is or has been a relatively large seller in the market recently which explains some of the decline:-

https://londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/7DIG/13826986.html

A major issue is that many investors are probably sitting on their hands waiting for some positive news from the company. Whilst they work towards cashflow and profitability, they have burnt through cash very quickly and recently needed an additional £1.5m loan from three shareholders for working capital as the company completes it's restructuring.

https://londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/7DIG/13843278.html

Promises of cashflow positivity and profitability accompanied by one or two large client contracts is needed from 7digital. So far it's been too many promises without the delivery, and we need under-promising and over delivering from now on.

I remain hopeful that 7digital can achieve their goals, and of course if they do then the share price will recover and move sharply higher. Ever hopeful, but it's never comfortable until you see the evidence of success rather than just jam tomorrow.

One thing that's worth noting is that Biome Technologies was very much a "jam tomorrow" company and many investors will have left the party never to return. That's a pity because it looks like the party may well be just starting? Biome's jam is being delivered now, let's hope 7digital does exactly the same. At the moment 7digital appears stuck in a jam.

Finally and very briefly, PCF have today announced the completion of an earnings enhancing acquisition following an encouraging trading update in late October. I hold.

As ever DYOR, no advice offered or given.