Ideagen

Interesting update from Ideagen this morning:-

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/12588283.html

The key line is for investors is:-

"Trading in the first half of the year remained strong. Revenues and adjusted EBITDA are expected to be significantly ahead of the same period last year and in line with market expectations."

Broker forecasts for year ending April 2016 are for revenues of £21.8m, pre-tax profit £5.7m and adjusted EPS of 2.7p. At the current share price of 50p the forward p/e is 18.5. The company boasts a strong balance sheet with no debt. Ideagen's current market cap. is £88m.

The company is cash generative and pays a small dividend. Gross margins are high and recurring revenues make up over 50% of total revenue. It's a company that certainly warrants further investigation.

I mention Ideagen since they are a very similar company to Access Intelligence. I don't own shares in Ideagen, but I do have a holding in Access Intelligence.

I last reported on Access Intelligence back in May 2015:-

http://michae1mouse.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/intelligent-choices.html

Since then they have released encouraging interim results:-

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/12472562.html

The company is currently valued at £14m and they usually release a trading statement in early December. I await news with interest.

TRAKM8

I notice that the Floow who work alongside Trakm8 on the Direct Line contract have been recognised for this work with a prestigious international Road Safety Award:-

http://www.thefloow.com/blog/posts/the-floow-awarded-prestigious-international-road-safety-award

"The Floow have received this award for work undertaken in collaboration with the UK’s largest insurer, Direct Line Group, and have been especially recognised for the “development and implementation of feedback to influence driver behaviour”."

"Launched in 2014, and primarily focused at younger drivers, by the end of September 2015 over 67,000 drivers had embraced Direct Line DrivePlus telematics insurance, and are making use of the feedback platform to become better drivers. That’s up by over 75% in 2015 to date.

The leading insurance group, working in partnership with Sheffield-based The Floow, aim for the number of users to further increase in the coming months as more people see the economic, environmental and safety benefits of understanding how they drive and how their safety can be improved."

Why use one sentence when several more can be used in it's place?

A few years ago whilst employed with an organisation that shall remain nameless I used to dread the habitual Friday afternoon meeting. I kid you not, it used to last two or three hours and I'm pretty sure I must have nodded off to sleep on more than one occasion (hopefully discreetly and unnoticed). One of the reasons that the meetings were so long was because a key contributor just loved the sound of his own voice. Even worse he would try and construct sentences that were so obtuse they were almost impossible to decipher. I think he was probably trying to create an image of himself as an intellectual and/or deep thinker. However, when you did eventually decipher what he had actually said, it amounted to sod all. I think he might have ended up at Blinkx under an assumed name (just joking). From today's half-yearly report:-

"The Company's mission is to democratize access to quality digital content in a way that is respectful of consumer choice, impactful for the advertiser and sustainable for the content owner. Solving this fundamental equation is critical in order for the industry to thrive. These basic tenets will guide blinkx's decision-making in the near- and long-term, and represent a path to sustainable growth for both the Company and industry."

 

In short, he might have written, "We want to return to profitability, but at the moment we're totally f***ing clueless" 

 

Perhaps that's a little bit harsh, but after recording a whopping $79,000,000 loss they clearly have some work to do.

 

In fairness, I don't know much about Blinkx and can only assume that something in today's statement is propping up the share price. At a glance the company does appear to boast a strong balance sheet.

 

Anyway, it's not one I wish to research and I'll leave this one to the bulls and bears who have done their due diligence.

 

In other news, Angle released another encouraging RNS this morning regarding progress with the commercialisation of it's Parsortix device.

 

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/12584389.html

 

For Parsortix to be successful, verification of it's utility from organisations such as Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute are absolutely critical. I am encouraged by the build up of evidence that has now been received from a number of prestigious institutions including tests involving a variety of cancers. Today's report focussed on Lung Cancer, the most common cancer in the world.

 

Key points for me from today's release are as follows:-

 

"ANGLE's Parsortix system "… offers a unique combination of features making it suitable for routine clinical analysis of patient blood samples" "

 

"Ged Brady, Deputy and Genomics Leader within the Clinical & Experimental Pharmacology group at Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, commented:

"The Parsortix system has a unique combination of features making it suitable for routine clinical analysis of patient blood samples.  We have now incorporated the Parsortix workflow into multiple clinical trials and have been accumulating many hundreds of stored enriched samples that will be of immense value in our future CTC studies."  "

 

"ANGLE's Founder and Chief Executive, Andrew Newland, added:

"This is our second peer-reviewed publication in a scientific journal and adds to the growing body of published evidence of Parsortix's performance as a liquid biopsy.  The success in pilot studies in harvesting CTCs from 100% of small-cell lung cancer patients comes after similar performance with 100% of prostate, breast and ovarian cancer types.  We believe Parsortix is changing the paradigm for CTC capture and harvest for liquid biopsy and will change CTC molecular analysis from being a theoretical but impractical goal to being simple and effective in hospital laboratories all over the world.  The prospect of deployment of our repeatable, non-invasive liquid biopsy in the treatment of lung cancer patients is exciting and has the potential to make a major impact in improving future cancer care."  "

 

Still a speculative investment until sales begin to arrive of course, but critically the experts are impressed and so far they have all verified Parsortix's potential and utility. I await further news with interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A safe investment?

Safeland is a micro-cap that has come to my attention this morning after they released their half-year results. It's not a company that I'm familiar with, but the half-year results look mightily impressive at first glance.

Turnover is up 61.1% at £12.5m. Profit before tax is £4.3m and up a massive 95.4% and they've introduced an interim dividend of 1.5p (2014: 0p). Net asset value per share is 106.0p against a current share price of 55.5p. The group has a current market cap. of around £9m. Cashflow was also impressive.

 

The outlook statement is non-committal for the full year, and for a tiny company they do carry a sizeable debt.

 

I'll leave it there since I don't really invest in this sector of the market, and this is not a company I am familiar with. The blog is simply a quick snapshot of my thoughts and observations. Some investors may like to investigate this company further.

Now here's a interesting little micro-cap company:-

Creightons

I thought I might mention them because from Paul Scott's small cap. value report, I notice that the company is presenting at an event called Mello Beckenham tonight.

The group describes itself as being made up of a select group of brands and companies specialising in the creation of high quality personal care and beauty products for the consumer and trade market.

It's a company that I have been monitoring for a while but as yet I've not been tempted to buy. On paper it looks cheap, and some micro-cap investors may be tempted. Personally, two things put me off a little. Firstly, they are operating in what I can only imagine is an extremely competitive market place, and secondly, despite a pretty good record of profitability, they don't appear to have paid any dividends. The company has been around since the early 90s.

Since 2011, EPS growth has been impressive. In fact 2011-2012, 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 growth rates were 38%, 55% and 60% respectively.

At the interim stage this year, the profitability of the continuing business is at similar levels to last year, although with the sale of "The Real Shaving Company", the diluted EPS figure has already exceeded last year's full year figure at 1.57p.

The balance sheet is impressive with tangible net asset value standing at £6.2m against a current market cap. of £5.2m. Cash on the balance sheet is around £1m. Debt is negligible.

Last year's EPS figure means that the shares stand on a lowly p/e of around 6 with that figure likely to fall even further this year. In fact, on all measures the company appears to be very cheap.

Investors might like to ignore the exceptional items that flattered the EPS figure last year, but you could easily argue that the company appears to be making exceptional gains a habit rather than a one-off.

The general narrative of the half-yearly report reads well, although one sentence does infer some management caution for the full year,

"We continue to be cautious regarding the underlying level of retail sales and continue to see the trend of consumers in the UK focussing on value.  This will present sales opportunities but may impact on margins."

Interestingly while writing this report I almost decided to buy a few shares before publishing. If they paid a dividend I almost certainly would have. Possibly one I might regret not having bought in future months? We shall see.