Thursday, 27 September 2018

Immedia, Concepta and Zinc Media

Let's start with Immedia, a company I've written about very recently in this blog post:-

http://michae1mouse.blogspot.com/2018/09/if-music-be-food-of-love-play-on.html

Immedia released their half-year results today, and I haven't much to add to my recent post. As expected, the results were significantly better than last time.

There was a 9% increase in revenue to just over £2m, EBITDA turned positive at £40,000 against a loss of £104,000 in 2017, and cash on the balance sheet has improved significantly to £149,000. The headline loss is around £91,000 which is again significantly better than 2017. The company remains virtually debt free. Full results are below:-

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/IME/13806214.html

The only things I will add to the previous report is that they have a great client list including JD Sports and Subway where they say:-

"It is also pleasing to report that recent major contracts with both JD Sports and SUBWAY® are exceeding Board expectations."

and they most recently won a large contract with a major UK high street financial services institution.

The tone of the report reads very positively and they are comfortable with meeting market expectations for the full year. I feel very encouraged by the progress they are making and impressed with the turnaround, particularly the cashflow. I'll be sticking with this one, and as ever, being a minnow with a strong balance sheet, another major contract award could see the share price significantly higher.

Now to Concepta. I've mentioned this company before, it's a "story" stock ("jackanory" comes to mind). What does the company do then? Who cares? It's an absolute mystery to me why PIs bother with these companies, it really is? CPT released it's interims today. How have revenues grown for this wonderful growth stock I wonder? Revenues have gone from zero last year to (wait for it) zero this year. Wow! So what does the report say? Again, who the bloody hell gives a monkey's? Investors just get diluted into oblivion with these companies whilst the jam grows a pair of legs and keeps running further and further away.

Even after today's 21% kicking, CPT has a market cap. near £7m. It'd be overvalued at a market cap of zero in my opinion. When there are companies out there with real revenues, profits and good cashflow at lower market caps then why would you bother with this?

Finally Zinc Media. I hate these types of company. It used to be called Ten Alps and didn't impress in it's previous incarnation either. It sits near it's all time lows today after a 12% drop following (at best) lacklustre results. Actually I have a bit of a jaundiced view of these production/distribution companies following my worst investment ever in a company called DCD Media. Here is a comment I made on the ADVFN bulletin boards which pretty much sums up my aversion to this sector:-

"The reason I wouldn't touch this lot with a barge pole is through a lesson learnt early in my investing days where I built a stake in a production/distribution company called DCD Media. I learnt the following about these types of companies, and personally wouldn't touch any of them in future:-

1) Margins in production are generally p*ss poor. Basically they don't make much money. Distribution is better but even then not great.

2) The only value in a Production company is it's staff. In the case of DCD Media they heavily overpaid for acquisitions. After a very short period of time most key production personnel just upped and left. All the value of the acquisitions is then lost, commissions cease and all value is written off.

3) At the drop of a hat, the tv companies can just decide that they're no longer interested in re-commissioning a series and revenues fall off a cliff.

4) Take a look at the balance sheet. If you strip out goodwill and intangibles then the company has negative asset value. Goodwill and intangible assets almost certainly relate to the acquired production companies (see above). In other words, it has no tangible value.

I could go on and on and on. Good luck if you want to take a punt, but I'd be very careful. Imo these types of companies shouldn't be listed."

I might be being unfair to Zinc Media since it does produce substantial revenues, but I've no real enthusiasm for researching this type of company. So as ever, these are just my thoughts and you must do your own thorough research.

twitter: @michae1mouse






Wednesday, 26 September 2018

Scientific Digital Imaging - building nicely!

Scientific Digital Imaging is a company I haven't mentioned before, but I bought a healthy chunk of shares back in December 2016. So far, so good and I've no intention of selling any in the near future even though my holding is showing a gain of 150%. If they continue their healthy progress then the share price has far further to run in the short, medium and long term.

Here's what they're about:-

http://scientificdigitalimaging.com/about-us/

"Scientific Digital Imaging plc (SDI) designs and manufactures scientific and technology products for use by the life science, healthcare, astronomy, consumer manufacturing and art conservation markets through the Synoptics brands (Syngene, Synbiosis and Synoptics Health), the Atik Cameras brand, the Opus Instruments brand (Osiris), Sentek, Astles Control Systems, Applied Thermal Control as well as the recently acquired, Quantum Scientific Imaging.

SDI continues to grow through its own technology advancements, as well as through pursuing strategic, complementary acquisitions."
Yesterday they released a trading update and details of a further acquisition.
In short the year ending April 2019 remains on track, and the new acquisition is small, but excellent value and should contribute positively to earnings in it's first full year as part of SDI. The acquisition has been funded from existing cash resources.
SDI has a current market cap. of around £38m, a gross margin around 66%, and in the year ending April 2018 reported an operating profit of £1.8m. SDI doesn't currently pay a dividend, but is an excellent cash generator from it's operating activities.
On a historic p/e basis (around 25) it doesn't look cheap, but with an excellent recent record for organic growth and judicious earnings enhancing acquisitions, that p/e ratio is more than justified, particularly in context of the (shall we say) more heady ratings that some growth companies are currently on.
Two Directors recently bought some shares in SDI:-
David Tilston (a non-exec) bought £4140 worth whilst Jonathan Abell (CFO) bought a more significant amount and maiden holding of 59608 shares at a cost of £25512. It's always nice to see the CFO buying a substantial amount.
I really like this company as indicated earlier, and I'll be interested to see their half-year results released 17 December 2018.
As ever, it's just my thoughts and not an attempt at a tip sheet so always DYOR.

twitter: @michae1mouse
















Saturday, 22 September 2018

It's a steal!

It's a fact that in the long run 'value' shares outperform 'growth' shares. What I look for is a growth company that's currently great value. It's a bit like looking for hen's teeth sometimes, but they are there to be found most notably amongst the micro-caps.

Here's some financials for you:- This company has a £3m market cap with a current NAV of £3.7m (a discount of 19%). Whilst part of that NAV is goodwill and intangibles, the company boasts a cash balance of £1.44m.

The company has zero debt.

In the past four years turnover has increased as follows:-

2014 -      £1.26m
2015 -      £1.52m (+21%)
2016 -      £1.76m (+16%)
2017 -      £1.89m (+7.4%)

EPS was 0.14p in 2014 and doubled to 0.28p in 2015. In 2015, 2016 and 2017 EPS was largely flat at around 0.28p. The historic p/e ratio is around 9 (2017).

Cash on the balance sheet has been as follows:-

2014 -      £1.09m
2015 -      £1.09m (+0%)
2016 -      £1.30m (+19%)
2017 -      £1.47m (+13%)

The company pays a progressive dividend that has increased from 0.05p in 2013 (excluding the special dividend of 0.10p) to 0.10p in 2017. That's a 100% increase with a further increase expected in 2018 (interim dividend has been hiked by 25%).

Gross margins stand at around 98%-99%. Yes you've read that correctly.

Now that's a 'value' company!

Why are the shares currently rated so lowly, and what about the growth going forward?

Well firstly, 2018 is going to see a dip in earnings and from the interim results it appears that the company is going to be around break-even for the full year. This is "principally due to the expiry of a three year customer contract for Migrate". Migrate being one of their principal software offerings. The market is aware of this and from the figures above, it seems that this information is more than priced in (ridiculously so in my opinion).

Principally the company boasts three key products OmniMark, Migrate and AuthorBridge (a very recent addition). It's fair to say that sales of all three have been steady rather than spectacular so far.

With 99% gross margins however, they don't need to be spectacular, steady will be just fine (do the maths!). It should also be noted that the company boasts an impressive client base.

The expiry of the Migrate contract this year should prove to be a temporary blip in an otherwise steady growth trajectory, and (hopefully) a resumption to growth will occur in 2019 and beyond (year end is December), particularly with sales of AuthorBridge beginning to gain traction.

The company in question is Stilo International, and if they do return to growth in 2019 then I fully expect the share price to re-rate significantly from it's current lows. Meanwhile whilst you're waiting you'll be entitled to a 4%+ dividend with the comfort of a very strong balance sheet.

At the current share price Stilo is a real steal in my book!

Please note that Stilo is a real minnow and the shares highly illiquid. From observation on Friday, 22,000 shares traded (as far as I can see) moved the bid up 0.3p (6%). 

As ever, I am a holder of shares and I'm not giving advice so please DYOR.

twitter: @michae1mouse