The following is a round-up of earnings and trading updates by London-listed companies, issued on this week and Friday and not separately reported by Alliance News:
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Michelmersh Brick Holdings PLC - Haywards Heath, West Sussex-based brick maker - Revenue in 2023 rises 13% to £77.3 million from £68.4 million. Pretax profit improves 8.8% to £12.5 million from £11.4 million. Ups final dividend by 1.7% to 3.00 pence per share, from 2.95p. Results in total dividend of 4.50p, up 5.9% from 4.25p. ‘I am very pleased to report on another positive year for the group, with strong growth across our key financial metrics despite the decline in the broader construction industry,’ Chair Martin Warner says. ‘We enter 2024 watchful of the interest rate environment and inflation trends and how these affect the timing of the anticipated increase in construction activity levels. Whilst we continue to closely monitor the impact from these macro cycles, we believe in our business model, maintaining a broad customer base across multiple end markets, and continue to see robust levels of order intake as a result.’
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Journeo PLC - Leicestershire-based transport system services provider - Revenue in 2023 more than doubles to £46.1 million from £21.1 million. Pretax profit jumps more than fourfold to £3.7 million, from £906,000. ‘As we entered 2024, we did so with momentum in our strategy, which is enabling us to deliver valuable products, software, and services for our customers. Our strong order book, growing sales pipeline, and increasing leadership positions give us confidence in our ability to further grow the business,’ Chief Executive Officer Russ Singleton says. In addition, company receives £1.1 million additional purchase orders to supply and install important safety systems on Arriva buses within the Transport for London fleet.
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Catalyst Media Group PLC - Milton Keynes-based company that provides content and production services to the betting industry - Revenue in six months to December 31 unchanged on-year at £12,500. Pretax profit more than doubles to £751,300 from £304,096. Lifting its bottom line, its share of profit of equity-accounted associate improves to £829,405 from £368,077. CMG owns just under 21% of Sports Information Services. CMG says: ‘SIS’s trading remains robust and its management continues to pursue and win new business opportunities both in terms of content acquisition, most recently securing new rights for Korean horseracing, and new customer distribution deals recently announced with Genius Sports Limited and EveryMatrix for Competitive Gaming.’ It adds that Racelab Pty Ltd, in which SIS owns 50%, appointed a voluntary administrator earlier in March after it failed to secure further funding. ‘At this stage, SIS management are unclear of the likely outcome however it is unlikely to impact SIS’s trading results although will result in a write-down of the investment in its financial year to 31 March 2024,’ CMG adds.
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GetBusy PLC - Cambridge, England-based document management and productivity software provider - Total revenue in 2023 rises 9.4% to £21.1 million from £19.3 million. Pretax loss narrows to £509,000 from £543,000. Recurring revenue increases 11%. ‘Against an ongoing challenging economic backdrop, never has the relevance of our products been more apparent as we help customers to be efficient and secure in the face of rising costs, elevated cyber threats and ever-increasing compliance burdens,’ CEO Daniel Rabie says.
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Smart Metering Systems PLC - Glasgow-based energy management services provider - Shares to be cancelled on April 25 as takeover by a consortium of funds advised by US global investment firm Kohlberg Kravis or KKR went unconditional last week. KKR said Monday it will send out formal compulsory acquisition notices to Smart Metering shareholders yet to accept the offer. In January, Smart Metering agreed to a takeover offer from KKR, for 955p in cash for each share in the company. The offer values the company’s entire share capital at around £1.3 billion.
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Digital 9 Infrastructure PLC - investor in internet infrastructure, such as data centres and subsea fibre - Says shareholders back motion proposing new investment objective and investment policy at general meeting on Monday. Just under 100% approved the proposal. It related to a managed wind-down, which Digital 9 announced in January. Digital 9 on Monday said Liberum Capital Ltd has been engaged as financial advisor to support wind-down. Digital 9 is working with an independent valuer to finalise valuation of portfolio.
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Triple Point Venture VCT PLC - London-based investor in early-stage small and medium-sized enterprises - Uses £5 million of over-allotment facility as part of subscription offer. ‘This increases the amount that can be raised under the offer to £20 million,’ it adds.
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Oscillate PLC - investor with ‘diverse’ policy including natural resource sector, medicinal cannabis and psychedelics - Swings to 2023 pretax loss of £1.2 million from profit of £572,366. Reports loss on investments at fair value of £849,904, swinging from profit of £942,463 a year prior.
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Time Finance PLC - finance provider to small and medium businesses - Own book lending origination up 25% on-year to £66.0 million in the nine months to February 29, from £52.9 million. Revenue rises 20% to £24.0 million from £20.0 million. Pretax profit increases 40% to £4.2 million from £3.0 million. Time Finance adds: ‘The group’s robust performance in the first half has been maintained throughout the third quarter of the current financial year. Continued strong demand from UK businesses for the group’s multi-product offering is driving further growth in own-book lending origination which has contributed to a record gross lending book of more than £190 million at the end of February 2024. This is the eleventh consecutive quarter of loan book growth for the company.’
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Geiger Counter Ltd - investor in uranium exploration and production stocks - Considering applying for admission of shares to London’s premium listing segment. Says move would broaden ‘the appeal of the company to a wider range of shareholders’.
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Westmount Energy Ltd - oil and gas investment firm focused on high impact drilling outcomes in emerging basins - Pretax loss in six months to December 31 narrows to £661,522 from £2.7 million. Reports no revenue, unmoved on-year. However, net fair value loss on financial assets narrows to £531,596 from £2.5 million. Looking ahead, it says: ‘Notwithstanding the energy transition, exploration spending in deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas is forecast to continue to grow as the majors and NOCs seek to high-grade their portfolios, consolidate assets and to dominate this space. Exploration ’hotspots’ with high success rates, such as the deepwater Guyana-Suriname basin and the Orange basin, are areas that are well positioned to capture their share of this increased exploration spending.’
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Fuller, Smith & Turner PLC - London-based pub chain - Says Friday it has decided to extend share buyback programme and repurchase further 1 million shares. ‘ This is consistent with the company’s capital allocation framework and reflects the board’s view that the current share price continues to represent a significant discount to the company’s underlying net asset value. The Programme is expected to enhance earnings per share,’ Fuller’s adds.
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