Time Finance, Global Ports And Solid State

Time Finance (LON:TIME) –Boost To Facility Will Power Further Growth

Don’t underestimate this little specialist finance provider, in my view it is destined to grow and very profitably too.

Yesterday it announced that it had signed off an extended and improved £64m Funding Facility with The British Business Bank.

That line, which is up from the previous £35m facility, boosts the group’s total funding facility availability to over £200m.

Time Finance is an independent AIM listed finance company, specialising in lending to small UK businesses through a variety of Asset Finance, Invoice Finance, Loans and Vehicle Finance.

The company’s route to market is a mixture of direct and via finance brokers who pass business to the group in return for a commission.

CFO James Roberts stated that:

“Over the past five years we have developed a strong working relationship with the British Business Bank and I am delighted this will now be able to continue for the foreseeable future.

The enhanced facility will enable Time Finance to provide additional funding to UK SMEs for their business-critical equipment in one of our more secured and key strategic growth areas. 

With the British Business Bank facility being a cornerstone of the Group’s funding mix we hope to help many more UK businesses and thereby further improve our shareholder returns.” 

In his improved estimates, analyst Andrew Renton at Cavendish Capital Markets, published after the Q3 Update on 26^th March, his new figures suggest that the year to end May will see total revenue up from £27.6m to £31.5m, lifting pre-tax profits to £6.0m (£4.4m), taking earnings up to 4.9p (3.7p) per share.

For the coming year Renton suggests that revenues will rise to £33.1m, with profits up to £6.7m, and boosting earnings to 5.4p per share.

Understandably Renton has a high Price Objective for the group’s shares – 71p, which compares very favourably with last night’s closing price of just 39p, at which the group is valued at just under £37m.

Hold very tightly to the shares, which touched 44p about six weeks ago, because they are definitely heading higher.

(Profile 23.12.20 @ 21.5p set a Target Price of 30p*)

(Profile 07.01.22 @ 23.5p set a Target Price of 30p*)

(Profile 20.11.23 @ 32.5p set a target Price of 40p*)

Global Ports Holding (LON:GPH) – 50-Year Liverpool Agreement Is A Big Spur To Value

The world’s leading independent cruise port operator, yesterday morning announced that it had reached an agreement with Peel Holdings to take over the operations of Liverpool Cruise Port.

Greg Johnson, analyst at Shore Capital Markets, previously had a recently upped net present fair value of 530p on the £143m group’s shares.

But on this deal, he suggests that it could add a further 10p-20p per share.

We should be getting a Q3 Trading Update being given by the group very shortly.

Johnson is estimating that the year to end March 2024 will show revenues up from $117.4m to $160.4m, raising adjusted pre-tax profits from $3.0m to $5.7m, taking its adjusted earnings per share from a 21.0c loss to just a loss of 8.8c.

The lift-up is expected this year to $212.1m revenues, $32.3m profits, then up to 19.8c in earnings per share.

The group’s shares, which were up to 290p last November, are currently trading at only 210p, at which level they could well prove to be an excellent little gamble ahead of the Q3 Trading Update.

(Profile 11.11.22 @ 81.5p set a Target Price at 100p*)

(Profile 19.06.23 @ 196.5p set a Target Price of 220p*)

Solid State (LON:SOLI) – Record Results Due

In late November I featured Three Growing Electronics Firms, one of which was this Redditch-based group which designs and manufactures electronic equipment and supplies the value-added electronic components and materials in the UK, the rest of Europe, Asia, North America, and elsewhere internationally.

It was upon a forecast of 17% compound annual growth rate in group sales up to 2030, as well as expectations of continued organic growth in the year to end March.

Ahead of the next set of results being announced in July, analysts David Buxton and Edward Stacey at Cavendish Capital Markets have retained their Price Objective of 1,620p for its shares.

They anticipate revenues having risen to £164.5m (£126.5m), while adjusted pre-tax profits could come out at £15.0m (£10.8m), taking earnings up to 101p (80.7p) and enabling a 21p (20p) dividend per share.

When I featured the group late last year, its shares were trading at just 1,325p, having risen 30% in the previous month.

Six weeks later at the start of January they peaked at 1,440p, before easing back to 1,120p a month later.

At the end of March, they were up to 1,474p, looking so much stronger after the £159m group’s latest Trading Update, which was predicting record results revenues and profits for the final results.

Last night the shares were continuing their yo-yo performance, back down to 1,335p, at which level they could offer dealing opportunities ahead of the results.

(Profile 15.08.21 @ 404p set a Target Price of 546p*)

(Asterisks * denote that Target Prices have been achieved since Profile publication)