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Hargreaves - Overseas move expected

October 2006

Investing in shares may lose you all or some of your money. Past performance is no indication of future performance. Some of the shares recommended here may be small company shares, which can be relatively illiquid and hard to trade and this makes such shares more risky than other investments.

  • Epic Code:
  • HSP
  • Price:
  • 389p
Full year results were again excellent and with the acquisition of Norec (mooted in August) consummated on an exit multiple of 7x, forecasts are upgraded. Turnover was up 77% to £155m, helped by the Monckton coke works acquisition and also very fast growth in coal importing. Pretax profit was £6.8m (the eps number can be ignored as Hargreaves had a different capital structure prior to float and comparisons are meaningless). There was a dramatic change in margin/mix with gross margins down from 12.4% to 11.6%, largely due to the exceptional growth of the low margin coal importing activity which supplies coal to the generators. That division reported an operating profit of £2.1m (30% of total) on sales o ...

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With small companies there is an above average degree of risk compared to buying blue chips. Please be aware that we have not assessed the suitability of any of these investments for you. The newsletter simply states a personal view and diarises the editor’s investment decisions. Please speak to your stockbroker or other qualified individual to ascertain whether any of these companies mentioned would form useful additions to your own portfolios. Past performance is no indication of future success.

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