What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?
Ultimate Products - The Telegraph reports Jim McCarthy, former chief of Poundland has been appointed Chairman of Ultimate Products ahead of a £100m listing in H1 2017. Ultimate Products owns the Beldray cleaning brand and the licence to sell Russell Hobbs and Salter electrical products in the UK.
RM Secured Direct Lending - The secured direct lending fund intends to float on the Main Market on 15 December raising up to £100m
Breakfast buffet
MediaZest* (LON:MDZ) 0.16p £1.92m
HYSep16 results from the creative media agency and audio visual systems integrator. Gross profit up 2% to £631k off reduced revenue (-8%) of £1.47m. Margin increase (43% vs 39%) helped by delivery of full service offering . EBITDA profit of £4k. Cash in hand of £137k up from £36k. Pilots to commence in calendar Q1 2017 for two inter-related potential transformational projects. If successful expected to move forward and help generate material growth in revenues in the next financial year, 2017-18.
BOS Global (LON:BOS) 10.13p £5.4m
Operational update and 2017 outlook from the software company focused on creating enterprise productivity solutions for the global workforce market. R&D work on the Company's BOS360 Work Patterns product is ongoing. BOS anticipates that, subject to Australian government approval, it will recover up to 43% of its total R&D expenditure each year as income received under the Australian tax rebate incentive scheme. BOS Meet scheduled for launch on 15 December. A further three products are expected to be ready for commercial sale in January, with the BOS360 Work Patterns system available for commercial release in May 2017, to be complemented with an additional BOS owned product, BOS Time.
Free Agent Hldgs (LON:FREE) 82p £33.3m
HY Sep16 results from the provider of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service accounting software. Revenue increased by 36% to £3.6 m. Gross Profit up 38% to £3.0m. Annualised committed monthly recurring revenue up 35% at £7.7m. Post period successful placing of £8 million of new equity and admission to AIM in November 2016. Confident of reporting further significant progress within its full-year results, consistent with market expectations. However we can see no forecasts in the market.
The pioneer in materials innovation and solid-state battery technology, announced a collaborative project with McLaren Applied Technologies and Sharp Laboratories of Europe (Sharp) to create an autonomous energy harvesting power source, thanks to funding of over £500,000 from Innovate UK. Over £320,000 of the Innovate UK grant will be provided to Ilika, to lead a two-year project which will see Ilika's Stereax solid-state battery technology integrated with Sharp's photovoltaic technology to provide a power source for McLaren Applied Technologies' wireless sensing platform. FYApr17E rev of £2.5m and £2.3m PBT loss.
boohoo.com (LON:BOO) 118.25p £1.33bn
The online fashion retailer, has continued to perform well since reporting Interims. Trading was strong across the Black Friday weekend & peak season trading continues to be encouraging. Board expects boohoo to deliver revenue growth of between 38% & 42% in FY17, vs prior guidance of 30% to 35%. The Board anticipates an EBITDA margin of between 11% and 12% in FY17, vs prior guidance of c.11%. Has also acquired 66% of PrettyLittleThing for £3.3m, whose revenue grew 400% to £17m in FY Feb16.
Hunters Property (LON:HUNT) 65.5p £18.76m
Trading update from one of the UK's largest national sales and lettings agency and franchise businesses. Strong performance has continued into H2, despite the well-publicised uncertainty in the UK housing market in the wake of the government's changes to stamp duty earlier in the year and the UK's decision to leave the EU. The Board expects trading for the full year to be significantly ahead of last year and slightly ahead of the Board's expectations. There are no forecasts in the market.
Audioboom Group (LON:BOOM) 2.13p £13.56m
The spoken-word audio on-demand platform, has updated on its Q4 KPIs and trading for the year ended 30 November 2016. Overall 2016 revenues are expected to exceed £1.3 million, an increase of more than six fold compared to last year, and ahead of market expectations. This rate of revenue growth has continued post year end, with over £1.1 million already booked for advertising campaigns in 2017. Record Q4 unique file requests up 42% over Q3 to 145m. 9527 content channels at period end up 38% year on year. FY17E rev of £5.23m and pre-tax loss of £2.3m.
TP Group (LON:TPG) 5.12p £21.65m
Trading update from the specialist services and engineering group. FYDec16 EBITDA likely to significantly exceed current market expectations with FY17 materially ahead of current market expectations, primarily to recent contract wins and a strong order pipeline (including the two sole source MoD contracts announced in July and August 2016). The management will also continue to look for acquisition opportunities. FYDec16E rev £22.6m and PBT loss of £0.46m. FY17E rev £24.8m, £0.73m PBT.
Victoria (LON:VCP) 343p £312m
The international designers, manufacturers and distributors of innovative floor coverings, has agreed to acquire the business and assets of Dunlop Flooring, the Australian underlay and hard wood flooring manufacturer and distributor, for a cash consideration of A$34 million (£20 million), which will be funded from the Company's cash and existing debt facilities. The Acquisition will be immediately and significantly earnings accretive on completion. FYMar17E rev of £318m and £28m PBT.
Plant Health Care (LON:PHC) 14p £20m
The provider of novel patent-protected biological products to global agriculture markets, has announced four new commercial distribution arrangements, which together represent important progress in driving sales growth in 2017 and beyond. The agreements cover multiple products and territories (USA, Sub Saharan Africa and Portugal). FYDec17E revenues of £8.25m and £6m and £4.9m pre-tax loss.