BUY: Compass (CPG)
Compass has reported stellar development, however the market was unimpressed by its outlook for 2024, writes Jemma Slingo.
Contract caterer Compass achieved stellar development within the yr to September 30. Natural gross sales jumped by 19 per cent, whereas underlying working earnings shot up by 30 per cent to £2.1bn. The FTSE 100 group attributed its success to a mix of quantity and pricing development, which each sat at roughly 7 per cent. Working leverage additionally helped to spice up revenue margins from 6.2 per cent to six.8 per cent, efficiently offsetting the mobilisation prices new initiatives inevitably incur.
Compass achieved underlying double-digit development in North America and Europe, and demand was sturdy throughout all sectors. The enterprise and business division benefited from the continued return of employees to the workplace, for instance, whereas a flurry of sporting fixtures boosted the leisure division.
In addition to retaining maintain of previous purchasers — Compass reported a consumer retention price of 96.5 per cent — the caterer additionally mobilised web new enterprise of 4.6 per cent, comfortably above its historic common of three per cent. Plainly loads of organisations are nonetheless trying to outsource their culinary issues, subsequently, as price pressures persist.
Why, then, did Compass’s share value fall by 5 per cent within the speedy aftermath of its outcomes? One reply pertains to its outlook for full-year 2024. Administration stated quantity development began to normalise within the second half of 2023, and progress is because of decelerate additional subsequent yr, with underlying working earnings solely anticipated to rise by 13 per cent. This will probably be delivered via “excessive single-digit” natural income development and extra progress on margins.
In the meantime, underlying finance prices are anticipated to extend to $225mn (£180mn), up from £136mn this yr (Compass is altering its reporting forex from sterling to US {dollars}, as about three-quarters of its underlying working revenue comes from North America). Over £1bn of borrowings now seem amongst Compass’s present property, suggesting there must be loads of refinancing to be accomplished within the coming months, including a degree of uncertainty.
In the end, nevertheless, we stay bullish about Compass’s prospects. In opposition to a troublesome financial backdrop, it’s rising its consumer base and widening its margins and, though its debt is more likely to turn into extra burdensome subsequent yr, the group stays very cash-generative. Its valuation can also be pretty interesting: the caterer is buying and selling on a ahead value/earnings ratio of 20.7, in contrast with a five-year common of 24.4.
HOLD: Redcentric (RCN)
The IT providers group has reported excessive ranges of recurring income and good revenue development — however integration work is ongoing, writes Jemma Slingo.
It’s difficult to evaluate Redcentric’s half-year efficiency because of the impression of some hefty acquisitions. The IT providers group, which works with the likes of Howdens and Hays, made two purchases across the time it printed its interim outcomes final yr. It has now restated its 2022 figures to mirror these acquisitions, inflicting previous earnings to show into substantial losses.
Primarily based on immediately’s outcomes, Redcentric’s development has been encouraging. Complete income is up by a 3rd at £82mn, and greater than 90 per cent of its gross sales recur, with clients tending to enter long-term contracts. In the meantime, adjusted working revenue grew by 43 per cent within the interval to £5.6mn.
Redcentric admitted that evaluating the numbers is “very troublesome” although, on condition that final yr’s figures don’t embrace full contributions from the Sungard and 4D Information Centre acquisitions. Helpfully, subsequently, it additionally gives figures for the six months to March 31 2023 to check with the newest numbers. Progress over these two intervals was way more modest, with complete income up simply 2 per cent. Nevertheless, the group did return to a statutory working revenue after reporting losses within the six months to March.
In the end, Redcentric remains to be in a state of flux. There are many distinctive objects flying about and capital expenditure is excessive — as is debt. Chief government Peter Brotherton stated the mixing of the acquired companies is “on observe to be totally accomplished by the top of this monetary yr” however till then we stay on the sidelines.
Redcentric’s electrical energy payments, which have turn into one of many group’s largest price objects, are additionally value maintaining a tally of. Administration stated it had put “appreciable effort and assets into decreasing electrical energy volumes” and secured future electrical energy commodity costs at “aggressive charges” for full-year 2024 and 2025. Over the long run, nevertheless, this commodity publicity may add additional uncertainty.
SELL: Nice Portland Estates (GPE)
The London workplace landlord has but to surge again to life in the way in which traders had hoped, writes Mitchell Labiak.
London places of work proceed to haemorrhage worth attributable to excessive rates of interest and questions round their position within the post-Covid-19 world. That is unhealthy information for Nice Portland Estates and its share value dropped 5 per cent on the day. The true property funding belief (Reit) posted a deepening of pre-tax losses for the six months to September 30 attributable to a swingeing £220mn valuation drop. It comes after the corporate posted an £80.6mn fall in final yr’s interims.
The impact on shareholder worth has been profound. From March 31 2022 to September 30 this yr, GPE’s EPRA web tangible property (NTA) per share plummeted 22.2 per cent from 835p to 650p. It’s a poor efficiency, however it’s akin to Land Securities and British Land whose EPRA NTA fell 16 per cent and 22.3 per cent over the identical interval. Landsec and British Land’s September 2022 interims captured the majority of that worth drop, that means higher information this yr. For GPE, the reverse was true.
The larger query for traders is whether or not GPE’s value has factored on this efficiency. On the one hand, GPE’s low cost to web asset worth (NAV) would counsel it has. Alternatively, it has a decrease dividend yield than the bigger duo, and consensus forecasts predict a drop in dividends in 2025 and 2026, suggesting the shares could not but commerce at truthful worth.
Not that GPE’s chief government is eager on a comparability between his firm and the LAND and BLND duo. He informed Traders’ Chronicle that GPE is smaller, nimbler, and extra centered on central London, significantly the West Finish. That could be true. However contemplating Savills is recording a 7.1 per cent emptiness price and leasing exercise 37 per cent under the 10-year common for the West Finish workplace market, that doesn’t sound like a good factor, both.
