Daily Stock Market Report (Tue 25 Mar 2025) - MGNS, AO., ABDP, MPE, TIME, GAMA, POLN, KGF, JNEO, MBH, FEVR, PGH, TON, XAR

25th Mar by Graham Neary

73 comments 7331 reads

Good morning! We're expecting a lot of results announcements today, please stay tuned!

Phew! I think that's everything - let us know if we missed anything.

1pm: all done for today! Thank you for reading and thanks to Roland and Megan for making this truly a team effort today.

Companies Reporting

Name (Mkt Cap)	RNS	Summary	Our view (Author)
SEGRO (LON:SGRO) (£9.4bn)	JV to develop a £1bn data centre	JV with Pure DC for 56MW / £1bn data centre in Park Royal London. Expect to pre-let to hyperscaler.
Smiths (LON:SMIN) (£6.8bn)	Interim Results	Organic rev +9.1%, improved margins with adj EPS +14%. Full year guidance unchanged.
Kingfisher (LON:KGF) (£5.0bn)	Full Year Results	In line. LFL revenue -1.7%, adj PBT -7% to £528m. FCF stable at £511m. Share gains in main mkts.	AMBER (Roland) Kingfisher is arguably cheap and has a growing trade business. The group also continues to generate plenty of cash. On the other hand, a lack of growth highlights cyclical exposure, while onerous lease liabilities suggest a possible drag on future cash flow. I’m neutral at this level.
Bellway (LON:BWY) (£2.9bn)	Interim results	In line. Completions up 12% to 4,577. Rev +12%, adj PBT +12% to £150m. Outlook unchanged.
Morgan Sindall (LON:MGNS) (£1.5bn)	Trading Update	Strong trading in Fit Out division means FY25 results to be slightly ahead of consensus. Other divisions are “broadly on track to perform in line”.	GREEN [no section below] (Roland) Upgrades to guidance are almost routine for this well-run and founder-led construction group. The shares have pulled back somewhat recently and look reasonably priced to me on a P/E of 11. The StockRanks concur at 98/100.
Gamma Communications (LON:GAMA) (£1.2bn)	Full Year Results	In line. Rev +11%, adj EPS +13% to 85.1p. Growth in all business units. Confident outlook.	GREEN (Megan) I always long for something a bit more exciting from Gamma, but perhaps steady boring growth is all this company really needs to deliver. The numbers for FY2024 are as solid as ever.
Fevertree Drinks (LON:FEVR) (£938m)	Full Year Results	Group revenue flat despite 12% growth in the US (the group’s largest market). PBT rose by 60% to £35.5m. This was mainly due to glass costs and freight rates normalising, generating a £17m saving.Outlook bolstered by strategic partnership with Molson Coors, but 2025 guidance unchanged for low-single digit sales growth and reduced EBITDA margin, as…

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rmillaree

25th Mar

Volex (LON:VLX)

looks like there may have been a slight uptick recently but the trend ref expected earnings both this year and next seems to be on downward trajectory - last 12 months. If they keep sneakily lowering forecasts should you not expect shareprice to be going downward - to be fair to company perahps external brokers are reducing on traiff worries etc - so perhaps the company aint being that sneaky perhaps ?

george54

Ken, it’s Grecian, don’t post here like I did on Mike’s site but I reckon Pollen is an under the radar dirt cheap share, I’ve held the shares for a while but even after todays rise am only just about 25% ahead. Yes, well worth researching imo

The Phoenix

Grecian great to see you here, be great if you have time to chip in a bit more as you had an awesome track record on the old Mike Walters board and a style similar to Naked Trader from memory.

As I mentioned Pollen Street (LON:POLN) has came up on my quality garp screen, I work in weath management and have seen a lot of medium sized IFA's buyers getting caught out by the fca as the firms they have bought haven't done all their client reviews and some big numbers are being set aside for compo.

As an example if a firm says they have set aside say £50 mil for redress this is often 25% of the total figure as the fca works on the basis not everyone will claim and 25% of the total possible seems to be the percentage firms are allowed to get away with as minimum benchmark when the true figure say in this example could be £200 mil.

I'm not saying for one minute Pollen Street (LON:POLN) are going to get caught up in this but a lot of firms buying IFA's have been getting caught out as the annual review issue has only become a major focus for the fca in the last year.

doctor dave

Could be but the accompanying notes express how carefully Stockopedia adjust correctly for these.... it's a large part of the year's overperformance so an explanation would be great.

zho

Perhaps being hit by cratering sales of Swasticars?

.....if it is accurate!!!

jonno

Before considering Volex (LON:VLX) and the share price weakness, I think to put things in context it is worth remembering that the market in UK small caps, particularly AIM shares has been awful for an extended period. As a result there are some good companies with attractive dividend yields to be had at very attractive prices.

I have been tinkering around the edges of my portfolio, selling one or two shares where events look to be in the price and adding to others on weakness where in view they offer good value on a 12 month view.

I have exited Sigmaroc (LON:SRC) and ME International (LON:MEGP) and top sliced Volex (LON:VLX) all for good returns having held all three for quite sometime. I have for various reasons bought or added to Zotefoams (LON:ZTF) Wynnstay (LON:WYN) Sabre Insurance (LON:SBRE) Tracsis (LON:TRCS) MPAC (LON:MPAC) and WH Smith (LON:SMWH)

Back to Volex (LON:VLX) I think that there are several issues weighing on the share price:

The political instability in Turkey as already mentioned. Volex has two large subsidiaries in the country, DE-KA that manufactures power cords/plugs for consumer electricals and Murat Ticaret that manufactures complex wiring harnesses for a variety of off-road vehicles.
Trump tariffs. Volex has operations across the globe, including Mexico and the USA. As for the impact of tariffs I have no idea how this will play out. It may be that the American facilities can supply those products that might otherwise be subject to tariffs.
Dollar weakness versus £. The company reports in $, so extended dollar weakness would one assumes give rise FX headwinds.

On the plus side the Turkish employees are paid in lira, which has been very weak against major currencies such as the dollar and euro, while the goods produced in Turkey are sold in the latter currencies. Also the recent trading update confirmed that the company was trading in line.

I retain a reasonable holding in Volex (LON:VLX) despite having taken some profits. It looks like we will have to wait until next month's trading update to get a clearer picture of the situation. In the meantime no news is good news I would suggest.

Just my thoughts.

PS: My portfolio of mainly AIM listed small caps, excepting WH Smith (LON:SMWH) is down 5% YTD.

Thanks for that Pheonix, I’ve held Pollen since March last year and although the price shot up from my £6 buying price quickly it has trodden water for the last 6 months so I’ll bear in mind what you’ve said about IFA’s starting to get hit in the past year and as always will be out on the first sign of any trouble. But for now, on current newsflow I think the chances are good for further upside.

JSchoffer

Up today nicely on the good news but recent performance can be down to any of the following:

- taking a breather after a decent run up

- profit taking

- industry sentiment

- General pessimism in the UK market

- just because

ken mitchell

Good to see a post from you Grecian. Hope you will post especially so whenever a share you hold or follow updates. Pollen Street (LON:POLN) already sounded worth following up after reading Graham’s analysis today.

Can’t remember whether Investment Trusts (where a lot is happening at present) appeal to you. If they do presumably you know there’s a thriving Investment Trust thread here run by Charles Mitchell, and he starts a new thread every new month.

judywil

26th Mar

Don't get me started on the accuracy of Stockpedia data. In my view, it is all over the place, and there's not even an understanding of basic maths (I'm a mathematician by background). I have wasted many hours with Stockopedia staff about incorrect calculations in my portfolio - like that's not even complicated, it's just a simple addition of the transactions that I've input. Never mind data that actually does something more complicated that their whole ranking system is based on. My portfolio has a good number of share splits in there now, and the answer is no, they don't do these accurately at all.

All they do on a share split is keep the amount paid the same. This means that as the number of shares go down, your buy price goes up, even though that isn't the price you bought at. That might be fine, except for the fact that Stockopedia have no way of dealing with a part return of capital under this process (the only way to input this seems to be as a dividend which is a fix but it's wrong). They also apply the share split to dividends (why? *insert crying face emoji*) which there's absolutely no need to do except that they have some very basic algorithm that can only apply a share consolidation to every transaction under a particular share.

Of course, all this means that the calculations they produce across your whole portfolio (profit, realised returns, etc.) gets increasinly incorrect as time goes by.

*rant over*

Ah.....disappointing to hear. Perhaps one of the Stockopedia team would be able to answer the specific question about the 10%-in-a-day increase in the VM portfolio, which accounted for a lot of that year's outperformance?

Lincs

Hi Grecian. I also remember some great pointers from you on the old MW site - the cash seive check (I think that was yours) was / is brilliant, and still used regularly. I was watching Pollen when I think you posted about it on the Reddit (MW rehash) site - that post confirmed my buy intentions so thanks for that too.

Out of interest Lincs I never moved over to the Reddit site is it any good any of the old faces on their ?

Douglas1971

Jonno, can I ask please Sabre Insurance (LON:SBRE) what were your thoughts on sabre insurance leading to taking a position. unlike admiral (I kept missing the opportunity with admiral) it appears cheaper, unnoticed and I have placed a price alert/watchlisted.

Phoenix - I wouldn't waste your time ;-) N33 still posts the KITE Portfolio updates (which are on here anyway) and the odd post but beyond that it has unfortunately now descended into being a board for one of Mike's disciples to irregularly post about a handful of loss making blue sky companies - including Eden (now hitting new all time lows), Jay / 80M etc. But that's only my opinion :-) Regards

27th Mar

Fair comment Lincs I was always far more on the same page as yourself and Ken if its 99% discussions around sub £100 mil loss making companies I will give it a swerve.

The Phoenix.

Just adding to Lincs’s comment; apart from the weekly KITE update and the delusional poster Lincs mentioned, there are never any other posts there. Also the awful Eden Research (LON:EDEN) is down another 40% this year on top of the previous 98% fall, and the equally awful JAY (now 80 Mile (LON:80M) and Reabold Resources (LON:RBD) also already down 98%, are both down another 20%+ over 1 year. It beggars belief that Mike and so many others too, stayed convinced by the case to invest in them all the way down, and for all I know are still convinced.

1st Apr

Hi Douglas

Firstly my apologies for this very late reply. A consequence of UK small and mid cap shares being completely unloved is that the value on offer, provided one does a little research is eye watering.

I am usually a buy and hold investor and do not use stop losses, but have modified this approach in an attempt to navigate a difficult investing environment and take advantage of some of the value on offer. I continue not to use stop losses.

Regarding Sabre Insurance (LON:SBRE) my attention was first drawn to the company by Richard Crow, aka Cockney Rebel, a few months ago, when he mentioned the yield and considered the outlook . Move on a month or so to the finals on 18 March and the shares are cheaper, plus the company announces a special dividend of 2.9p along with the final dividend of 8.4p, 11.3p in total given a yield of 8.7% at a share price of 130p. The 2025 forecast is for a yield is around 10.5% and PE of 8.2, a substantial discount to the likes of Admiral (LON:ADM) . Sabre's solvency ratio looks robust to me, although this is not an area where I have any great expertise, so after watching the webinar presentation of the prelims on the company website I bought a few. The dividend was just too tempting!

There is also the outside chance of a bid for the company given what happened to Direct Line, but this is just the potential cherry on the cake. I have cut and pasted the outlook statement from Sabre Insurance (LON:SBRE) at the end of this post.

On the subject of yield in conjunction with asset backing/balance sheet strength I have also opened positions in Renewables Infrastructure (LON:TRIG) James Halstead (LON:JHD) Fuller Smith & Turner (LON:FSTA) and as mentioned previously Wynnstay (LON:WYN. As I operate exclusively within my ISA this has meant having to sell to buy. So RM (LON:RM.) Sigmaroc (LON:SRC) Volex (LON:VLX) all went for a profit

SABRE : 2025 OUTLOOK AND BEYOND

" Good volume momentum later in Q1 but against a very high growth comparative period in 2024

- Anticipate strong underwriting performance and profitability in 2025 as polices written at good margins in 2024 earn through

- Ambition 2030 growth strategy launched with initiatives on track. As previously guided, there will be modest impact on premium in H2 2025 with the more material contribution to premium coming through from 2026 onward

- Sabre will maintain underwriting discipline, whilst maximising absolute profit as market pricing finds equilibrium, and expect 2025's margin to be within our target 18% to 22% range"

All the best

Hi Jonno, thanks for your reply. I have taken a position yesterday for the reasons you have highlighted but the deciding factor was the high volume yesterday and I note volume was also high today. Time will tell. Good luck!

Daily Stock Market Report (Tue 25 Mar 2025) - MGNS, AO., ABDP, MPE, TIME, GAMA, POLN, KGF, JNEO, MBH, FEVR, PGH, TON, XAR

Companies Reporting

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Graham Neary

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