The stock market seems to be in limbo as business waits to see the outcome of Brexit politics. In my portfolio, small cap companies are drifting down and even large funds and trusts have been declining. Is this due to currency effects or the realisation that “star” fund managers such as Neil Woodford cannot be relied upon? Others are just bouncing around. However there was one exception yesterday when GB Group (GBG) jumped 14% after a positive trading statement. That company is one of my more successful longer-term holdings but there may be more growth to come from it because of the sector in which it operates. On-line id verification is becoming essential for many businesses.
The Administrator for Patisserie Holdings has issued their final report before the business moves into liquidation and another firm took over from KPMG to look into any legal recovery from the past auditors (Grant Thornton) and others. The handover was due to a conflict of interest. The Serious Fraud Office is still investigating the affairs of the company and a number of arrests have been made, but ordinary shareholders should not expect any return and it could be years before the legal processes are completed from past experience of similar situations. Even preferential creditors may not receive anything. The administration has so far cost £2.3 million.
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) have announced a new Stewardship Code to improve the activities of institutional investors – see https://tinyurl.com/y5no8ot4 . There is more emphasis on “Purpose, values and culture” and the recognition of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.
This is all very worthy, but personally I would prefer the FRC concentrated on tightening up the quality of public company accounts for which it is responsible. It also needs to be a lot more forceful on patent audit failures that enable frauds to go undetected for years as at Patisserie – and there have been many other similar cases of not just downright fraud but also over-optimistic presentation of accounts.
This morning (25/10/2019) I attended a presentation by Halma Plc (HLMA) in the Investec offices. It was given by Charles King, Head of Investor Relations and it was a highly professional presentation unlike many we see. I have held shares in the company for four years and it confirmed that my choice of it as an investment was sound. But I did learn a bit more.
I’ll cover some of the key points that were made. This company has strong fundamental growth drivers. It has grown both organically and my acquisition over 45 years and now has 45 companies in the portfolio which primarily operate independently. One might call it a conglomerate. It focuses on life saving technology businesses – in essence “safer, cleaner, healthier”, in global niche markets. These are often regulated markets which helps on defensibility and growth. Demographic trends help as more people who are older and fatter promote growth and higher regulatory standards also move in. There is a lot of diversity in the products.
They aim for 15% growth per annum and have 6,000 staff in total. They bet strongly on “talent” to run the businesses. In essence there are many little companies all run by entrepreneurs who are left to operate as they wish. These people are paid on the basis of profit achieved in excess of the cost of capital but one requirement they look at when recruiting is that they must have “low egos”. There is only a small group of central staff handling some corporate functions.
Their focus is on acquiring companies with low capital intensity and ROTIC of greater than 16% when their cost of capital is about 8%. They are very diversified internationally but see opportunities to grow more in Asia/Pacific and other developing markets.
The high share price was questioned (or as one person put it: “it’s in nose bleed territory”). It’s currently on a forecast p/e of 32 according to Stockopedia which is higher than when I purchased shares in 2015 but the share price has more than doubled in that period. This company is like many high revenue/profit growth companies – they never look cheap but simply grow into their share price.
However the share price has fallen back of late like a lot of highly valued technology stocks that I hold. The speaker attributed this to market trends, not management share selling. Growth companies tend to go out of fashion as economic headwinds appear.
But if they stick to the business model, with the high return on capital and sensible acquisitions, I doubt they can go far wrong. In summary a useful and enlightening meeting for a company that until recently kept a low profile. But it is now in the FTSE-100 (market cap £7 billion).
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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