Edison Investment Research

Finsbury Growth & Income Trust (FGT);  issues 320,000 new ordinary shares

Finsbury Growth & Income Trust has issued 320,000 new ordinary shares of 25p each, from treasury, at a price of 666.00p per share. These shares rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares in issue.

Britvic (BVIC); announces impact of COVID-19

Britvic announced that trading in the quarter was broadly in line with the company’s expectations. The recently announced closure of on trade outlets and restrictions in people movement in each of the markets will however significantly affect consumption in outlet and on the go. Therefore, the company expects a material impact to its revenue and earnings in 2020.

Based on the company’s modelling work to date, the company’s best estimate of the impact for the group is a reduction in EBITA of between £12m and £18m per calendar month. Britvic starts from a strong financial position, as a highly cash generative business with a robust balance sheet. The company’s net debt to EBITDA at end-FY19 was 2.1x.

Tungsten Corporation (TUNG); announces COVID-19 update

Tungsten Corporation has provided an update in light of the rapidly changing situation regarding COVID-19. The company said that its trading remains in line with the guidance outlined in the 3Q trading update for the FY ending April 2020.

John Laing Group (JLG); announces purchase French wind portfolio

John Laing Group has entered into a purchase and sale agreement for its French wind portfolio. The total purchase price is slightly ahead of the group’s latest valuation.

1Spatial (SPA); expects to report revenues of £23m for FY20

1Spatial expects to report revenues of no less than £23.0m (FY19: £17.6m) and adjusted EBTIDA of at least £3.0m (FY19: £1.2m) for the financial year ended 31 January 2020. Revenues include recurring software revenues of £9.5m (FY19: £7.5m). The company has seen little disruption in its day-to-day business in its key territories, including the UK, the US, France, Belgium and Australia.

Tinexta (TNXT); post Y19 results

Tinexta has issued FY19 results following the recent update on revenue and EBITDA. The key takeaways are that they are no longer able to provide guidance for FY20, having introduced guidance in February, and there is no dividend for FY19,  given the current economic impact from coronavirus and the company’s exposure to the Italian economy.

Civitas Social Housing (CSH); provides business update

Civitas Social Housing has provided an update regarding its business and COVID-19 contingency planning and recent acquisitions that take dividend cover to 100% on a run-rate basis in line with the companies stated objective. Dividend cover was 97% on an EPRA run-rate basis at the nine month stage (to 31 December 2019) and 87% on an EPRA actual basis including certain non-recurring cost items. Three quarterly dividends of 1.325p per share have been paid year to date and Civitas is expected to declare its Q420 dividend for the 3 months ending 31 March 2020 in May, as per previous years. Dividend policy remains progressive related to the inflation linking of underlying rental income.

Fidelity European Values (FEV); NAV total return outperforms benchmark

The company reported a NAV total return of +23.8% for the period. This was above its benchmark index returns of +20.4%. The discount to NAV narrowed from 10.7% to 6.2%, due to an impressive share price total return of +30.6%. The main detractors to the performance include ABN AMRO Bank, the Dutch banking group, which suffered in the latter half of 2019 from growing worries about possible negative impacts relating to a lack of robustness in its anti-money-laundering processes, and Telenor, the Norwegian multinational telecommunications group, which underperformed in the second half of the year.

Kcell JSC (KCEL); net income up 18.6%

The company announced its financial results for the year ended 31 December 2019. Net sales were up 4.6% to KZT 156,657m, while service revenue grew 4.8% to KZT 137,564m. EBITDA (excluding non-recurring items) grew 24.7% to KZT 63,533m, and the EBITDA margin stood at 40.6%. Operating income (excluding non-recurring items) increased 36.3% to KZT 33,393m.

discoverIE Group (DSCV); posts year-end trading update

discoverIE Group in its year-end trading update reported strong momentum throughout the year. During the fourth quarter, the group has experienced some isolated disruption to the business as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.