Henry Boot (LSE: BHY) reported a strong performance in its half-year results this morning. The group, whose operations extend across housebuilding, commercial development, construction and plant hire, said pre-tax profit advanced 49% on increased revenue of 35%.
The shares have moved higher in early trading, and at 208p are back to their pre-referendum level. Management said that so far since the Brexit vote it’s been business-as-usual, but what I particularly liked was the following comment.
“The completion of our commercial development pipeline in progress, largely already pre-let and/or pre-sold is likely to see the Group be cash generative over the next two years and, should the post referendum world prove to be more turbulent than we are experiencing at the moment, these internally generated funds should provide the resources to acquire competitively priced opportunities for the next cyclical growth phase”.
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Trading on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 9.9, an attractive price-to-earnings growth (PEG) ratio of 0.5, and with a handy 3.2% dividend yield, this looks a very buyable stock to my eye.
Bright outlook
Improved commodities prices and a weaker pound have led to a brighter outlook for global natural resources royalty company Anglo Pacific (LSE: APF). Management reported a solid start to the year in its interim results this morning, and said that as things stand, the company expects royalty income for the full year to be significantly higher than in 2015.
The shares, which had reached a low of not much more than 50p earlier this year, are now up to 97p — bang in line with the net asset value (NAV) reported this morning. However, the directors state that they consider the value of a number of assets to be higher than that recorded on the balance sheet (three times higher in one case), so the stock still appears to be at a discount to inherent NAV.
Combine the attractive asset picture with a forward 6.2% dividend yield and a forecast 2016/17 PEG of just 0.2 and this is another share I currently rate as a buy.
Speculative opportunity
There was little we didn’t already know in this morning’s half-year results from Optibiotix Health (LSE: OPTI). The company, whose patent-protected compounds change the way microbes in the body work and interact, has a growing portfolio of products reaching commercialisation in high public interest areas including obesity, high cholesterol and diabetes.
Optibiotix already has commercial agreements with the brand owners of Slimfast and with DSM, the world’s leading supplier of nutritional ingredients. The company added today that commercial discussions with further potential partners across both consumer and pharma “have indicated a wider range of opportunities than initially envisaged,” and that it expects to report on these commercial discussions in the coming months.
Optibiotix is lossmaking at this stage in its life (£0.61m in the first half) but has cash of £3.55m, which it says is sufficient to fund its existing research and development programmes.
I’m not generally keen on ‘blue-sky’ companies, but Optibiotix’s business and market opportunities are relatively easy to understand, there’s clearly significant commercial interest in its products, and the company could rapidly grow into — or exceed — it’s current valuation of £61m at a share price of 70p. As such, I rate the stock as one of the better speculative buys in the market.
