Sunday tips round-up: Trinity, IMI, Hambledon Mining, Impax
In August, newspaper group Trinity announced a strategic review, which was to lead to proposals to sell off a host of assets. The Racing Post was disposed of, along with a clutch of smaller newspapers in the South. It will contribute £108m into its defined benefits pension plan, while some £175m will then be diverted into a share buyback.
The company remains highly cash-generative, and that position will be reinforced in the coming year as Trinity completes its major capital expenditure programme, which has seen it invest heavily in new colour presses, enabling greater colour pagination and improved advertising rates.
Its shares, which touched 574p at the end of May, have since slumped. Even after a recent modest uptick to around 340p this week, they remain less than 10p above their most recent 12-month lows. With the buyback likely to underpin current levels, the shares are beginning to look attractive again, says the Sunday Telegraph.
Engineer IMI had appeared to have escaped too much of the fall-out from a slowing US economy. The world's biggest maker of pneumatic controls said this week that its order intake remained positive, while its increasing presence in the emerging markets of Asia and Eastern Europe was underpinning momentum.
The group, which also makes drink dispensers for pubs and restaurants and the consumer display units seen in shops, is halfway through a three-year plan to transfer production from the US and Western Europe to Mexico, the Czech Republic and China. But the ongoing investigation into bribery and corruption at its CCI business, coupled with the weak dollar, suggests that for IMI, things are likely to get worse before they get better. The Sunday Telegraph says sell.
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After three years as a public company, Hambledon Mining has finally lived up to its name and become a mining company. On Boxing Day, the first gold pour will take place, marking the beginning of production from its Sekisovskoye gold project in Kazakhstan.
The company mines from an open pit, and is aiming for production rates of 40,000 ounces a year. If all goes to plan, this will be merely a prelude to mining a much larger underground reserve which should take production up to 100,000 ounces a year. With profits finally looming, there is no reason why the shares can't keep going, says the Sunday Telegraph.
Impax, the specialist financial services group, focuses almost entirely on the markets for cleaner or more efficient delivery of basic services of energy, water and waste - an idea whose time has come. Full-year results last week showed assets under management up 126 per cent to £984m and profits nearly tripling to £1.82m - far above most analysts' expectations.
This week the stock surged more than 10 per cent to a record 38.50p. The result is they are no longer any kind of bargain, particularly at a time of extreme volatility, but the interest in environmental investing is unlikely to abate any time soon. This means Impax is still worth a look, reckons the Sunday Telegraph.
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