21 May 2010 – AGM statement

At today’s AGM, the company will update on trading since 1 February, revealing a 2% increase in revenues in the home credit business, while revenues in the motor finance operations are 20% higher.  Net debt has fallen to £26.1m and is expected to fall further in the second quarter.  This is a solid statement and bodes well for the rest of the year.  With the full year dividend likely to be 36p, the shares stand on a prospective dividend yield of 6.6% providing scope for a re-rating.

20 May 2010 – director shareholding

It is good to see that CEO David Montgomery has taken advantage of the fall in the share price from almost 250p last month.  Yesterday, he bought 20,000 shares in the company – 10,000 at 194.6492p and 10,000 at 192.088p.  This re-affirms our positive stance on the stock and we retain our share price target of 350p.

Our centenary party (albeit 94 years early) in Ilkley last night was a great success.   Our thanks to those who attended at what appears to have been “the place to be”.   Those who were not able to make it … don’t worry, there will be another one.

29 April 2010 – trading update

Today’s interim management statement from European regional newspaper group Mecom has confirmed that the decline in advertising revenue continues to moderate.  In the first quarter of the year, advertising revenues fell by just 3% compared with a 13% decline in the last quarter of 2009.  With costs down 7% compared with the first quarter of 2009, group EBITDA is running well ahead of last year and the group remains confident of increasing this by at least 10% in 2010.  Cash generation is also ahead of expectations and although the shares have moved up over the last few days, we re-iterate our 12 month share price target of 350p.

26 April 2010 – trading update

The company has issued a trading update for the 13 weeks to 2 April and has revealed that in the first quarter it has performed better than expected with an improvement in activity levels across a number of end markets.  As a result of this positive first quarter and the current outlook through to June, pre-tax profits for the first half are expected to be materially ahead of last year.  Overall, the company now believes that full year pre-tax profits before amortisation of intangibles will be some £30m ahead of previous expectations.

21 April 2010 – share price move

Shares in the media group Mecom have risen strongly in the last couple of days as investors focus on the medium term prospects for the group.  Although when we issued our report the share price was only 192p, our target price for Mecom shares is 350p thus still providing plenty of potential upside.  The shares should also be helped by an upgrade from JPMorgan Cazenove who have moved to an overweight stance from neutral.

20 April 2010 – AGM statement

Following the publication of the brokerlink report on Stadium Group on 9 March when the share price was 51.5p, the company has now held its AGM at which it reported on current trading.  The first quarter of the year has seen strong trading at the group, significantly ahead of the corresponding period in 2009, with both revenues and profits continuing to show substantial progress.  Customer demand continues to track ahead of last year, partly due to an overall improvement in underlying market conditions, and partly due to the benefit of a number of new business wins secured in 2009.  Stadium’s pipeline of new business opportunities in high growth markets where it is focusing its marketing efforts continues to build momentum and further business wins in the coming months look likely.  The shares have responded well to this announcement, closing 6.5p higher at 64p.