Trakm8 Holdings Discussion Board http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion http://www.iii.co.uk/icons/logos/uk_logo.gif http://www.iii.co.uk tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.8511137 06/07/2011 Miles Nolan
http://www.growthcompany.co.uk/features/1636218/in-for-a-penny.thtml


Penny shares are not without risk but as part of a diversified portfolio they can provide plenty of excitement. Miles Nolan investigates.

The stock market is often billed as the world’s largest casino, with shares trading across the globe in everything from giants like Microsoft to a myriad of speculative penny stocks. Over the years, penny favourites such as Polly Peck and Poseidon in Australia hit the headlines as their values soared, only to come crashing down to earth as the bubble burst.

For those with a risk appetite, back in 2003 shares in a fledgling online retailer known as ASOS could have been picked up for as little as 5p. Today, the AIM counter trades at £23 a share, is valued at £1.7 billion and is the UK’s largest independent online fashion and beauty retailer. It sells more than 50,000 products and attracts 13 million unique visitors a year from more than 160 countries.

Of more interest is the fact that an investment of just £1,000 back then would now be worth a staggering £460,000. There is no doubt that the market is also littered with sad tales of collapsed businesses and burnt fingers, but ASOS proves the point that huge returns can be made – for the patient.

There is something in the psyche that warms to the notion of owning several hundred thousand shares for a relatively small capital outlay. Investors should accept the risks involved but look at the prospects of a company, the strength of management and their incentive to deliver. Many bombed-out stocks will never recover, but a change of strategy, the reversal of a new business or riding a new craze can all help to generate excitement.

At Growth Company Investor, we tend to focus on cash-generative, profitable companies with strong management and a competitive advantage. For the purpose of this article, I have cast the net far wider – to include some much more speculative situations.

Most people define penny stocks at anything below 100p a share; some look at less than 10p as the benchmark. There are 570 companies trading on AIM and the FTSE Small Cap and Fledgling indices that are valued at under £30 million, so there is no shortage of opportunity at the smaller end of the market. Indeed, 130 stocks on AIM more than doubled last year alone.

Below, I have picked out five interesting situations that all trade below 15p and are valued at less than £25 million but have the wherewithal to grow significantly. Of course, there is no substitute for further research, but at current levels I believe that all provide interesting entry points.



Green Compliance – buy-and-build strategy in a fragmented market
Having sold its legacy businesses, Green Compliance (GCO) is wasting little time in consolidating the highly fragmented markets of water hygiene, pest control and fire protection. Over the past year, the AIM counter has acquired 11 businesses for a combined total of £20.2 million.

Led by no-nonsense non-executive chairman Bob Holt, of Mears fame, and consummate deal-doer John Prowse as chief executive, the plan is to build a major national player.

The compliance market spans those firms that need to comply with health and safety, an ever increasing but necessary requirement. Expenditure is largely non-discretionary so Green should be well placed to benefit. Moreover, the businesses require limited capital expenditure and provide robust margins – in excess of 20 per cent.

The integration process is going well, with scope to achieve savings by centralising purchasing and the back-office function. In addition, there is huge opportunity to cross-sell its services, particularly between water hygiene and pest control. This should help boost margins and drive further cash flow to fund its buy-and-build acquisition strategy.
But organic growth is also a big driver for Green. With more than 5,000 customers in the gr By SpikeyDT ]]> http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=8511137&action=detail Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:53:00 GMT SpikeyDT tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.8449599 Welcome to the July 2011 AimZine
http://www.aimzine.co.uk/aimzine/0711/0711_A7/0711_A7.htm


AIM Snippet
A GR8 Opportunity?


Each month the Aimzine Snippet column highlights an announcement or situation which we believe is worthy of further investigation


Each month we trawl through hundreds of RNS statements from AIM companies. In this column we highlight an exceptional company announcement, particularly where we feel the market may not have taken full account of recent news.

For this month’s Snippet column I am turning to the results from an AIM minnow, Trakm8 Holdings (TRAK). Trakm8 designs, develops, manufactures, supplies and supports vehicle tracking, fleet tracking and GPRS/GPS tracking products and services. The company provides both hardware and software telematics solutions.

Trakm8 issued its results for the year to 31 March 2011 on 23 June. The results (which can be downloaded from Trakm8’s website here) reported strong progress and included these financial headlines:

• Revenue growth of 22% to £4,186k
• Operating profit increase of 19% to £329k
• Cash balances increased by £427k to £1,119k
• Net assets increased by 11% to £2,236k

The reported results were in line with expectations set by house broker, Arbuthnot. On the day the results were issued Arbuthnot reported that it would retain its ‘Strong Buy’ rating on Trakm8 and leave forecasts for 2012 and 2013 unchanged – see below.

Year to 31 March...
2011
(actual)
2012
(Estimated)
2013
(Estimated)
Revenue (£m)
4.2
4.3
4.5
Pre-tax Profit (£m)
0.3
0.4
0.5
Earnings per share (p)
1.1
1.6
2.0

Driving Growth
Trakm8’s Chairman, Dawson Buck was optimistic about future plans in his Outlook Statement:

“The Board is confident that the revenue and profitability growth of the Group can be continued over the next 12 months.”

“Trakm8 solutions are expected to increase market penetration both in the large fleet market and the SME space. The installed base and its consequent recurring revenues are expected to continue to increase with the monthly recurring income increasing as a percentage of our underlying overheads.”

“With the wider opportunities for hardware only sales provided by having lower cost products the Group is confident that the volume of units sold will increase strongly in the coming year. This will benefit not only the sales and profitability directly but will also help reduce product manufacturing costs in the longer term.”

“We believe that the financial justification of implementing telematics based fleet management solutions is now compelling. Trakm8 has positioned itself to benefit from the situation with exceptional cost effective integrated solutions. To protect the technical superiority of our products and services and to ensure the lowest possible cost base, we will continue to expand the engineering and professional services teams.”

“Trakm8’s primary focus is to continue to drive growth in revenues and profitability and therefore this will be a primary use for cash generated by operations. However we have been very successful in building our cash reserves and we are keen to examine all other expansion options including acquisitions to enable us to achieve our growth plans. The telematics market in the UK remains very fragmented and the Group is in a strong position to benefit when favourable opportunities arise.”

Thus there would seem to be plenty of opportunities to achieve growth over the medium and long term. In the short term the board’s confidence will no doubt be helped by the two new contracts which were announced in January 2011.





Trakm8's T8 Telematics Device


















confident of revenue and profitability growth


















very successful in building
cash reserves


The shares
At 12 pe By SpikeyDT ]]> http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=8449599&action=detail Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:02:00 GMT SpikeyDT tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.6962817
However - as an investor - I would prefer a bit more to be shared on the transaction. Afterall - management clearly think it is good news or they wouldn't have done the deal, so why not tell us more. By Biscuit Barrell ]]> http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=6962817&action=detail Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:05:00 GMT Biscuit Barrell tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.5464439 http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=5464439&action=detail Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:25:00 GMT AB Jones1 tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.5455075 http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=5455075&action=detail Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:06:00 GMT andgoaway tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.5211080 http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=5211080&action=detail Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:35:00 GMT Rab Munro tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.4199330 http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=4199330&action=detail Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:13:00 GMT cyclone89 tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.3658153
That`s a 25 yr pay back period.......... whilst they are being so stunningly generous with other people`s money I wonder if they would like to buy my old wooden workbench it`s a snip at £1.8mil and will if given a Board position definetly contribute to improve their decision making. By Gatherer ]]> http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=3658153&action=detail Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:31:00 GMT Gatherer tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.3545299
This company was based on software design and now they are meddling in production which is not their forte leading to quality problems and increased cost. With production outsourced when sales are low or decline it costs them nothing because they don`t employ the staff nor the associated overheads like buildings, rent, rates, power etc, etc and if they are smart enough to use a proffessional manufacturer they don`t get expensive quality problems and even if they do its at the manufacturers cost. By Gatherer ]]> http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=3545299&action=detail Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:16:00 GMT Gatherer tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.3545068
He leaves the board by mutual consent and will remain with the company as group strategy advisor for three days a week while working on similar roles in other non competing growing technology businesses.

By happy hunting ]]> http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=3545068&action=detail Fri, 27 Apr 2007 07:37:00 GMT happy hunting tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.3521521 http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=3521521&action=detail Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:14:00 GMT cyclone89 tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.3519412
Weak management with a "its not my fault" culture hence the 83% drop in SP since floatation.

By Gatherer ]]> http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=3519412&action=detail Mon, 02 Apr 2007 12:37:00 GMT Gatherer tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.3485145 http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=3485145&action=detail Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:08:00 GMT Gatherer tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.3485062 http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=3485062&action=detail Mon, 05 Mar 2007 11:17:00 GMT city watcher tag:iii.co.uk,2003:tst.3472369 http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/detail?code=cotn:TRAK.L&display=discussion&id=3472369&action=detail Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:34:00 GMT city watcher