Avon Protection Share Discussion Threads

[5070481] 17/9/2010 08:58

PIcked some up this morning. Great volume recently, great chart and good prospects.

[cockneyrebel] 15/9/2010 11:02

A lot of buying activity - 2 months to the results.

I'd have thought these were a bid target for a US co if ever there was one.

Cr

[raj129] 13/9/2010 14:58

vol have gone up considerably in last few days,is something in the offing?

[cockneyrebel] 11/9/2010 13:26

SCSW says Buy today.

CR

[cockneyrebel] 10/9/2010 13:20

Chunky buying.

CR

[cockneyrebel] 06/9/2010 11:10

It's a lovely chart :-)

CR

[nellie1973] 06/9/2010 08:08

CR's article in full, nice reading!

As for my own stock-picking, I have been active in recent days. I have just purchased shares in Avon Rubber, a member of the FTSE Fledgling index. Avon disappointed the City in the past and now appears to be deleted from many institutional "watch lists". But I suspect this will change because the company has turned the corner. Double-digit profit increases are expected in each of the next few years.

Its largest division makes respirators, or gas masks, for the military. It has a major multi-year contract with the US military, with fine prospects for additional sales to other military organisations throughout the world. The division suffered some painful teething problems as it ramped up production to satisfy Defence Department needs. Now, those problems have been resolved and profits are starting to roll in.

Another US division manufactures breathing apparatus for fire-fighting services. It had been losing money but has just moved into the profit column.

The company also produces milk liners for the world's dairy farmers. These are small rubber interfaces placed between a cow's teat and a milking machine. Avon is the category leader with a world-wide market share in excess of 50 per cent.

As our graph shows, Avon's shares have been steadily rising and I expect further gains to follow in the months ahead.

[jeffian] 05/9/2010 23:22

Hope so. I appreciate that AVON has held a recent high, but was getting a bit depressed that it seemed firmly stuck during recent 3 best days of the market.

[cockneyrebel] 05/9/2010 19:28

FT link here:



Quite a following for D.S.

CR

[cockneyrebel] 20/8/2010 12:37

Another director buy.

CR

[cockneyrebel] 19/8/2010 14:01

More director buying and breaking out through the May 08 major high.

CR

[gcom2] 30/7/2010 14:07

Thinking of investing here , directors were falling over themselves to buy recently. Whats the debt situation?

[nellie1973] 19/7/2010 21:08

Tipped in newspaper

[mikesnr1] 01/7/2010 20:07

Mikey34 - can you post a link please?

[mikey34] 28/6/2010 16:07

FWIW, a very positive article in Shares magazine this week with a buy rec.

[jarjar] 27/5/2010 16:07

What's up with AVON ?
cannot trade this pm !
very wide spread 107 v 114
max deal 10,000 shares

[jeffian] 14/5/2010 10:39

I agree with your comments about divis, 18BT. Although the Edison report doesn't mention them, there are 2 tables there which show a nil divi through 2010 and 2011. These things move in fashions and many companies have adopted the hair-shirt over the past couple of years and reduced or waived divis, but surely the institutions must cut up soon? After all, analysis of long-term trends shows that a significant proportion of institutional performance has derived from divis and they must be struggling to achieve returns from capital gains alone. I just don't understand it when you have a company projected to earn over 20p/s saying it can't afford to pay any divi out of that.

[18bt] 13/5/2010 18:54

I thought the interesting thing about the Edison report is that it shows what a low cashflow multiple it's on - 4.5x. At that level a PE house will gobble it up, but I very much hope they don't. The only disappoiting thing is they don't mention the reinstatement of the dividend. I would hope that this would become possible once the facilities have been renegotiated such is the strength of the potential cashflow.

[penpont] 13/5/2010 17:40

Interesting report from Edison - 20.8p eps forecast for F/Y2011

[18bt] 12/5/2010 07:13

From Independent this morning

Avon Rubber

Our view: buy

Share price: 93.5p (+8p)

What links diary farmers and infantry soldiers? Not an awful lot, you would be right in thinking – apart from rubber, that is. Avon Rubber makes a range of products from those found on the farm, to gas masks that are used by troops. Yesterday, its shares jumped by a stunning 8.8 per cent after it reported a storming 48 per cent increase in first-half profits.

In fact, there was nothing but good news in the statement: Avon's order book is in healthy order, while the management declared itself upbeat about prospects for the coming months. If there was a fly in the ointment it was that the stock increased by so much, putting the shares on something closer to fair value than they had been earlier. There is no dividend, so any new investors will depend on an upwardly mobile share price.

But worry not, analysts at Arden say there is still room for growth. Avon's shares trade on a 2010 price to earnings ratio of 10 times, they say, implying a fair value share price of 123p. While valuations are not always necessarily met and things can go unexpectedly wrong for small companies such as Avon, we see no reason not to invest in the shares. Buy.

[penpont] 11/5/2010 23:27

From today's IC - substantial upgrades from housebroker:


Broker Arden Partners upgraded its full-year pre-tax profit forecast from £5.2m to £6m and EPS estimate by a third to 12.3p (£4.4m and 9.4p in 2009) and expects profits of £7.7m (up from £6.8m) and EPS of 16.5p (from 12.6p), the following year.

Avon is an attractive turnaround story that also offers scope for further margin improvement. Trading on a modest seven times forward earnings, the shares are too lowly rated even though the company has yet to return to the dividend list. Buy.

[18bt] 11/5/2010 07:46

These results really do look strong and should lead to upgrades. Sales in particular have shown a marked rebound - converting them to profit has been more challenging, but some of that is down to e.g. pensions. Net debt affected by the need for working capital for the increased sales and capex on the new filter facility - both of these should be one-offs, so I'm not concerned by this. The company is back to growth mode in sectors which look good at present. There is even the possibility of a small final dividend, which is 6 months earlier than I was expecting.

May be time for a re-rating, though the market may wait until the final results.

[martin2729] 11/5/2010 07:29

+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| | 31 March | 31 March |
| | 2010 | 2009 |
| | | |
| | GBPMillions | GBPMillions |
+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| REVENUE | 56.5 | 48.4 |
+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| EARNINGS BEFORE INTEREST, TAXATION, | | |
| DEPRECIATION AND AMORTISATION | 6.2 | 3.9 |
+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| OPERATING PROFIT | 4.1 | 2.1 |
+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| PROFIT BEFORE TAX | 2.9 | 1.4 |
+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| NET DEBT | 14.4 | 16.5 |
+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+
| BASIC EARNINGS PER SHARE | 6.1p | 2.7p |
+------------------------------------------------+-------------+-------------+


· Revenue up 17% (23% at constant currency)

· Operating profit up 91% (118% at constant currency)

· Continuing operating activities (before exceptional items) generated cash
of GBP4.9m

· Basic Earnings Per Share up 126% (162% at constant currency)

· Continued good level of order intake in Protection & Defence, with closing
order book of GBP69.5m

· Significant year on year improvement in the Dairy business with the
outsourcing of European dairy production completed on time and to cost

Peter Slabbert, Chief Executive commented: "Avon has made good progress during
the first half of 2010 growing revenue, doubling operating profit and
maintaining the order book at the strong levels with which it began the year.