And closer |
Getting closer to my £5 target! |
 Add from Buy
CRPR.L / 282.5p / £25.08m / TP: 300p
Event: AGM
Likely % change in earnings forecasts: No Change
Westhouse;
AGM no changes to forecasts
James Cropper gave a trading update at its AGM yesterday in which it said it had traded profitably in the first quarter and in line with management expectations, we are making no changes to any of our forecasts. James Cropper Speciality Papers (JCSP) and James Cropper Converting (JCC) had strong uplifts in sales in Q1 and while Technical Fibre Products (TFP) saw a small dip management is confident that the company is on track for the year as a whole across the group. The introduction of Reclaimed Fibre into JCSP will help reduce the impact of pulp price volatility and increase/protect margins.
Having upgraded our target price to 300p at the time of the final results and our recommendation to Buy we are now bringing the latter back to Add to reflect the share price strength since. We are encouraged that the management focus on increasing exports and the margins across the group will continue to bear fruit and can envisage increasing both our target price and recommendation again in due course. |
hxxp://www.westhousesecuritiesresearch.com/Research/iid/31595421303/p |
Now only valued at net assets. I feel that on that basis the share price should be in the region of £5.00 |
Another solid if a little unspectacular set of results. Future though looks very positive. |
Steady daily rise. Seems to be a lack of stock available. Rise has not flushed out any sellers in this tightly held listing. |
And a very quiet thread as well.The tfp is interesting and I suspect will really start to take off. That coupled with considerable costs reduction will greatly increase profitability here. |
Havent seen any press coverage regarding uptick from £1.70 in recent months. Any specific reasons? |
I think you will see a fairly rapid move to £3. Its good to see institutions start to take an interest. Manafacturing too is gradually moving back to the UK as china is no longer a low cost economy. All looks very rosy here. The new generation of Mark Cropper beginning to make his mark! |
Now due a substantial rerating.
Its trading at net assets for goodness sake |
Westhouse;
CRPR.L / 201.5p / £17.85m / TP: 220p from 200p
Event: Other
Likely % change in earnings forecasts: No Change
Increased target price
The share price has made good progress since the interim results in mid-November, which showed a small uplift in adjusted interim profits. With the forecast increase in profitability largely as a result of reduced costs and the new Chief Executive in place for the whole of FY2014 likely to drive new sales opportunities, we are increasing our target price to 220p (from 200p) which is based on a target yield of 3.6%.
In our view, James Cropper has weathered the economic downturn reasonably well and with the benefits of its capital investment programme, particularly the new facility for Technical Fibre Products (TFP) still to come through, we are happy to reiterate our Add recommendation. |
its always the quiet ones! |
The real problem here will be rising fuel costs IMO...... |
Smallest of the three is Kendal-based specialist paper and advanced materials company James Cropper (LSE: CRPR).
At 167.5p per share, the company is capitalised at £14m, but it is struggling at the moment in a difficult economic climate. The question is the extent to which this is in the share price today. The shares were over 240p last July.
Cropper has made provisions for restructuring and redundancy costs as it takes the steps necessary to preserve profitability. It reduced its workforce by 8% this year, looking for annualised savings of £1m. The founding family has a large stake in the business, so is more likely than most to take necessarily tough decisions.
Brokers' expectations place the shares on a P/E of 12 for the current year, falling to less than 9 in 2013, with a yield of 4.8%. Cropper is also asset rich with net tangible asset value per share of 246p.
The problem here is the pension deficit, which totalled £6.4m at the start of October and whose contributions continue to eat into profitability. Nevertheless, Cropper is a soundly managed, profitable asset play, which I expect to weather the current economic storm well.
I haven't bought any shares as yet, but may do so on any further price weakness or significant updates on progress. |
Westhouse;
Buy
CRPR.L / 182.0p / £15.43m / TP: 200p
Event: Trading statement
Likely % change in earnings forecasts: No Change
In-line trading update
We note the trading update from Cropper, which says that the group expects report adjusted PBT for FY2012 in line with market expectations. We forecast FY2012 adjusted PBT of £1.6m on sales of £80.7m giving EPS of 13.8p. As we commented at the time of the February trading update, importantly, we expect a maintained dividend of 7.9p.
We also note that the company will be restructuring its UK workforce in calendar 2012. This will involve taking a £0.8m provision in FY2012 but will lead to annualised savings of £1m, the full impact of this will not be reflected in the numbers until FY2014. At this stage we are maintaining our future forecasts so for FY2013 adjusted PBT to £2.2m, EPS 18.9p and 8p dividend. For FY2014, we forecast adjusted PBT of £3.3m, EPS 28.4p and 9p dividend.
We keep our target price at 200p, which implies a 4% dividend yield target for FY2013. As well as the dividend support, we view the fact that management is continuing/accelerating its capex programme as positive. We retain our Buy recommendation. |
08 February 2012
James Cropper PLC ("the Company")
Investment in a new manufacturing facility in the USA and Trading Update
USA Investment
The Company is pleased to announce that it has authorised an initial investment of US$3m in a new manufacturing facility located at Rotterdam, New York State. The facility will include two fibre plating lines.
In late 2011 the Company's subsidiary Technical Fibre Products ("TFP") entered into a 10 year lease of a 50,000 square foot facility in Rotterdam in order to consolidate all of its US activities into one site as the current US manufacturing sites do not have the capacity or capability to meet the expected growing demand in a number of customer programmes in the aerospace, defence and electronic sectors. These are anticipated to generate significant long term revenues. TFP supplies specialist metal-coated fibres and non-woven material to the programmes mentioned above. Currently the primary manufacture of these materials takes place at TFP's existing US facilities in Cincinnati, OH and Stratford CT with secondary processing at the Company's main site in Kendal, UK.
The Cincinnati facility will close by mid-2012. It will take approximately 18 months for the facility at Rotterdam to attain accreditation to a number of important customer programmes which consume materials sourced from the Stratford facility. Once accreditation has been achieved the Stratford facility will also be closed. If current company projections are achieved it is anticipated that the Rotterdam facility will operate on a break-even in 2015.
Trading Update
As a consequence of this development costs totalling approximately GBP0.5 million relating to relocation and refurbishment will be expensed against profit in the current financial year. This cost has not been built into current market projections relating to TFP.
The reduced level of sales by James Cropper Speciality Papers ("Speciality Papers") anticipated in the Interim Statement has materialised both in UK and Euro-zone markets. James Cropper Converting ("Converting") has been similarly affected. Sales by Speciality Papers and Converting are now anticipated to be significantly down on previous projections.
Overall Company profit before tax, prior to IAS19 pension adjustment is now expected to be in line with last year.
Enquiries: |
I dont know if its just me, but there seemed to be a stark contrast between the announcement just over a month ago and the announcement today.
Perhaps its just me and the way the markets are, but i sold out first thing as suddenly this looks very vunerable.
Good luck to those that still hold. |
great trading update from Mondi today - bodes well for CRPR trading update imo.
CR |
OK pension scheme shares all gone.
Watch this motor |
AGM Aug 3rd - co has an AGM statement with the AGM.
CR |
Market's like this trow up some bargains - these go XD today. so not just a 5p discoutr this am but you get another 5.7p back if you hold at the close tonight.
Of course you'll get the divi dip tomorrow in all liklihood - but how attractive will these look tomorrow morning @ say 230p to buy? With the AGM in just over a fortnight too.
CR |
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