Inspired Share Discussion Threads

[rivaldo] 03/3/2021 07:11

Excellent news - two new acquisitions which are expected to be earnings-enhancing this year....

These will add almost £1.4m to PBT per their historic numbers, and bring the Corporate Order Book up to a whopping £73m. Importantly, most of the consideration is deferred to encourage future performance.

And of course there are big opportunities for cross-selling too:

H

[rivaldo] 02/3/2021 08:37

Strategic Equity Capital state in their H1 results today that they have bought into INSE as a new position in the period, and INSE have now become one of their top 10 holdings:



"Inspired Energy

Description

Is a leading UK B2B corporate energy services specialist. The company works with their clients, generally large corporates, to procure energy cost effectively, audit and report their usage of it, and help them to optimise their energy efficiency. The company has a strong focus on sustainability with a number of services that help their clients measure, report and improve their ESG performance.

Thesis

Inspired Energy is a leader in the growing, but fragmented, corporate energy services market. The increasing complexity of corporate energy requirements, and increasing regulatory and sustainability imperatives will support continued strong organic growth for the company with a likely ‘flight to quality’ leading to further increases in market share. The business model of the business is strong with high quality of earnings from long term contracts, high margins (40% EBITDA margin) and return on capital and good cash conversion. The fund’s initial investment was made as part of a placing intended to strengthen the balance sheet and provide firepower for the company to undertake a number of bolt on acquisitions to continue to consolidate its position in the market; we believe these deals will be attractive financially and strategically. Although the company’s revenues remain depressed due to lower corporate energy usage in 2020, there is significant opportunity for a rebound in revenues, and in the share price, when there is a return to a more normalised environment.

Developments in the period

Interim results were in line with expectations, although trading remained weak due to Covid restrictions over the period weighing on corporate energy usage. The core corporate division experienced a modest 5% organic decline in revenues as a result, although cash conversion and order book progression was good. The non-core SME-focused division, which represented less than 10% of group revenues was weaker, and in November the company announced that they had sold this part of the business to the management team for £10.5m. Strategically, this is a positive development and is in line with our investment thesis. The company remains well capitalised and well positioned to drive growth and execute further M&A once market conditions normalise."

[rivaldo] 25/2/2021 11:32

New article about how to "Turn your ambitious sustainability targets into action", including this on how INSE has worked with the NHS and British Gas to turn the NHSPS' entire property portfolio to 100% renewable energy:



"British Gas, working with NHS Property Services (NHSPS) and their energy consultant, Inspired Energy, has switched NHSPS' entire property portfolio to 100% certified renewable energy. That's 10% of the entire NHS estate – supplying 3,500 buildings."

[rivaldo] 22/2/2021 09:17

INSE have won a place on a £510 million framework contract running for the next two years, as one of 19 suppliers.

Per this morning's Contract Notice, the framework is for Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust for energy related consultancy, energy management etc until Feb'23.

There should be quite a lot of work to go round, even between 19 companies!

[rivaldo] 08/2/2021 12:17

INSE have today won a £180k contract for 3 years to be LiveWest Homes' energy broker and bill checker.



And last month INSE won a £195k contract over 6 years for energy consultation services to the London borough of Merton:



There are other wins of a similar size over recent months.

I only mention these as, although they're small, they build up a nice base of forward and recurring income as they accumulate, and of course they add to that growing Corporate Order Book.

[rivaldo] 04/2/2021 13:31

Encouragingly, online I can now sell a large amount of shares at a big premium to the bid price at 15.95p, whilst I can only buy shares at 16.44p, almost the full offer price.

[rivaldo] 04/2/2021 09:20

Strategic Equity Capital have been buying INSE, which is now a top ten holding for them at 5.2% of their portfolio:



"Other new holdings include Inspired Energy (inspiredplc.co.uk), a B2B (business-to-business) corporate energy procurement and consultancy business. This is a stock that other Gresham funds have been investing in since 2011. SEC supported a fundraise aimed at strengthening the company‘s balance sheet and provided it with the firepower to continue to consolidate its sector. Inspired Energy helps businesses manage their energy requirements, offering advice on areas such as procurement and sustainability, often dealing with complex businesses operating from multiple sites."

[1gw] 03/2/2021 15:27

Good to see the bid back at the placing price.

[rivaldo] 03/2/2021 12:24

Nice buy of 1,237,325 shares at 16p just reported delayed from yesterday.

[1gw] 29/1/2021 13:38

yes, that's better.

[rivaldo] 29/1/2021 13:35

....and 33k shares just bought at 15.3p - well above the 15p published full offer price after the latest move up.

[rivaldo] 29/1/2021 12:42

Nice 500,000 share buy at 14.25p just reported.

[masurenguy] 29/1/2021 09:04

Good update - with the projected eps putting them on a PER of just 11.7 and todays Offer still 4% below last summers placing price.

[rivaldo] 29/1/2021 08:29

They say today they'll "report FY2020 underlying EBITDA in line with market consensus", so that seems pretty definitive to me.

[winnings1] 29/1/2021 08:20

Not much said about profit though. I find that concerning.

[rivaldo] 29/1/2021 07:58

INSE are now (1) Energy Assurance and (2) Energy Optimisation - it's the small SME unit which has been sold.

INSE have stated that overall, given the good performance in Energy Assurance the effect is expected to be neutral, so as the lockdown eases INSE should benefit from recovery in the one as well as continued good performance in the other.

[pictureframe] 29/1/2021 07:32

So after MBO are they are purely and Energy Assurance Business? Not sure how the market will take this (defferals). Is there any other income stream to this business?

The Board expects the Group's Energy Assurance Service business to perform robustly against management's expectations for FY2021. The Group's Energy Optimisation Services continue to experience further deferrals to projects related to the latest lockdown. To date the overall impact of Assurance and Optimisation Services is expected to be neutral against FY2021 Group expectations. The Board is keeping the matter under review, given the ongoing fluid nature of the situation, as the year develops and will provide further guidance with the publication of its full year results.

[rivaldo] 29/1/2021 07:24

Today's update confirms 2020 trading was in line, and that management's expectations for this year are overall unchanged.

Which presumably means that forecasts of 1.2p EPS will be retained.

Most importantly, underlying cash generation has been good, and net debt has been reduced to pretty minor levels, especially after the SME unit disposal.

It's likely there'll soon be acquisitions to kick the group on. A shame that a large acquisition was aborted, but better to be prudent and wait to acquire quality.

[rivaldo] 15/1/2021 13:47

New blog post from INSE. Anyone wanting to invest in ESG/net zero/decarbonisation etc on a reasonable multiple doesn't have to look much further than this:



"The year ahead: what does 2021 have in store for business energy?
12th January 2021

2020 drew to a close with a flurry of energy announcements, from a new emissions trading scheme to an energy white paper, promising plenty of policies to achieve the ambitious net zero goal by 2050. The COVID-19 crisis continues to dominate the agenda, but 2021 should be an eventful year for energy, as the detail behind decarbonisation emerges to give businesses the certainty needed to commit to their own longer term strategies. So, what does 2021 have in store?

etc"

[diesel] 12/1/2021 09:32

Very quiet here..

[rivaldo] 23/12/2020 13:42

This wee;s issue of Shares Magazine is just out, and has a nice mention for INSE:

"Pressure is growing on firms, not just from outside investors but also from the inside, to incorporate ESG criteria into their internal processes as well as to become ‘greener’;.

A survey of global firms by consultancy Willis Towers Watson found four out of five believe ESG is ‘a key contributor to stronger financial performance’ and are even planning to incorporate ESG into their executive incentive plans.

‘With investor and shareholder interest in ESG and sustainable investing increasing, companies are accelerating their focus on ESG initiatives’, says Shai Ganu, global head of executive compensation at Willis Towers Watson.

The decision by Germany’s Deutsche Bank to link senior executive pay to sustainability targets from next year sends a powerful message in this regard.However, half the firms surveyed admitted they struggled with setting targets and measuring their ESG performance. This is a clear area of opportunity for firms such as MJ Hudson (MJH:AIM) and Inspired Energy (INSE:AIM)."

[rivaldo] 17/12/2020 10:32

New consensus forecasts from Sharecast are 0.73p for the year about to finish, and 1.2p EPS for the year starting January 1st.

With 0.3p and 0.4p dividends respectively.

A P/E of 11.4 is decent value for a business which should recover pretty quickly from the pandemic, is likely to make earnings-enhancing acquisitions soon and reaps an all-round benefit from the ever more important green agenda.

Plus the optimisation division has very large upside once the sticky customer base accelerates its uptake via cross-selling.

[ge0fft] 13/12/2020 21:21

They're missing the numbers by a country mile! No mixed bag here!