Iomart Share Discussion Threads

[rivaldo] 31/7/2018 06:11

Two excellent shareholding RNS's at once this morning :o))

Liontrust have increased to 17.01% from 16.02% and now have 18.4m shares:



And Investec have emerged as a new major shareholder with over 5%, or 5.42m shares:

[rivaldo] 29/7/2018 06:57

IOM have been tipped in this weekend's Mail, in an article about how to profit from "picks and shovel" stocks in the cloud computing boom:



"There are also firms which operate in the deeper hardware space, running data centres full of servers. Whereas Amazon, Microsoft and Google are public cloud providers, sharing spare server capacity with individuals and businesses, Iomart provides private cloud capabilities.

This means that a business can rent actual space on a server dedicated to them, and know exactly where their data is being stored. Compliance concerns might make this important to them, Jayaweera says, or it may run older software incompatible with the public cloud companies.

Rutherford says there are strong opportunities. 'Cloud is now the main method for delivering IT. It's not some fad such as cryptocurrency. The benefits are proven and helping drive business growth.'"

[superadams] 25/7/2018 07:54

Thanks Riv- twas GoCompare.

[rivaldo] 25/7/2018 07:41

Moving up steadily each day now. Hopefully new highs coming soon.

Superadams, I can't remember offhand, just google an extract from the above and you should find it pretty easily.

[superadams] 20/7/2018 08:08

Riv- just out of interest, what was the other stock ?

[rivaldo] 20/7/2018 07:18

IOM were highlighted in last week's Shares Mag as one of two stocks meeting Jim Slater's investing criteria:

"Iomart (IOM:AIM) 370p

Glasgow cloud computing specialist Iomart (IOM) may not trade on a price to earnings growth ratio of less than 1 desired by GARP investors. However, it is more difficult to find software firms on discounted valuations particularly ones with Iomart’s upwards of 90% recurring revenues.

Stockopedia’s screening process believes that Iomart still fits the bill when looking for Jim Slater-type investments.

Iomart’s strong organic growth is likely to be augmented by M&A activity which is
underpinned by a new £80m lending facility.

Stockbroker Peel Hunt sees the potential for the company to double revenue from the
near-£100m achieved in the March 2018 financial year.

Clients run the gamut from BCA Marketplace’s (BCA) Webuyanycar consumer
venture to well-known corporate entities such as Universal Music."

[rivaldo] 22/6/2018 06:16

Nice - tipped in today's Tempus column in the Times:



"Iomart

More businesses and public sector organisations are moving away from IT arrangements in which servers and infrastructure are located in their offices.

These physical elements can be held in distant data centres often operated by third parties. It is this change that Iomart believes it can exploit. The Glasgow company provides businesses with the online and digital infrastructure they need. It has data centres around the UK and a growing presence in Europe, Asia and the United States.

Angus MacSween, its co-founder and chief executive, has long said that the transition into the cloud would be slow and steady but could give Iomart huge scope to expand.

There was a 300p per share approach valuing the company at £320 million from a rival, Host Europe, in September 2014, which investors thought should have been accepted. However, the talks broke down and the Aim-listed business, in which Mr MacSween has a near 16 per cent stake, has grown well since then through a mixture of organic expansion and acquisition.

Annual results released this month showed underlying profit rising 7 per cent to £24 million on revenue of £97.7 million for the 12 months to March 31. The company was loss-making and produced turnover of £11.8 million less than in 2009. The most recent dividend was lifted 20 per cent to 71.8p per share while the company’s market capitalisation is more than £425 million.

Mr MacSween has secured further firepower for deals with a new £80 million financing facility. As he points out, most customers tend to stick with IT providers if they do a good job with 90 per cent of Iomart’s revenue classed as recurring. It also has a wide spread of sectors with no single customer accounting for more than 1 per cent of its revenue.

The shares are up more than 20 per cent over the past 12 months and have been changing hands at close to 400p in recent days. Finncap analysts recently increased their target price on the shares from 415p to 450p while N+1 Singer and Shore Capital are among the others who are bullish on Iomart’s prospects.

ADVICE Buy
WHY Loyal customers and strong track record of meeting targets"

[sampsun] 18/6/2018 19:47

Set 404 and 415 as limits getting close

[farhorizons] 14/6/2018 21:24

But the price will go through 400 again shortly - the confidence demonstrated by the dividend increase and announced policy is reassuring.

[sampsun] 14/6/2018 20:58

I've brought in at 3.92, 3.89 and 3.75 massively in the red at the mo. Fingers crossed.

[tim1478] 14/6/2018 10:49

I should add I did not realise when results were to come out and bought last week at around 401. The purchase at 360.8 was an average down - but 360 was the price I originally wanted but have missed a few shares by setting limits too ambitiously.

[tim1478] 14/6/2018 10:03

I bought in yesterday at 360.8. Encouraging bounce so far

[retirement_fund] 14/6/2018 07:44

Agree - am surprised by the fall following positive results. I see this is a good buying opportunity. Obviously, the licence audit and penalty isn't great but this is not uncommon for IT service providers - where ultimate responsibility always falls to the service provider rather than end customer. As long as they learn from this and put the necessary controls and cover this in future contracts, that is the only negative in otherwise encouraging results. Am also impressed with their track record of acquisition integrations - not easy

[sampsun] 14/6/2018 00:03

Bargain price now

[dogwalker] 13/6/2018 09:18

Thanks mammyoko.

[mammyoko] 13/6/2018 08:43

Cash impact of investing activities not covered by cash from operating activities leading to doubling of borrowings

£2.1m charge for failing to operate basic controls is unimpressive.

The other adjusting item which does not have a comparable amount in the previous year relates to software licence fees. As a result of an audit undertaken on behalf of a software licensor in the current year, incorrect licence information relating to previous financial years has been identified. The software licensor accepts this situation is not due to any deliberate action of the Group and we are discussing an even stronger collaboration together in the future. The audit covered the four year period ending March 2017 and a sum of £2.1m has been estimated as being due in respect of these four financial years. The final amount could be higher, however not materially, although we believe this is unlikely and it could be lower. The shortfall in licence count identified has been quantified at current year prices rather than the lower pricing that would have been applied in each of the years covered by the audit. Software licencing in a cloud environment is not straightforward with the cloud provider being responsible to the licensor for all software installed on any infrastructure platform provided to its customers, even if the cloud provider does not actually install the software. It is the case that we should have charged our customers more than we have for the use of software on the cloud platforms we provided over the audit period. We are taking steps to improve controls in this area and the adjusted profit before tax for the period of £24.0m includes full provision for all software licences due in that period.

[andrewbaker] 13/6/2018 08:35

Someone started selling in the 400s, and others maybe have followed because of the drop in price caused by supply and demand, IMHO. The results are encouraging, the prognosis good, dividend upped to make up for higher costs; so what's there not to like? When the dust settles, this will go back up in price to the 400s, where it, arguably on value, belongs. (And Schroders have been selling for some time, which likely put a drag on the price.)

[rivaldo] 13/6/2018 08:26

I think this write-up from Techmarketview is instructive. Looks like one-off and short-term factors slightly impacted revenue growth, but nothing that isn't already being sorted out as per the article. And the conclusion is nicely positive:



"Tuesday 12 June 2018

iomart looks to bolster cloud growth

iomartFull year results (to end March 2018) from cloud and hosting provider, iomart, show that the company’s underlying organic growth rate for cloud has slipped to 7% (from 10% last year). Overall revenue (i.e. including its Easyspace business) increased 9% to £97.7m, including the impact of acquisitions. Adjusted EBITDA margin remained at the same level of 40.8%.

The company told us it “didn’t get in front of as many opportunities as we should”, but has already moved to rectify this in the current year by bolstering its sales effort. A new sales director has joined the business and is “already making a difference”, and we also understand there have been moves to strengthen the business development side of the business.

As explained at the half-way mark, a low-margin Government cloud project was a drag on revenue in the year – reducing overall cloud revenue growth to 3%. This project involved iomart doing configuration for a couple of Government clients for Amazon Web Services public cloud services – but did not include the more lucrative managed services that iomart provides for other customers. We understand this business came via its SystemsUp acquisition.

iomart knows what it needs to do to push the growth-rate up, and the firm has been consistent in the past, which bodes very well. We also think its new software-defined fibre network should bring benefits, not just in cost-savings but in future-proofing network provision (e.g. upgrades can be undertaken much more easily)."

[jamieb73] 13/6/2018 08:14

this is plummeting a bit too much for my likimg

[petewy] 13/6/2018 07:46

Hold the line lads steady the Buffs.
My theory: US money is moving out of Europe back to the US.
Obviously my holding has dropped but my Twitter shares have gone thu the roof.

[jontyone] 12/6/2018 09:30

Was Go ogling this morning, looking for news re FY results and came across this item re an outage through one of their subsidiaries at the beginning of the month. Some interesting comments for anyone who has knowledge of this industry. www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/01/hostinguk_drops_offline_after_losing_farmer_vs_fibre_competition/

[rivaldo] 12/6/2018 07:39

Finncap have increased their target price to 450p (from 415p).

The dividend is better than forecast:

"The board has demonstrated confidence with a greater dividend than expected,
accelerating to a 40% payout ratio ahead of schedule, growing the dividend 20%
rather than 15%E."

Their forecasts are now 20.1p EPS this year and 22.4p EPS next year.

They conclude rather encouragingly:

"iomart represents quality through visibility and cashflow"

[retirement_fund] 12/6/2018 07:12

Agree. Excellent results and very impressive EBITDA margins. Am very impressed

[jimbowen30] 12/6/2018 07:08

Cracking results and positive outlook statement, so should re-rate in time.

[soundbuy] 12/6/2018 06:46

'shouldn't cloud anything going forward'......ho ho


Noticed that, noting to worry about........

All as per the trading update, positive outlook......