While the nightmarish share price slump over at Pendragon may be grabbing the headlines in Monday business, there are plenty of other interesting morsels for share pickers to zero in on in start-of-week trade.
Mincon Group (LSE: MCON), for instance, was last moving back towards recent record highs of around 100p per share following a positive reception to its latest market update. The stock was last 1% higher on the day after third quarter performance exceeded the company’s prior expectations.
Mincon — which is involved in the designing, manufacturing, selling and servicing of rock drilling tools –advised that revenues boomed 29% during the nine months ending September, with demand for its Mincon engineering products rising 32% and sales of its third party goods rising 20%.
It advised: “We are seeing growth across all the business units and territories, save for South America where the loss of a key customer delivered a setback at the end of last year.” Indeed, in Africa, North America and Europe the business described trading as “strong.”
Not without risk
And addressing the broad market the engineer noted: “The sector continues to make a broad based recovery, as can be seen by the results of the market leaders.”
The City expects the Irish business to report an 8% earnings improvement in 2017, and to follow this up with a 10% advance next year. As a consequence Mincon deals on a forward P/E ratio of 23.3 times.
The Irish firm’s performance is clearly very impressive, and this is reflected by its market value ballooning 47% since the bells rang in New Year’s Day. And the reorganisation at Mincon Australia earlier this year could provide further ammunition for sales to keep on growing.
Having said that, the uncertain outlook for commodity markets — and particularly in the oil and gas segment — thanks to the spectre of oversupply casts a pall over the long-term profitability of capex budgets for the world’s energy and mining firms. It could therefore put pressure on Mincon’s sales further down the line.
While market share grabs and the huge organic investment it has made in recent times could indeed pave the way for brilliant shareholder returns, investors should be aware that the engineering ace still carries some degree of risk, and particularly given its elevated earnings multiple.
Screen idol
I am less uncertain about the investment outlook over at Entertainment One (LSE: ETO), however, and reckon the business could deliver resplendent riches in the years ahead.
City analysts believe earnings at Entertainment One will trot 7% higher in the year ending March 2018, and an extra 14% advance is chalked in for fiscal 2019.
And despite the FTSE 250 star also enjoying a stellar share price run of late (the firm has risen 14% over the past three months alone), it still deals on a terrific forward P/E ratio of 12.9 times.
This is particularly brilliant value given the “significant momentum” it reported last month following the recent integration of its film and television studios. The popularity of its Family brands Peppa Pig and PJ Masks in international markets continues to bubble higher, while hits like Designated Survivor are pushing series renewals at its Mark Gordon Company division.
I am convinced the future is very bright at the broadcasting behemoth.
