It’s quite the surprise to see The Gym Group’s (LSE: GYM) share price sink 10% since the beginning of November. No matter, I say; this provides investors with a brilliant opportunity to nip in and grab a bargain.
The fitness chain has delivered some handsome, double-digit-percentage earnings growth in recent years and City brokers expect this run to continue. Rises of 19% and 24% are forecasted for 2019 and 2020 respectively. And these recent forecasts leaving the small-cap dealing on a price-to-earnings growth (PEG) ratio of just 1.2.
Pumped-up profits growth
Recent data on the health of the gym industry has shown just why forecasters are quite so bullish. According to accountancy and advisory group Moore UK, the country’s top 15 gymnasium operators saw turnover sprint 8% higher in 2018, outstripping the 3.8% rise printed across the broader leisure sector.
The reason for this chubby annual rise? Well Moore UK states that “gym chains are reaping the rewards from the country’s health craze amongst certain elements of the population,” adding that these operators’ ability to service customers across all price points has underpinned this healthy growth.
Surging demand from cost-conscious keep-fit enthusiasts was certainly underlined in The Gym Group’s latest financials of August, in which the firm advised that membership numbers soared 11% between January and June to 796,000.
This pushed revenues and adjusted pre-tax profits 27% and 36% higher from a year earlier. There’s clearly no reason to expect profits to stop soaring any time soon, particularly as the leisure giant steadily builds its gym estate (it opened eight new sites in the first half of 2019 alone).
I consider the business a top growth stock to load up on today.
Another growth great
I also reckon Begbies Traynor Group (LSE: BEG) is a brilliant growth stock to buy ahead of half-year results scheduled for Tuesday, 10 December.
Tough economic conditions in the UK have worsened in recent months, with latest GDP data showing the economy actually moved into contraction in September. This plays into the hands of Begbies Traynor, a company that provides a variety of financial services related to firms in distress.
Last time it updated the market in mid-September it advised that “all areas of the group have continued to perform well,” underpinned by a 9% rise in the number of corporate insolvency appointments in the first half of calendar 2019.
What’s more, Begbies Traynor continues to spend heavily on mergers and acquisitions to boost its scope and its share of the market. The latest action on this front saw it snap up London-based insolvency and business recovery specialist Alexander Lawson Jacobs in late October.
No wonder, then, that City analysts expect earnings at the AIM-listed stock to surge 18% and 17% in the fiscal years to April 2020 and 2021 respectively, forecasts that also leave it dealing on a bargain-basement sub-1 PEG ratio of 0.8.
