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Penny Share Review 133

Monday 20 May 2002

The Weekend's Comments

Aukett Group's (AUK) first half results, announced on Friday, received a little attention from Saturday's Independent and Daily Mail. Both noted the loss of £1.6m compared to a profit of £500,000 in the same period last year with the Mail adding that no dividend is being paid. At 11.25 the shares were unchanged at 4.125p from Friday's close.

The Independent on Saturday's 'No Pain, No Gain' column has an air of quiet contentment as it discusses the recent developments at MacLellan Group (MLG). The deal to buy Broadreach "looks good" to columnist Derek Pain as the cleaning business has a turnover of £40m and a number of leading shop chains on its books. Having bought the shares at 65.5p, Mr Pain takes no comfort from informing us that the shares stood at 98p. At 11.25 the shares were unchanged at 98.5p from Friday's close.

Mears Group (MER) comes under scrutiny in Sunday's Business newspaper. The outlook has "never been stronger" as recent deals have doubled the orders on the book to £260m. Although turnover dipped to £68.6m costs controls meant that pre-tax profits rose to £2.5m, compared with £1.9m last year. At a price of 100.5p the shares are trading at 22 times forecast earnings which is "not a high rating for a company that has notched up a steady, year-on-year increase in pre-tax profits, earnings and dividends." The shares "are ideal for anyone looking for consistent, long term growth" and are rated a 'buy' on this basis. The shares, at 11.25, were up 1.75p from Friday's close to 101.5p.

The sale of 20m shares in WILink.com (WLK) by Nick Leslau, a property tycoon, attracted a comment from a number of Saturday's newspapers. The shares were sold at 2.375p giving Leslau a return of £475,000 for stock that was once worth £54m, The Daily Mail reported. The shares, The Guardian pointed out, were snapped up by an institution and the Company's employee benefit trust, while The Daily Express added that Nigel Burton, WILink's chief financial officer, increased his stake to 1.27% after he purchased 207,470 shares at 2.125p. At 11.26 the shares were unchanged at 2.375p from Friday's close.

Today's Announcements

The following companies, in which City Equities customers may have an interest, released announcements to the market this morning. These can be found by entering the relevant company name or ticker code in the search box on this site.

Profile Media (PMD) - Support of Bankers.
Rage Software (RGE.L) - Licensing agreement.
RexOnline (RXN.L) - Acquisition.

Look Out For This Week

20 May - Reefton Mining (RTM.L, new issue)
21 May - BioProjects International (new issue), UK mortgage lending survey (Apr), UK Consumer prices (Apr)
22 May -
23 May - UK GDP (Q1)
24 May -

Compiled by Andrew McLintock

Penny Shares Online - penny shares research and information service.