Companies: ACER    ACPM    APL    DAV    IFR    POG    TIO   

A strong trading update from engineered-steel products manufacturer Acertec prompted chief executive John Sword to buy an additional 150,000 shares at 167.83p each. This £252,000 investment takes his stake to 1.17 million shares, or 2.28 per cent of the company, which is the largest UK supplier of steel products used in construction and a business confident 2007 interims will be well ahead of last year thanks to strong construction demand in the UK.

Acertec’s Asian business is also performing strongly, though the automotive pressings side is expected to decline this year. A new plant supplying Ford is being built in St Petersburg and that investment is likely to push up net debt from £48 million to £67 million by the end of 2007. However, Acertec is forecast to increase its profits from £9 million to £14.3 million this year, valuing the 154.5p shares at less than nine times earnings. Sword sees a bargain and the shares are worth a look.

ACP Capital founder Derek Vago has been adding to his stake in the provider of loans to growing businesses. He has bought 327,000 shares at 129.32p each – a total investment of £423,000 – and now owns 6.63 per cent. Vago, who made his name at Nomura International’s Asset Finance Group, started ACP so he could run and build up his own business. ACP was valued at £64 million after raising £50 million at 100p a share when it joined AIM in January 2006. Just over a year later it raised £150 million at 125p.

ACP has already spun off two businesses on AIM: ACP Mezzanine and IFR Capital, intending to be a consolidator in the European food sector. ACP, which plans to set up and spin off other managed businesses, has also taken a 26 per cent stake in Davenham, which provides loans and working capital to growing businesses. Citigroup was recently appointed joint broker alongside Collins Stewart and ACP is in discussions about moving to the Full List. Although ACP does not have a three-year track record, it is eligible to transfer under newer rules relating to hedge funds and financial businesses. The company looks modestly rated on Collins Stewart’s earnings per share forecast of 16.8p for 2007. At 129.5p, that puts the shares on eight times forecast earnings for this year, falling to five times in 2008.

Possible sell signals at PHM
Pavel Maslovskiy, deputy chairman of Russian gold miner Peter Hambro Mining (PHM), and his associates have sold just short of 1.35 million shares at £10.90 each, raising £14.7 million. That represented a premium of 14 per cent to the closing price at the end of the previous week with the shares bought by a ‘long-term Russian investor’.

The sale cut Maslovskiy’s stake from 22.85 per cent to 21.19 per cent – Maslovskiy said he wanted a better balance to his portfolio and to put money into non-mining Russian investments. On the same day he sold 20.5 million shares in PHM spin off Aricom at 71.59p – a 19.3 per cent premium to the market price – and gave away another one million shares. However, when the titanium miner acquires a company that owns half of one of its projects, Maslovskiy will own 8.76 per cent, which is a higher percentage than before the sale.

PHM, which issued a trading statement just before the share sale stating it is on track to produce 283,000 ounces of gold in 2007, has had its run-ins with the
Russian environmental agency Rosprirodnadzor. Although these appear to have been resolved the price has fallen over the past year. Even so, at 963p the shares are trading on a hefty 47 times prospective earnings for 2007 and that rating could fall sharply next year as gold production rises.