Companies: AMS    GOAL   

AIM-listed Advanced Medical Solutions (AMS), a ‘market leader’ in the use of glues for wound closure, has caught the eye of Manchester-based broker WH Ireland. The shares were tipped as a buy on the back of the significant inroads made into the NHS market during 2005.

Indeed, the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust has now implemented the group’s ActivHeal range of woundcare dressings as its first choice dressing, along with eight other trusts throughout the UK. International expansion, through major product launches in Europe, enabled AMS to post maiden profits for the year to December.
In the ‘traditionally unloved’ engineering sector, the broker remains bullish on fully-listed Bodycote, the specialist in thermal processing for improved metals performance, as well as material and product testing for quality control and specification compliance.

Bodycote was another company to announce encouraging annual figures to December, with pre-tax profits nudging up nine per cent to £40.9 million, earnings burgeoning from 12.2p to 12.7p and the dividend lifted to 6.4p (6.1p). Although the shares are not cheap at 275p after a ‘terrific run’, WH Ireland predicts further progress this year and next.

Rounding off a slewof ‘buy’ stances, the broker tips Goals Soccer Centres (see Company Watch on page 5) to continue along the expansion road. Sufficient scope exists for ‘the number of centres to more than double over the next five years whilst a European move is a medium possibility too’. The broker thinks the stock is ‘probably worth north of 300p’.