Cicurel targets Interior growth

Value investor David Cicurel has built up a 3.1 per cent stake in AIM-listed buildings contractor Interior Services, via his quoted investment vehicle Judges Capital. This could lead to a proposal to take Interior, long unhappy with its lowly market rating, private.

Judges, backed by French financier Guy Naggar of Dawnay Day, itself joined AIM at the beginning of last year, when the market was in the doldrums. Chief executive Cicurel invested £500,000 in the initial £1.8 million net placing.

His intention with Judges is to target 'well managed but undervalued' companies worth between £20 million and £50 million in slower-growing sectors, which might benefit from 'active investment'. One idea is that such companies could go private and leave the stock market, backed by private equity firms.

This seemed a more attractive prospect at the start of 2003, since when AIM has jumped 50 per cent. Cicurel's track record suggests he could manage to pull off such deals, though.

So far with Judges he has engineered a proposal to put cash shell Lionheart into liquidation, returning its cash to shareholders.

And recently he convinced Pilkington's Tiles, where he holds 13 per cent, to sell off its beleaguered business so that the maximum value could be extracted from its property near Poole in Dorset. This could eventually be sold for as much as £14.3 million, if planning permission is granted.

At this rate shares in Judges Capital itself, which still only trade just above their 95p issue price, are themselves looking slightly undervalued.