Companies: SPI   

Suggesting the shares will mark time in the near term – hence his ‘market perform’ stance – WH Ireland’s John Cummins has issued favourable comment on support services play Spice. He views the £10.25 million takeover of BPI, a business generating significant amounts of work from the Middle East, Pakistan and China, as a good consolidation move.

‘Perhaps more importantly [the deal] takes the group into the advice services space to asset owners and regulators,’ he says. Noting ‘scope for our

estimates to be nudged higher’, while acknowledging the deserved premium at which Spice’s 523p shares trade to the sector, Cummins forecasts a profits rise to £29.7 million (2008: £22.4 million) for April 2009 and sticks with his 550p target.

Mothercare offers protection

Cummins maintains his ‘outperform’ stance on FTSE 250-listed Mothercare following an AGM update demonstrating its defensive qualities. ‘The positioning of the group should serve it well in the more difficult consumer environment,’

he writes. Despite this, his target for the 345.75p shares reduces to 400p (from 450p) to reflect the wider sector derating.

Anne Margaret Crow upgrades AIM-quoted agricultural supplier Wynnstay from outperform to buy, in part based

on the acquisition of the remaining

50 per cent of Welsh Feed Producers. She says Wynnstay trades ‘at an unwarranted discount to the sector’ and sets a 306.5p target for the 267p shares.

Spice	LSE	£251.32m	72.00p	-1.50p
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Other company articles:
WH Ireland			04/08/2008
Spice			03/01/2008
Spice			10/07/2007
Gall & Eke Corporate Partners			27/02/2007
Mattioli Woods delivers the goods			27/02/2007