Win

Mobile phone services provider Win is extremely confident about hitting its forecasts for the full year and has the support of its major investors for ambitious future plans.

So far, this year has been about holding steady for Win, having emerged from a long offer period that absorbed plenty of management time and a recession that has weighed on everyone. With first half revenues and gross profits maintained at £19.7m and £5m, but profits before tax and exceptionals down a third to £0.6m, chief executive Graham Rivers says the second half is ‘all about delivering’ towards the expected £1.2m full year profit estimate.

Rivers, who points out Win has historically always had a stronger second half, says he is ‘very confident’ about achieving this. The pipeline of new business, after adding 36 new customers in the first half, is ‘very very strong’.

Once the market has digested the companies ability to deliver, his theory goes, it should help Win's share price return to a healthier state. Then, backed by his institutional shareholders (which hold around 80% and are led by ISIS Equity Partners’ 19.2% stake), Rivers wants to make a big acquisition.

‘Our three recent acquisitions were quite small,’ he says, ‘but the next one we want to do is a business-transforming deal, which largely will be down to our capacity to use paper.’ The aim is to buy into an untapped market for Win's managed services skills, ‘like India or the Middle East’, where by acquiring a well established business Win can use that strong brand to sell its higher-margin core services.

The shares, which touched £4 back in 2005, are moving in the right direction after touching a low of 41.5p in May. We think they could go further.