Buckland Investments

Buckland's interim results were published at 6pm on Friday - not a time when you would expect a recovering company (as this one seems to be) to report. Its statement also lacked a balance sheet, which should be forthcoming reasonably soon (apparently net assets totalled £1.1m at the end of June). There are a few issues of concern besides this, notably £210,000 of extra exceptional costs on the liquidation of its French subsidiaries that are not explained fulsomely. But the fact is the group is back in profit, after years of losses associated with those French operations. Pre-tax profits before exceptional provisions totalled £149,000 in the 6-month period to June, on £2.3m of sales. House broker Seymour Pierce's John Beddoe says final results 'should be in line' with his note of 30 July, in which he recommended the shares as a 'Strong Buy', with £339,000 of pre-exceptional profits pencilled in. As for the strangely-timed and incomplete results, Beddoe adds: 'There is nothing untoward there.' On such a low prospective p/e, with 0.24p of EPS this year, his recommendation looks reasonably sound.

Sector: General Financial

Companies: Buckland Group

Market cap: £900,000

PE Forecast: 2.6

Share price: 0.62p

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