Supporta, the services venture run by ex-Capita director John Jasper, delivered a robust set of results for the year to March, hoisting operating profits 214% to £2.36m, pre-tax profits £228% to £1.94m and doubling earnings per share to 3.2p.

The group operates three divisions – Services, Property Services and Care. The first delivers an array of payroll, systems support, audit and consultancy functions, principally to the NHS. The property arm, established in August last year following an acquisition, provides the public sector with design, planning and project management expertise. The largest outfit by some way is Supporta Care, the domiciliary care division (a provider of care services to people in their own homes). When announcing the results, chief executive John Jasper announced that the forward order book stood at £62m (against £46.7m this time last year), of which £53m related to Care, the arm that was boosted last year with a brace of acquisitions.

For the full year, the market is expecting £4.0m of profits (scaled back from £4.2m due to unavoidable pension liabilities) and earnings of 4.4p, with all three divisions contributing. By 2008, the expectation is that profits could rise to £5.3m and earnings just up 5.8p.

However, considering that Jasper has put in place a bank facility of £17m to fund acquisitions, these figures could prove irrelevant – and Jasper is on record as saying he wishes to grow both the Services and Property divisions as aggressively as he has grown the Care arm.

At 86.5p Supporta sports a market cap of £53m and a forward p/e of 19.6. This is still good value considering the pace at which it is growing. Buy.

Supporta	AIM	£17.29m	20.00p	0.00p
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