Companies: NBL   

Coin dealer and auctioneer Noble Investments has bought stamp dealer Apex Philatelics for up to £1.25 million.

AIM-quoted Noble is paying an initial £800,000 cash and £75,000 in shares for Surrey-based Apex, which was set up in 1994 and conducts three public and four postal stamp auctions a year, with 5,000 active clients including some 1,000 stamp dealers. Central London-based Noble, which made £1.75 million pre-tax on £10.5 million turnover last year and more recently a depressed £799,000 interim pre-tax profit, will then pay £150,000 over two years and a further £225,000 target-based earn-out after two years for Apex, which made £249,000 pre-tax on £1.9 million turnover in the year to June 2007.

Apex directors will continue working for the combined group, which will now have a significantly increased stamp stock to offer clients. Noble, whose interim profits fall was due to interruptions caused by extending its head office premises, is enjoying ‘very strong trading’ in the second half of its financial year, says managing director Ian Goldbart, who commends the Apex deal as expanding the company’s product range, increasing its database and bringing in a ‘well respected’ philatelic team.

Noble Investment shares, recommended by Growth Company Investor at 73.5p in late 2005, hit 222.5p in June last year and now trade at 141.5p, valuing the company at £24.5 million. The Apex deal should prove positive in the long term.

Noble Investments	AIM	£11.67m	74.00p	-0.50p
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Other company articles:
Noble Investments			06/11/2008
Noble in £1.25m stamps swoop			21/08/2008
Noble coins it in			01/11/2007
Tchenguiz backs Noble stamp move			20/08/2007
Noble starting to show its true value			03/11/2006