The Weekend Rebel Review July 17, 2025
#JUP, #FTC, #SAGA, #CAR. #WRKS, #CRL, #LIKE, #BOOM, #CHH
This is just some thoughts, it isn't investment advice or incitement to buy in any way, just my views - please do your own thorough research. I’m not an analyst, I’m just a private investor looking after my own money. Nothing I do or say is meant as advice or should be taken as such. Here I publish my ideas and research that I have done and discuss the way I invest. Anything written here needs to be verified for its accuracy. Assume any stock I write about I likely own, so my views are biased. Inevitably I will get things wrong, everyone is responsible for their own decision making and what they buy and sell. Subscribing and reading this article means you accept the above and you take full responsibility for your own actions and decisions. Small Cap stocks can be illiquid and very hard to sell at times when demand is weak so caution is required.
Expect some spelling mistakes – I’m dyslexic and in a rush to get this out on a Friday so a bit of a task at times.
It’s been a busier week for co news and that is always good for helping you not nod off at the screen. On Wednesday, inflation data was published, and it wasn’t good news for the chancellor or anyone waiting for a rate cut:
Inflation running @ 3.6%, all the government’s own doing by raising NI, living wage and paying out big wage rises to Doctors etc. On Thursday, the data showed the unemployment rate had risen to 4.7% (highest in 4 years) and claimant count was higher than expected.
We are basically the wrong way up, inflation rising and unemployment rising – Rachael has ‘stabilised the economy – right 😊
On the plus side, I read this on Friday:
https://www.cityam.com/uks-mid-sized-firms-at-fastest-growth-since-labour-elected/
So perhaps squandering cash may be costing the taxpayer but it might be giving added business to the right sectors. Question is, with unemployment rising, employment falling, inflation rising and government debt rising, how does this all play out? We need a supercomputer for that I’m afraid but I suspect it doesn’t end well.
The FTSE250 made a tentative new high this week
In short, shipping prices fell another 2.5% this week. The £ v $ is pretty much where it was at the start of the week. The VIX is trading around 16 which has been the long term norm for a while. Fear/Greed is at 74, just touching Extreme Greed and where it was a week ago – so little has happened, while the kids are on holiday and the City is skiving.
Onto Stocks
Okay, so first up with all the CAR ‘faf’ last week and doing a lot of searching and price watching I forgot to make a note about Jupiter Fund Management (JUP) which was featured here in the May 31st issue.
I then highlight a trading update they put out saying they would achieve £15m annualised savings. This seemed like it could boost the bottom line substantially seeing they were forecast to do £36m net profit this year.
On Thurs the 10th of July they posted this news:
The important paragraph for me: in my opinion, was “The Acquisition is expected to be materially accretive to management fee earnings per Jupiter share from day one, with further accretion over time as synergies are delivered. The initial target for run-rate cost synergies on a fully integrated basis is at least £16 million per annum and this target is expected to be fully realised by the end of 2027.”
I like ‘materially acretives’ – especially from day one, it means enhanced earnings per share basically, for anyone not used to company speak. The shares gained 20% over the following two days. I was too busy to watch and add on the day so only have my initial holding, but they look like they could still have much more to come. Perhaps one to add on a dip when traders sell out. Do your own research, fund managers are not my normal bag other than when markets are bombed out. I did buy some though and I doubled my holding this week. The shares continue to rally with no pull backs which says to me I think I’m right and the added value here from the acquisition and the recent cost savings are being under-estimated in my opinion.
Jupiter’s Interim results will be published on this Friday.
On Monday, Filtronic announce another contract win:
It’s a good size contract and although deliveries won’t start for a year, it is another step in diversifying the customer base again and not being so reliant of SpaceX along with improving the long term revenue visibility.
The new facility which is highly automated as they say, should mean they can deal with far more business with it being able to handle double the previous capacity imo, and on better margins.
On Monday, Saga SAGA announced a new 7 year deal with NatWest
It’s a move from G.Sachs to NatWest and should mean higher revenues and profits. After better than expected results recently, directors buying heavily and the chart making a bowl I hold, have bought when highlighted here a month or so ago. The chart has made a bowl and is hitting 3 year highs. H1 end for SAGA is July 31st.
After last weeks late results announcement due to the auditors not getting their act together, on Tuesday, Carclo CLO, thumbed it’s nose at the market and announced a large renewed contract:
It’s a competitive market out there and it could have been easy to lose a 5 year contract. As it is they have won the contract again. No commercial terms were announced but CAR sound pretty happy about it. A couple of peeps have told me they have seen it suggested elsewhere that it is Siemens but I can’t verify that.
Very pleased I never sold any on the suspension RNS last week as the share were back to their recent highs nearly on Tuesday. It’s easy to sell out on trader jitters but if you do your own research, you probably know the co better than any trader.
I constantly try to keep my holding numbers as low as I can, which means I can better research a smaller number of co’s more easily. Trouble is I can’t resist a bargain either and the holdings creep up because it feels nearly as bad ignoring a cheap stock as it does being hit by bad news. It’s a constant risk reward trade off which I manage by researching heavily the stocks I hold with the largest value in the portfolio. You can never be 100% sure on any stock, you just need to try to get as sure as you can in my opinion.
The Works WRKS has been the star of my portfolio so far in 2025, having one-bagged in a month. I feel they have far more to go though. The results are on 22nd:
TheWorks.co.uk plc, the retailer of affordable, screen-free activities for the whole family, announces it will report preliminary results for the 52 weeks ended 4 May 2025, and an update on current trading for the 11 weeks ended 20 July 2025, on 22 July 2025
Gavin Peck, CEO, and Rosie Fordham, CFO, will provide a live presentation relating to the above via Investor Meet Company on 22 Jul 2025 at 12:30 BST.
https://www.investormeetcompany.com/theworkscouk-plc/register-investor
The Investormeetcompany presentation is a must-watch imo
In the meantime, ahead of the results, there was a very good article in Retail Gazette where you can form an opinion:
https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2025/07/interview-the-works-ceo/
On Wednesday, Creightons posted their full year results.
You can read the full news where you read your RNS News
In my view the results were excellent, a more than doubling of earnings, Net cash rising to £3m and divi raise to 0.5p. This is just a £29m company. Improved sales, gross margins and inventories kept lean.
They will have NI raised costs this year and the minimum wage but that will be covered by the cost savings from the move to the Aim market. Reading the group strategy statement, everything they said makes total sense. It also sounds like there will be a name change before long - I think that would be as good move – when you are selling certain amount of your own brand products it would be good to develop the brand. Look at the logo above – it’s hardly Maybelline is it? Perhaps coming from a graphic design background I see that weakness more than many but if you are going to be in the fashion business you have to look fashionable everywhere.
Sales in private Label were up 22.9% to £29.2 million (2024: £23.7 million)
Brand sales down 22.9% to £29.2 million (2024: £23.7 million)
Contract manufacturing £6.7m for the period (2024: £8.4m)
Online sales up 7%.
While there was sales decline in areas this has been offset some with gross margins rising. It’s important not just to sell but sell smarter imo.
The improvements come from a lot of self help like getting as much out of their own Peterborough site as they can, reducing costs and outsourcing some tighter margin products to China.
The Outlook summary said:
“I am pleased with the results for the year with the Executive team delivering on the goals of returning the Group to pre-covid levels of profitability and to delivering revenue growth. This puts the Group in a very strong position to move forward.”
It is worth reading the full RNS and the company presentation on results day should be on the internet in a day or so.
So of course, having more than doubled earnings per share, the share price duly fell 11% – traders had been buying in advance and were likely going to sell into the news no matter what imo. There are no broke forecasts so no trader could have had a clue what the results should say. In the outlook the co also said this:
The next year will not be without its challenges largely a result of factors outside the Group's control. The key factors being:
· Managing the impact of the increase in employers' national insurance and the national minimum wage, together with associated pay increases to maintain pay differentials will cost the Group £0.9m. Our customers are facing similar challenges therefore, it is proving difficult to raise sales prices in the current market environment to offset these rising employment costs. The project to improve performance to alleviate the impact is ongoing.
· Customer credit risks. The Group is prioritising trading with resilient customers in today's tough market, while approaching others more cautiously as their future potential is assessed. The Executive team is closely monitoring risk and return.
· The impact of increased US tariffs on our direct and indirect sales to US customers, which approximate to £0.4m of revenue, will not be material. The Group will carefully monitor the knock-on impact of the tariff situation, particularly regarding product diverted to the UK, and use our new Far East sourcing team to take advantage of opportunities to increase revenue and reduce costs.
That’s all very reasonable and nothing specific to CRL so to nearly quote Basil faulty it’s the “bleedin’ obvious”, all things any company would be right to mention.
It ended with this “Whilst there are significant challenges, the Group is in an excellent position to manage the downside risks and take advantages of any opportunities. The proposed investment in sales, marketing, product sourcing and development will ensure the Group can take advantage of more opportunities over the coming year. The Board will continue to work closely with the Executive team to deliver and revise the strategy to grow revenue and profits”.
That sounds positive as does lots of stuff in the rest of the results if people care to read them in my opinion.
The problem in the past has been there has never been any broker forecasts but hopefully with the move to Aim, then Zeus may perhaps enlighten investors with a note before long. The shares have more than doubled in 4 months so profit-takers were bound to be around, especially with traders, but they’ll soon be out of the way hopefully. The chart remains one of the best looking bowls out there and there has been no share dilution either and if you got in at the lows you have doubled your money still in the past 6 months or less.
The shares are very illiquid and tightly held so the shares can move about on low volume at the best of times. Investors need to know their own risk/reward and do their own research. I could be wrong, stupid or lying and unless you do your research you can’t be sure. You feel far more comfortable holding a share when you verify information for yourself.
The shares go XD on Thurs (July24) for 0.5p. The co is already 3.5 months into the new financial year, so if they were not feeling confident they had the opportunity to control expectations but they sound positive from the end of their outlook.
Highlighted here in May 25th Rebel Review, the shares have risen around 25% after a positive trading update. With results in September, Directors purchased shares with real cash on Wednesday.
Nice chart bowl continuing:
I hold a decent amount so I would be bullish. Do your own research and make your own decision.
On Wednesday evening, Audioboom BOOM, announced interim results and news of a placing in order to purchase Adelicious, a UK podcast co, for up to £10m, with a £3m of it in a placing @ 270p. The placing will dilute the shares and Adelicious doesn’t make a profit so there needs to be a lot of synergies.
The co announced results for H1 as 7c eps. 20c is forecast for the year so they need double the eps of H1 in H2 but it is their bigger half normally.
Adelicious only do $4.8m revenues. BOOM are forecast to do $80m revs and are profitable. So BOOM have 16+ times Adelicious revenues.
They are paying £4.5m and could pay up to £10m for Adelicious. Without knowing the performance and the synergies it’s hard to know if it is a good deal in my opinion. It certainly doesn’t look like they are stealing it.
In my view it doesn’t look cheap enough but if there are huge synergies it might prove to be.
I no longer hold, I can’t take the ups and downs and have a meaningful size holding and feel comfortable, there is always a bit of doubt from investors here too imo. I think I can find the same growth cheaper elsewhere, and less risky and less volatile.
Churchill China CHH, put out their scheduled trading update on Thursday:
Significantly below expectations – not what you want to hear, especially as the last trading updates had a ‘good and bad’ tone to them.
For my part I had already sold at a loss in the week before. The shares were falling relentless in the lead up to the trading update so I sold half, then the day before the trading update the bid/ask was incredibly weak, you could only get 1p over bid for a sell but you could buy way below the ask – that signifies weakness. I sold the second half the day before the trading update so in this instance I got lucky but still took a meaningful loss on them when I did have a good profit at one point. Cest la vie – it could have been worse had I hung in there, in the end, taking that loss and selling feels like a win now.
The bowl has fallen over. One just to watch for now.
The Next 8 Days – some dates are estimates – stocks to watch:
20th LUCE trading update AGM
20th RPI AGM
20th GRG trading update
21st MKS Finals
21st AVON Finals
21st CURY trading update
21st FNTL trading update
22ND JDG agm
23rd SHS AGM/trading update
25th JUP Interims
27th GNC Interims
28th WJG Interims
And finally…………………….
At the start of the year I mentioned I was building a ‘retreat’ (not a re-tweet 😊 ) in the garden, somewhere to get away from life’s stress, an area of calming.
I have had several ask about how the fish are doing in there (8 ft aquarium). Rather than keep answering each email, here is a link to the video of my Red Tiger Oscars. Bought at 2 inches in April, now nearing 7 inches. Very relaxing to watch.
Video link
This video was taken a week ago and you can already see they have grown in that week – a staggeringly fast growing fish.
Great to be keeping Oscars again, I foolishly let earning money getting in the way of what really matter 25 years ago.
Also, in the Retreat I have started oil painting again. Peeps have asked about this too.
This is a lesson in not giving up, not accepting defeat if you have an injury or a dodgy knee, hip etc, although I had given up. 10 years ago I used to paint regularly. But I had to go on a series of anti-biotics which damaged the tendons in both shoulders rendering them useless. Now I can do most things with my arms but lifting just a plate of food from say 2’ high onto the kitchen work top is near impossible. It was just the arm raising action that was screwed.
Anyway, a good friend who is a physio, came each week and treated me. Things improved but not to the point where I could hold my arm up to paint. Not until about a year ago – so 9 years on. I thought I would never paint again, (some will say I still can’t 😊 ) but this week completed my first painting in 10 years. My shoulder suddenly improved enough about a year ago, out of the blue. So never think it’s over with joints. Be careful with anti-biotics and if you get joint pains while on them, see your doctor, especially if you are on floxacins.
Anyway, for those that new I used to paint and have asked how it’s going, this is the first of chapter 2, mostly done with palette knife and some brush work and bare finger.
Jeff Lynne’s ELO ‘Turn to Stone’, from Wembley or Bust tour. A phone cam doesn’t show it at its best I am afraid.
Worked from this video - the video is worth watching just to see what a fantastic band they are and the massive fun a lot of oldies are having at Wembley
Thank you to those who inquired, I post the fish regularly on Twitter.
Have a great weekend – I got my truck back this week after 10 days of being ruddy housebound (smacked it up in M&S garage – this was no ordinary accident…….). I plant to make the most of this weekend now.
Rebel
Twitter @rebelHQ
Thank you John
well done richard onwards and upwards . you have got some great skills .