Updates

Ask Central - Undeserved discount to Pizza Express

April 2003

Investing in shares may lose you all or some of your money. Past performance is no indication of future performance. Some of the shares recommended here may be small company shares, which can be relatively illiquid and hard to trade and this makes such shares more risky than other investments.

Ask is proving to be one of the most resilient stocks in the embattled pubs and restaurants sector. For the 52 weeks to 29 December, it has reported turnover up 21.5% to Â£95.8m, pretax profit up 22.8% to Â£16.7m, and diluted earnings up 18.2% to 11.9p. Last year, 20 new restaurants were opened, (10Ask and 10 Zizzi), which took the total to 145. These openingsaccounted for the majority of the Â£17.7m in capital expenditure,comfortably financed by the Â£22.3m operating cashflow and meantthat net cash increased from Â£0.9m to Â£2.4m. A regularhighlight of Ask's results has been its ability to improve operatingmargins through efficiencies and using its larger size to ex ...

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Project Telecom - 185,000 corporate customers

TMI Trader Portfolio - April

Ask Central - TDR Capital bids 220p (March 2004)

Ask Central - Receives offer from City Centre (February 2004)

Ask Central - In takeover talks (December 2003)

Ask Central - Beats expectations again (October 2003)

Ask Central - Strong buoyant candidate (June 2003)

ASK Central (March 2003)

Ask Central (October 2002)

Ask Central - Thrashing pizza express (June 2002)

With small companies there is an above average degree of risk compared to buying blue chips. Please be aware that we have not assessed the suitability of any of these investments for you. The newsletter simply states a personal view and diarises the editor’s investment decisions. Please speak to your stockbroker or other qualified individual to ascertain whether any of these companies mentioned would form useful additions to your own portfolios. Past performance is no indication of future success.

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