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Ottakar's - Take profits

March 2004

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.

For the important six week period to 10 January book retailer, Ottakar's sales grew 39.9%, the like-for-like element being 7.7%. These were good figures, although Ottakar's blotted its copybook with the news that expected margin gains at its acquired Hammicks stores didn't materialise till December, when these stores were relaunched under Ottakar's own brand name. Another irritation was that the exceptional costs of disposing of former stores came in atÂ£0.7m, higher than the Â£0.4m previously forecast. Broker, Seymour Pierce, has trimmed its forecasts, before goodwill, property losses and integration charges, to Â£7.5m (23.2p earnings) for the year ended January 2004 and Â£9.7m (27.9p) for 2005. ...

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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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