Updates

Optimal Payments - Shares soar after acquisition of Skrill

May 2015

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.

Just three months after our NAP tip the shares surged to a new high of 575p after Optimal announced the acquisition of rival, Skrill, for US$1.2bn including debt. Including cost savings of US$40m Skrill is valued at 9.3x EBITDA, compared with Optimal’s 14.1x EBITDA and the deal is significantly earnings enhancing.Optimal is issuing 37.5m new shares with the balance in cash and borrowings. The cash element is to be funded by a 5 for 3 rights issue at 166p a share, which will raise around £451m. The deadline to subscribe for the rights shares is 1 May. While Skrill has not grown as fast as Optimal it has increased revenues 25% to US$332m and EBITDA 29% to US$88.9m in the two years to December 2014. Geogr ...

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Easyjet - Trading ahead of expectations

Hill & Smith - Results trigger eps forecast upgrades

Optimal Payments - Skrill ahead of forecast (October 2015)

Optimal Payments (September 2015)

Optimal Payments (August 2015)

Optimal Payments - Shares dirt cheap on 2016 prospective PE of 9.5 (February 2015)

Optimal Payments - 11% eps upgrade (November 2014)

Optimal Payments - Two eps enhancing acquisitions (August 2014)

Optimal Payments - Trading marginally ahead of expectations (July 2014)

Optimal Payments - CEO buys 80,000 shares (May 2014)

Optimal Payments - Share placing oversubscribed (March 2014)

Optimal Payments (January 2014)

Optimal Payments - New Jersey set to legalise online gambling (December 2013)

Optimal Payments - Online payments processor riding growth of e-commerce (November 2013)

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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