Share: 1 director bought

A director at Share bought 186,131 shares at 27p and the significance rating of the trade was 71/100. Is that information sufficient for you to make an investment decision? This report gives details of those trades and adds context and analysis to them such that you can judge whether these trading decisions are ones worth following. Included in the report is a detailed share price chart which plots discretionary trades by all the company's directors over the last two years clearly showing Clos...

Share - Suspension of estimates

For the purposes of the Takeover Code, Edison Investment Research is deemed to be connected with Share plc. Under Rule 20.1 Edison must not include any profit forecast, quantified financial benefits statement, asset valuation or estimate of other figures key to the offer, except to the extent that such forecasts, statements, valuations or estimates have been published prior to the offer period (as defined in the Takeover Code) by an offeror or the offeree company (as appropriate) in accordance w...

Share - Adding accounts and firmly in profit

Share has completed the acquisition and transfer of accounts from J.P. Morgan Asset Management and in August reported its first H1 operating profit since 2014. This followed a return to profit in H218 and was achieved against a more challenging background for trading volumes and despite bearing some costs associated with the approach from Interactive Investor. Prospectively, a revival of investor confidence and benefits from adding further customer accounts could provide upside from our maintai...

Share - Resilient first quarter

The first quarter provided a challenging background for trading activity on Share’s platform but, helped by earlier acquisitions, it achieved a small increase in commission and fee revenue and recorded an operating profit, as in H218. The full benefits of Share's digital transformation and its acquisition strategy are set to become evident over a number of years.

Share - Suspension of estimates

For the purposes of the Takeover Code, Edison Investment Research is deemed to be connected with Share plc. Under Rule 20.1 Edison must not include any profit forecast, quantified financial benefits statement, asset valuation or estimate of other figures key to the offer, except to the extent that such forecasts, statements, valuations or estimates have been published prior to the offer period (as defined in the Takeover Code) by an offeror or the offeree company (as appropriate) in accordance w...

Share - Suspension of estimates

For the purposes of the Takeover Code, Edison Investment Research is deemed to be connected with Share plc. Under Rule 20.1 Edison must not include any profit forecast, quantified financial benefits statement, asset valuation or estimate of other figures key to the offer, except to the extent that such forecasts, statements, valuations or estimates have been published prior to the offer period (as defined in the Takeover Code) by an offeror or the offeree company (as appropriate) in accordance w...

Share - Evidence that investment is paying off

Share’s full-year results were similar to our expectations with revenue growth of over 12%, despite the equity market downturn in the final quarter. The group is now drawing to the end of its investment programme to achieve a digital transformation and has succeeded in making further acquisitions to gain greater scale. With a pipeline of further transactions and full benefits of its IT spend still to come, earnings should respond in a geared fashion, reducing the current high earnings multiple...

Share - Scaling up

Share’s first half results were marked by higher revenues and costs than expected, while assets under administration have continued to grow and the digital transformation programme has progressed further both behind the scenes and in the client interface. Share’s credibility as a partner or purchaser of books of business is underlined by agreements to three further transactions that are set to scale the business significantly. This in turn should help underpin the geared improvement in profi...

Share - Delivering IT programme and revenue growth

Share’s FY17 results announcement continued the flow of encouraging news seen from previous updates. There was a strong increase in revenue and a move into modest normalised pre-tax profits. The IT investment programme is well underway and is becoming more visible as App enhancements and website improvements come on stream. Underpinning this are projects to strengthen infrastructure on which client service and the business depends. Operational gearing has the potential to bring the currently h...

- Making good progress

Share’s third quarter update confirmed the positive trends reported in August, with further market share gains and continuing work on its digital transformation providing evidence of the fruits of the investment already made and signalling continued measures to improve the customer experience to underpin further, profit-enhancing growth.

- Encouraging trends

Share’s H117 figures announced in August were ahead of management expectations, reflecting robust trading volumes and the benefit of partnership agreements feeding into volumes and revenue. This has prompted us to increase estimates for this year and next. For the moment profitability is still muted because of the investment the company is making in IT in order to deliver a better customer experience. Assuming continued growth in the number of customers and assets under administration (AUA), ope...

Poised for delivery

Share plc’s FY16 result was modestly ahead of our expectation and it is making progress in its work to enhance its customer proposition and servicing through significant investment in IT. The results of this should become more evident in the current year and help continue the growth in assets under administration (AUA), potentially helped by further acquisitions of books of accounts and corporate partnerships. As a platform with relatively stable costs once the IT renewal has been completed, inc...

Ford Equity International Rating and Forecast Report

Ford Equity International Research Reports cover 60 countries with over 30,000 stocks traded on international exchanges. A proprietary quantitative system compares each company to its peers on proven measures of business value, growth characteristics, and investor behavior. Ford's three recommendation ratings buy, hold and sell, represent each stock’s return potential relative to its own country market.. The rating reports which are generated each week, include the fundamental details behind...

Trading in line and client account acquisition

Share indicated that Q3 trading was in line with expectations and it is continuing to implement its IT investment programme to deliver an improved customer experience and greater scalability to provide for future growth. On this front, assets under administration (AUA) have continued to increase organically and an acquisition of a book of accounts has been agreed. This and previously announced partnership agreements with Computershare and a wealth manager are set to begin contributing to revenue...

Update: Investing for growth

Just as Share plc aims to provide retail investors with an accessible platform to invest for the future, so the company is this year engaging in a significant investment in IT to enable it to meet future customer requirements and secure its own ability to benefit from the prospective growth in the population of self-directed investors. This is set to hold back profitability in 2016, but should provide the platform for longer-term growth. Supporting the investment, at the year-end Share had no de...

Update: Gaining share in challenging markets

Share has once again taken market share (8.41% of peer group revenue in Q315 vs 8.16% in Q215 and 7.62% in Q314), continuing its multi-year trend. However, trading conditions remain challenging with market dealing commissions falling, regulatory pressure on fees and maturing high rate accounts being reinvested at lower yields. Overall revenue was down 1% on Q314 and, taking account of a continuation of this subdued trading for the rest of the year, we have reduced our estimates.

Update: Difficult H115, but outlook still promising

As highlighted in Share plc’s April’s trading statement, market conditions were challenging in H115, compounded by management’s decision to take inevitable pain from stopping trail commissions earlier than some peers. Despite the latter, it still took record market share of revenue and it also tightly controlled operating costs. There are a number of market and company-specific opportunities to show growth, giving some upside to our conservative assumptions and valuation (now 31p).

Update: Market share gains in a weak market

Share plc issued its usual short trading statement. There has been a further gain in market share (to 7.48%) continuing the multi-year trend. The market has been weak (peer revenues down 13%) with Share’s total revenue down 11% in absolute terms on Q114. This has been driven by election uncertainty and a bias in 2014 to a strong first half (H114 revenue £7.9m vs £7.1m in H214). We are expecting the reverse trend in 2015 with a weak H1 and stronger post-election H2 which, for Share, will also...

Update: Investing through tough markets

Share’s December trading update indicated it was continuing to invest through relatively weak trading conditions and the results confirmed this trend. The company continues to take market share, which bodes well for the future, but 2014 saw pressure on interest income and trading commission. The strong cash generation and continued profit generation have allowed further investments, especially in key management roles.

Institutional Comment: Daily comment