Hardman & Co Insight | Economic growth: Cry me a river

The UK press and politicians remain fixated on growth, a theme central to the Labour Government’s agenda since taking office 12 months ago. Its 2024 manifesto, "Labour Party Manifesto 2024: Our plan to change Britain", dedicated an entire chapter to “Kickstart economic growth”, signalling its status as the Government’s top priority. In this article, we explore why growth matters, its potential downsides, and how it is understood by both politicians and markets. We also examine whether aggregate ...

Hardman & Co Insight: IICS/REIFS – Tackling NAV discounts

Each one for itself Executive summary ► Since the start of 2024, the share prices of the eight Infrastructure Investment Companies (IICs) and of the 18 Renewable Energy Infrastructure Funds (REIFs) have been generally weak – and, conspicuously, have failed to recover the losses of 2023. ► Undoubtedly, high interest rates have undermined the sector – and there is no certainty that they will fall significantly. Not only has this situation adversely affected NAVs, but the comparison with “risk-fr...

Hardman & Co Monthly: August 2025

Feature article: Economic growth: Cry me a river The UK press and politicians are fixated on growth. The Labour Government came into office 12 months ago promising a new dawn. Its top priority was growth. Its manifesto, “Labour Party Manifesto 2024: Our plan to change Britain” devoted an entire chapter to “Kickstart economic growth”. In this article, we cover: ► Why growth is important ► The downside of growth ► What do politicians and markets mean by growth? ► Is growth in aggregate GDP th...

Arbuthnot Banking Group: 1H’25 results: growing where it wants to

From ABG’s 1H’25 results, we note i) strong growth in low-capital-intensity businesses (deposits, wealth management) and high risk-adjusted-return specialist lending (most notably RAF and leasing businesses) ‒ ABG is not competing for business that does not meet its target returns and some loan books are shrinking (e.g. property lending), and ii) pre-tax profits halved on 1H’24 due to the well-flagged impact of the falling rate environment, less PE activity driving lower ACABL activity and low t...

Initiation of Coverage: Cavendish plc (CAV) - Profitable even in tough...

Cavendish reported a return to profitability in the year to March 2025. Revenue was up 3% on a comparable basis – against a still tricky background for UK smaller companies – and adjusted pre-tax profit was £3.7m against a loss of £1.8m in the year to March 2024. The result was an indication of the strength of the diversified revenue stream – with both private and public divisions healthily profitable – and a strong control on costs, which fell on a like-for-like basis. Currently, the stock is t...

Chesnara plc (CSN): Landing the big one

After a longer wait than planned, Chesnara has announced a large acquisition, HSBC Life (UK). At a cost of £260m, it is over 70% of Chesnara’s pre-announcement market capitalisation and will be funded by a mixture of equity, existing cash resources (primarily from the earlier Tier 2 bond issue) and drawing down from a newly increased revolving credit facility. The rights issue should complete by 23 July 2025, with deal completion in early 2026. There is a one-off additional uplift to the dividen...

Hardman & Co Insight: UK power cuts - a real risk?

The risk of power cuts in the UK remains a real concern, driven by a combination of factors. The events of 28 April 2025, when large areas of Spain, Portugal and France experienced prolonged outages, have heightened concerns particularly as a recent Spanish report placed much of the blame on the national system operator, Red Electrica, and unnamed private generators. The UK’s own system operator, NESO, will have been monitoring such developments closely, especially given the growing reliance on ...

ICG Enterprise Trust plc: Investor seminar 2025: resilience and growth

The Hardman & Co Monthly: July 2025

The risk of power cuts in the UK, for a variety of reasons, remains real. Low plant margins (i.e. limited spare capacity at peak) in the UK are obvious enough. However, the events of 28 April 2025 ‒ when Spain, Portugal and parts of France were plunged into lengthy power outages ‒ were very disconcerting. A recent Spanish government report has now placed much of the blame on the national system operator, the Redeia-owned Red Electrica. There was some criticism, too, of unnamed private sector gen...

Volta Finance Limited (VTAS): Volatility put into context

In this report we review Volta’s volatility during recent “crisis” periods (2025 tariff uncertainty, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, early COVID-19 experience). In one of these events, Volta’s share price showed more volatility than that of equity markets, in one it was broadly in line, and in one it displayed less volatility. There is insufficient evidence to say Volta is more or less volatile than equity markets in risk-off periods, which may come as a surprise to some investors. Investors ...

Addressing the “risk off” investment challenge

A challenging environment for UK companies As we approach mid-2025, life remains challenging for many UK companies and their shareholders, and ‒ as a broad generalisation – consensus suggests little will change in the foreseeable future. So, are we now facing a real risk of the UK economy stagnating due to lack of funding? If that is the case, who is going to take the initiative and avert such a crisis? Business life must continue, despite the macro environment providing limited visibility an...

Hardman & Co Monthly: June 2025

Feature article: Addressing the “risk off” investment challenge As we approach mid-2025, life remains challenging for many UK companies and their shareholders, and ‒ as a broad generalisation – consensus suggests little will change in the foreseeable future. So, are we now facing a real risk of the UK economy stagnating due to lack of funding? If that is the case, who is going to take the initiative and avert such a crisis? Business life must continue, despite the macro environment providing ...

ICG Enterprise Trust plc (ICGT): Investing in resilience, delivering g...

The key message from ICGT’s FY’25 results (to January) is the continued strength of the operating companies, which delivered, on average, 15% LTM EBITDA growth. Margins have widened by ca.4% (average revenue growth 11%), which should help allay some concerns over the impact of the challenging environment. New investment is accelerating, and realisation activity continued with an average 19% uplift to carrying values on exit. A degree of short-term volatility is to be expected, and the five- and ...

Real Estate Credit Investments (RECI): Meeting any potential macro cha...

In our view, there remains great uncertainty over the effects of tariffs and whether the US/global economies will fall into a recession. Over the past six years, we have written many times on RECI’s resilient model. In this note, we revisit why RECI’s model is so strong, noting in particular i) its credit assessment, monitoring and problem account management, ii) the benefit of being a senior finance provider, iii) geographical and sector diversity, iv) portfolio mix changes, including the reduc...

accesso Technology Group: 30 new venue contracts and pipeline remains ...

FY24 results, released last month, were in line with its January trading update. Revenues grew by 5.3%, when excluding discontinued components, while cash EBITDA eased by 3.4% to $22.8m to reflect a margin of 15.0%. Management is cautious on the near-term outlook due to uncertainties over the impact of trade wars on consumer sentiment. We have cut our revenue forecasts by 4% in FY25 and 6% in FY26 to reflect this uncertainty. However, costs also fall and FY26 adjusted EPS moves higher in USD te...

NB Private Equity Partners: 2024 - short-term noise over long-term gro...

Like many in the PE space, NBPE’s 2024 total $ NAV return (1.5%) was below the five-year average (11.0%), driven by falling valuations of listed holdings and forex. The private company growth (6.9% constant currency) was also below average, with lower-than-usual exit activity seeing less exit uplift benefit. In our view, 2024 was noise within a long-term value-creation model that should outperform listed equities. Despite challenges, the past 12-month EBITDA growth from investee companies was a ...

Hardman & Co Monthly: May 2025

Feature article: Attractive asset managers - Radical derating presumes things only get worse The UK asset management sector has been significantly derated over the past couple of years. It has faced the dual problem of a shift towards passives and to private assets and away from traditional listed equities and bonds. However, the sector’s assets haven’t collapsed; its margins have proved relatively robust and its profits fairly stable, even against all the rising costs. The clear implication, ...

Hardman & Co Insight: REITs - a much more positive outlook

Hardman & Co has carried out several assessments of the REITs sector in the past; in 2024, we looked at whether they represented fair value in terms of their share prices compared with the average discount to NAV at which share prices traded over several historical cycles. We concluded, at that point, that REITs were trading at very close to the historical, long-run average but that the macroeconomic momentum was not strong enough to encourage us to view prospects for REIT share price performanc...

Chesnara plc (CSN): Showing good operational progress

Chesnara announced its 2024 results, which showed positive progress compared with 2023. The main features were positive market returns, offset by some mixed operational experience. Economic Value profit of £69.1m represented a 17% increase on the £59.1m in 2023. Economic Value increased to £531m, up slightly on £525m 12 months earlier, with a negative forex impact as well as dividend payment. Cash generation was excellent, with base cash increasing to £51.6m and commercial cash to £59.6m. The di...

Arbuthnot Banking Group - 2024 results: franchise growing through the ...

The core of any successful, long-term business lies in offering clients the products they want so that they give you more business and, in turn, you attract new customers. The 2024 results show how ABG has achieved this, with growth in i) specialist lending (now £828m, 35% of loans up 33% in 2023, 27% in 2022 and 21% in 2021), ii) deposit volumes (+10%), and iii) wealth management (FUMA +30%). 1,200 new banking clients were onboarded in 2024. Short-term profits reflected that ABG had optimised r...