Gear4Music (G4M) saw gross profit rise 36 per cent at the half-year mark, albeit with a reduced underlying margin, as sterling weakness fed through to cost of sales. However, the company remains in expansionary mode, which precipitated a £4.2m placing in May – and expand it has.
New distribution centres and improved software support have underpinned a 39 per cent increase in the number of customers served through the period, coupled with a 70 per cent rise in international sales. Mail subscriptions are up by a fifth and the numbers of punters accessing the e-tailer’s site via mobile handsets or tablets was up 11 percentage points to 53 per cent. And while it’s impossible to say definitively, a clear increase in the number of visitors to gear4music.com who go on to purchase a musical instrument suggests that the user experience has improved.
Panmure Gordon gives pre-tax profit of £2.5m for the February 2018 year-end, leading to EPS of 10.5p, against £2.6m and 11.4p in 2017.
GEAR4MUSIC (G4M) | ||||
ORD PRICE: | 815p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 170m | |
TOUCH: | 810-820p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 886p | LOW: 359p |
DIVIDEND YIELD: | NIL | PE RATIO: | 104 | |
NET ASSET VALUE: | 76p | NET DEBT: | 23% |
Half-year to | Turnover | Pre-tax | Earnings per | Dividend |
31 Aug | (£m) | profit (£m) | share (p) | per share (p) |
2016 | 21.6 | 1.0 | 3.70 | nil |
2017 | 31.2 | -0.1 | 0.06 | nil |
% change | +44 | - | - | - |
Ex-div: | - | |||
Payment: | - |