Shareholders in Aim-traded Gama Aviation (GMAA:206p) suffered a bout of turbulence after the operator of privately owned jet aircraft reported a flat trading performance in the first five months of the 2018 financial year at its annual meeting.
Analysts at broking house WH Ireland reined back their full-year pre-tax profit forecasts from $21.8m (£16.3m) to $19.9m, representing 16 per cent growth on last year but well behind the 27 per cent growth I had envisaged when I last suggested buying the shares at 257p (‘Small-cap earnings beats’, 21 Mar 2018) when Gama reported a near 25 per cent uplift in its 2017 underlying pre-tax profit to $17.1m.
The reason for the downgrade is mainly due to a more challenging trading environment for Gama’s European ground services division. On the plus side, its US air operation continues to report robust trading, reaping the benefits of the fleet joint venture with BBA Aviation (BBA), and the US ground division continues to pull in new clients and produce strong organic revenue growth.