Maiden results for Manolete Partners (MANO) offer a handy primer on why so many investors have flocked to the insolvency litigation funding outfit since its December listing. The business, which fronts the costs involved in meritorious insolvency claims, more than doubled its new cases in the 12 months to March 2019, boosting its historic money multiple to 2.8 times, and beating market expectations in the process.
Having raised £14.6m at IPO, Manolete also ended the period debt-free and with a £30m in equity and available bank credit to grow its case load and solicitor numbers. Here, chief executive and founder Steve Cooklin is deliberately building some latency into his team, given that each lawyer can be expected to handle up to 35 cases at any given time.
Once taken on, cases are booked as investments and then periodically re-valued based on the opinion of both counsel and directors. In the period, the lion’s share of the 72 per cent uplift in investments came from these adjustments, which totalled £6.6m net of transfers and realisations.
Following the publication of these numbers, Peel Hunt now expects adjusted earnings of 17.8p a share for the year to March 2020, rising to 21.8p in FY2021.
| MANOLETE PARTNERS (MANO) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 462p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 201m | |
| TOUCH: | 460-480p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 620p | LOW: 190p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 0.3% | PE RATIO: | 14 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 64.3p | NET CASH: | £9.7m | |
| Year to 31 Mar | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2016* | 4.80 | 1.59 | n/a | n/a |
| 2017* | 4.84 | 1.81 | n/a | n/a |
| 2018* | 10.6 | 3.69 | 3525 | n/a |
| 2019 | 13.8 | 5.94 | 32.0 | 1.49 |
| % change | +30 | +61 | -99 | - |
| Ex-div: | 12 Sep | |||
| Payment: | 30 Sep | |||
| *Pre-IPO figures. | ||||
