Anexo (ANX) focuses on ‘impecunious’ not-at-fault motor accidents, providing hire vehicles and then recouping the costs and any repair and injury claims from the at-fault driver’s insurance company. Benefitting from its expansion into motorcycle claims, revenue from the credit hire division rose by more than two-fifths to £48m in the year to 31 December.
Having previously invested to build up its vehicle hire fleet, it switched to growing its legal services business, Bond Turner, in 2019. The number of cases settled increased by a third thanks to the recruitment of more legal staff. Anexo now has 127 senior fee earners versus 89 a year earlier, which helped cash collected from settled cases surge by 45 per cent to £84m.
However, working capital investment in its portfolio of claims pushed up borrowings last year, meaning net debt (excluding lease liabilities) rose 62 per cent to £28.1m.
Bond Turner is engaged in around 8,000 cases in the class action lawsuit against Volkswagen (DE:VOW3) over its emissions scandal, although revenue from any settlement won’t appear until at least 2021. Some of the £7.5m raised from a share placing last month will be spent on marketing to attract further claimants and adding legal staff.
Berenberg expects adjusted pre-tax profit of £16m and EPS of 13.8p in 2020, down from £19m and 16.4p in 2019.
| ANEXO (ANX) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 140p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 153m | |
| TOUCH: | 139-141p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 200p | LOW: 100p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 1.1% | PE RATIO: | 9 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 83p | NET DEBT: | 39%** | |
| Year to 31 Dec | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2017 | 45.3 | 14.6 | 11.4 | nil |
| 2018 | 56.5 | 14.3 | 10.4 | 1.5 |
| 2019 | 78.5 | 22.4 | 16.4 | 1.5 |
| % change | +39 | +57 | +58 | - |
| Ex-div: | 30 Jul | |||
| Payment: | 21 Aug | |||
| **Includes £8.1m in lease liabilities | ||||
