Victoria Group has seen its share price leap by more than a fifth.
Yesterday the share price rise by 20.4% to 586p, bringing the increase since Friday’s AGM to 31.9%.
The rise values the group at £560.9m. However, the increase still sees the group’s stockmarket valuation well below January’s £1.38bn. The group has been targeted by short sellers, with more than one in eight shares (12%) on loan last month, used as proxy measure for short-selling, compared with less that 1% at the start of the year.
At the AGM shareholders were told that: ‘Revenue, earnings, and cash flow are all in line with consensus market expectations. Through a combination of continual improvements to customer service, product engineering, hedging of critical input costs, carefully negotiated supply agreements, and – where necessary – price increases, the management team continues to successfully navigate the current challenging macro-economic environment. The strategic value of the geographic diversity that the group has built over the past nine years is also benefitting the group’s trading as outperformance in some markets supports softer conditions elsewhere.
‘The company has been steadily repurchasing its own shares over the last month. These share purchases should not be seen as the start of a formal and regular programme to return capital to shareholders, but the board believes current share price levels are materially below the intrinsic value of the group, and these opportunistic purchases serve Victoria’s mission to create wealth for shareholders. Importantly, despite these purchases, the group’s cash position and liquidity continues to increase.’
‘The board remains mindful of the macro-economic headwinds across the globe and, whilst we benefit from the inherent resilience of the business, numerous actions are being taken to mitigate their impact. Alongside this, operational management continue to be laser-focused on integration of recent acquisitions and execution of detailed synergy plans that will drive higher productivity, lower costs, and better customer service,’ says Geoff Wilding, Victoria executive chairman.