Press
18th October 2024
De La Rue offers a potential 30% upside
Source:
Investors Chronicle
by
Taking Stock
The share price of De La Rue (DLAR) has been in uptrend since June 2023, albeit from a multi-year low. The valuation has just had a further leg-up on news that the group has hived off its authentication division to US business Crane NXT for an enterprise value of £300mn.
The sale price is in line with an earlier valuation of the division by Richard Bernstein, the investment manager of Crystal Amber (CRS), which holds a 16.5 per cent stake in De La Rue. Crystal Amber, along with a couple of the other leading shareholders in the group, have a reputation for high levels of shareholder activism.
There have been fallings-out on this front in the past. Towards the end of 2022, Crystal Amber accused Kevin Loosemore, then the De La Rue chair, of publishing a 'clearly defamatory' statement that accused the activist investor, in an email to Crystal Amber, of attempted market manipulation. One imagines that the succession of profit warnings issued by the group would have had a far more manipulative effect on the group's valuation than anything activists could have mustered. Although he gained initial shareholder backing, Loosemore fell on his sword six months after the defamation spat, once it became obvious that the group's turnaround plan had done little to halt the share price slide.
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16th October 2024
De La Rue sheds its sicknote at last
Source:
The Times
by
Alistair Osborne | Business Commentary
Shareholder activism works at the banknote printer, which has sold its authentication wing to Crane NXT for £300m
Proof shareholder activism works. Rewind to April last year and a company with a licence to print money was, once again, demonstrating that it was far better at torching it.
De La Rue had just issued its fourth profits warning in 16 months. The shares were down to 40½p, valuing the group at just £79 million - less than the £100 million it had raised from investors at 110p in July 2020. And the double act at the top - chairman Kevin Loosemore and chief executive Clive Vacher, who'd arrived within days of each other in October 2019, with the shares at 190p - were sounding delusional.
A few months before then, auditor EY had slapped a 'material uncertainty' alert over the group's 'going concern' status: a move that had prompted a rant from Vacher that its analysis was 'neither plausible nor realistic'. Yet, here he was, admitting to talks with its lenders over 'an amendment to its banking covenants' and demanding that the pension trustees defer "£18.75 million of deficit repair contributions".
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15th October 2024
Activist hails 'great price' as De La Rue agrees £300m sale
Source:
The Times
by
Patrick Hosking & Alex Ralph
Deal struck with Crane NXT, the New York-listed industrial technology firm, for the sale of authentication division of De La Rue, the Bank of England printer.
Shares in De La Rue, the embattled banknote printer, rose sharply after it struck a conditional deal to sell its authentication division for £300 million. The proceeds will be used to pay down group debt and channel money into the company's deficit-plagued staff pension scheme. De La Rue disclosed that an earlier version of the deal had raised concerns with The Pensions Regulator and had to be adjusted.
The division, which supplies security devices such as holograms to authenticate goods and documents, is being sold to Crane NXT, the New York-listed industrial technology firm. The disposal leaves De La Rue as a pure banknote printer. It now has the option to seek a buyer for the banknote division, seek a bid for the whole group or carry on independently.
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4th July 2024
The smart way to play small-cap M&A
Source:
Investors' Chronicle
by
Simon Thompson
Takeover interest at the smaller end of the equity market is buoyant. On my active watchlist of companies, the takeover of mechanical engineering group TClarke (CTO) completed last week, and there have been recommended bids for commodity royalty company Trident Royalties (TRR:48p) and Trinidad and Tobago-focused oil explorer and producer Trinity Exploration & Production (TRIN:45p).
Although digital media group Brave Bison (BBSN:2.5p) failed to agree an all-share merger with UK advertising and marketing specialist Mission Group (TMG:21p), I still see re-rating potential for both companies as standalone entities. Brave Bison is priced on an enterprise valuation to cash profit multiple of 5.9 times and cash-adjusted price/earnings (PE) ratio of 8, a modest rating given its track record and the improving UK economic backdrop...
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