Street News & Views

Elite IPO fully subscribed

February 2, 2018 by IC Insider.com

Elite Diagnostics could be in the Junior Market TOP 10 by the end of 2018.

Word reaching IC Insider.com from usually reliable sources, is that the much delayed Initial Public Offer for Elite Diagnostics was oversubscribed before the revised prospectus was posted on the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Monday.

The company is issuing just over 70 million shares at a price of $2 each and a PE ratio around 9 times estimated 2018 earnings and just under 6 times 2019 estimated earnings. The shares were to have officially opened on Monday January 22, but was put off until Wednesday 24, following amendment to include depreciation that was omitted from interim results to September, and then was pulled to correct errors in the interim results balance sheet and cash flow statement. The issue will now officially open on Monday February 5 and is expected to list on the Junior Market of the stock exchange that will see profit being tax free for 5 years and at half the regular rate for the second 5 years. Brokers for the issue are NCB Capital Markets and Sagicor Investments.

Filed Under: Initial Public Offers, Street News & Views Tagged With: Elite Diagnostics, Jamaica Stock Exchange, Jamaican stocks, junior market, NCB Capital Markets, Sagicor Investments

Trading on JSE’s main market sinks – Monday

January 29, 2018 by IC Insider.com

Trading activity on the main market ended on Monday as 25 securities changed hands, leading to 3,323,821 shares valued at $32,670,539 changing hands, with the prices of 7 stocks rising, 11 declining and 7 trading firm.
At the close of the market the JSE All Jamaican Composite Index dipped 36.79 points to 312,175.12 and the JSE Index lost 33.52 points to 284,426.84.
In main market activity, Barita Investments ended at $8, with 1,774 stock units, Cable & Wireless concluded trading at $1.35, with 22,165 units, Carreras finished with a loss of 1 cent at $11.29, with 47,138 shares, Caribbean Cement settled with a loss of 10 cents at $32.50, with 4,300 shares, Ciboney Group ended trading at 22 cents, with 800 shares. Grace Kennedy traded with a loss of 60 cents at $42.50, with 15,000 stock units, Jamaica Broilers finished trading 50 cents higher at $18.50, with 15,969 units, Jamaica Producers closed with a loss of $1 for the second day in a row, to close at $15, with 3,000 shares, Jamaica Stock Exchange ended with a loss of 35 cents at $6.65, with 8,489 shares. JMMB Group concluded trading with a loss of $1 at $24, with 12,937 shares, Kingston Wharves settled with a loss of 50 cents at $33, with 2,685 units, Mayberry Investments ended trading 10 cents higher at $5.85, with 419,093 shares, NCB Financial Group traded 85 cents higher at $100.85, with 88,617 shares. 1834 Investments finished trading at $1.20, with 11,700 shares, PanJam Investment ended 50 cents higher at $40.50, with 2,405 units, Portland JSX concluded trading at $11, with 814 shares, Pulse Investments finished 5 cents higher at $2, with 214,000 shares. Radio Jamaica settled with a loss of 5 cents at $1.05, with 18,744 shares, Sagicor Group ended trading at $35.20, with 7,022 stock units, Sagicor Real Estate Fund ended trading with a loss of 20 cents at $14, with 42,280 shares. Salada Foods traded 5 cents higher at $12.55, with 100 units, Scotia Group finished trading with a loss of 95 cents at $50.05, with 4,487 shares. Supreme Ventures concluded trading at $11.50, with 254,605 stock units, Victoria Mutual Investments finished with a loss of 11 cents at $4.01, with 1,225,416 units and Wisynco Group settled 25 cents higher at $10.45, with 900,281 shares.

Prices of securities trading for the day are those at which the last trade took place. For more details of market activities, see “JSE main market slipped – Monday.”

Filed Under: Feature Stories, JSE Main Market, Stock Market, Street News & Views Tagged With: Cable & Wireless, Caribbean Cement, Carreras, Daily Trading, Emerging markets, Grace Kennedy, Jamaica Broilers, Jamaica Money Market Brokers, Jamaica Producers, Jamaica Stock Exchange, Jamaican stocks, JMMB, JMMB Group, Kingston Wharves, Mayberry Investments, NCB Financial Group, PANJAM Investment, Proven Investments, Pulse Investments, Radio Jamaica, Sagicor Group, Sagicor Real Estate Fund, Salada Foods, Scotia Group, Supreme Ventures, Trading Activity, Victoria Mutual Investments, Wisynco

JSE just below resistance at 190,000 points

September 1, 2017 by IC Insider.com

The main market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange surged to a new high at 12.30 pm on Friday with the all Jamaica Composite index jumping 8,505.30 points to a record 289,062.69 while the main market index rose 7,749.29 points to a record 263,368.84.
The Combined Index jumped 7,344.21 points to a record 276,121.30 as market sentiments suggest that the market may be at an early stage of a major bull run. The junior market that slipped 1.95 points at 11am is now up 18.94 to 3,117.84 while the US dollar market index that was unchnaged at 182.58 in the morning session is now up4.60 to 187.18.
Scotia Group is a mjor contributor to the big market gain with the privce jumping to $52 and only 389 units are now offered at $52. Supreme Ventures traded at a new high of $12.90 but sits at $12.50 with half an hour of trading to go.

Filed Under: JSE Combined, Stock Market, Street News & Views Tagged With: Daily Trading, Emerging market, Jamaica Stock Exchange, junior market, Scotia Group, Supreme Ventures

Huge improvement at Jamaica Producers

August 16, 2017 by IC Insider.com

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Jamaica Producers at $14.50, currently.

Jamaica Producers made huge improvement in its operations, with strong gains in operating profit, helped by consolidation of Kingston Wharves but more importantly major gains from its other core business.
The company reported profit attributable to shareholders of $158 million for the second quarter to June and $251 million for the half year to June, 2017.
The results flowed from revenues of $7.4 billion up from $4.6 billion in 2016 for the half year and $4 billion for the quarter, up from $2.4 billion in 2016. In 2016 the group’s share of Kingston Wharves was treated as an associate as such the revenues for 2016 does not include that for wharf as is the case in 2017.
The results translate to 14 cents per share for the quarter and 22 cents for the half year and should end around 50 cents for the year. With a stock price of $14.50 the market value is a very rich 29 times earnings.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results, Street News & Views Tagged With: Jamaica Producers, Jamaican Stock, Kingston Wharves

C&W reports profit

August 11, 2017 by IC Insider.com

Jamaica’s telecom provider, Cable & Wireless, is reporting profit from operation in the June quarter this year, compared to a loss in the same period in 2016.
The company enjoyed an 11 percent rise in revenues helped mainly by a 22 percent increase in mobile revenues to generate $6.8 billion in revenues up from $6 billion in 2016 and profit of $222 million versus a loss of $695 million in the June quarter of 2016. Operating cost fell to $4.24 billion from $4.5 billion in the 2016 quarter to generate profit before finance cost of $1.59 billion. For the six months, revenue of $13.2 billion was generated with a loss of $311 million compared to a profit of $1.1 billion in 2016 from revenues of $11.85 billion.
Subsequent to the quarter the company announced a series of price increases that is set to boost revenues and help the bottom-line. the stock closed on Friday on the Jamaica Stock Exchange at $1.07. The latest information makes this stock one to watch next week.

Filed Under: Company News, Company Results, Feature Stories, Street News & Views Tagged With: Cable & Wireless, Daily Trading, Emerging market, Jamaica Stock Exchange, Jamaican Stock

10 for 1 split for Carreras shares

August 10, 2017 by IC Insider.com

Carreras as high as $110 after stock split announcement.

The directors of Carreras advised that they will be recommending a 10 for 1 stock split to members of the Company at its Annual General Meeting scheduled for September 6.
In order to facilitate the proposed subdivision of the existing ordinary shares in the capital of the Company, the maximum number of shares that the Company is authorized to issue is to be increased by a subdivision into 10 ordinary shares for each one that currently exists and thus raising the authorized capital to $4.8544 billion units with effect from the close of business on September 20, 2017. The existing issued shares are to be increased from 485,440,000 units of no par value to 4,854,400,000 ordinary shares of no par value. The ex-stock split date is September 18, 2017.
Carreras stock trades at $110 on the main market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange.

Filed Under: Company News, Dividends, Street News & Views Tagged With: Carreras, Daily Trading, Emerging market stock, Jamaica Stock Exchange, Jamaican Stock

Strong demand for SOS after listing

August 10, 2017 by IC Insider.com

Stationery & Office Supplies was listed on the Junior Market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Thursday. The stock was offered to the public in mid-July at $2 each and was heavily oversubscribed, has bids to buy 98,660 units as high as $3.50 and 19,800 shares at $3.51.
No trade has taken place with 10,346 units being offered at $4.50, 10,000 units at $6 and 34,105 shares at $12 in the morning session.
Currently bids amount to buy more than 3.2 million units down to $2.50 up to $3.51. The stock exchange circuit breaker rule would restrict the maximum price the shares can trade at today at $2.60, and if it does not trade by the close, the maximum it can trade at on Friday would be $2.90. With bids at $3.50 and above currently, then it may not trade on Friday either if investors starts bids above $2.90 on Friday. Unless management intervene as they did for Express Catering it likely to be well into next week before the first trades would start.

Filed Under: Initial Public Offers, Street News & Views Tagged With: Jamaica Stock Exchange, Stationery and Office Supplies

Cargo Handlers Q3 report omissions & error

August 7, 2017 by IC Insider.com

Cargo Handlers reported a fall in profits for the nine months to June this year, but with incorrect number of shares shown as issued and with no segment accounts.
The company last year split each share into 10 units resulting in 374 million units issued, instead of the 37.4 million units, net of treasury shares, shown in the equity statement of the financial statements. Additionally, the company has distinct segments of petroleum haulage, leasing and stevedoring. The financial statements have no information for each segment, as is the requirement of the International Accounting Standards.

Filed Under: Street News & Views Tagged With: Cargo Handlers, International Accounting Standards.

Barita in takeover talks

August 4, 2017 by IC Insider.com

Barita closed at $6.85 on Thursday.

Well known brokerage house, Barita Investments is currently in discussion for the sale of majority shareholdings in the Company.
A release from the company to the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Thursday advised that the Company has received an offer to acquire the majority shares and that the offer is under consideration by the Company’s Board of Directors and that discussions continue, pending the preparation and conclusion of definitive agreements.
The 76 percent majority shareholder with 339,975,664 shares and chairman, Rita Humphries-Lewin who started the company from the 1970s, is currently in her 80’s and close to retirement, making the offer opportune for her.
The offer comes at an interesting time just after Proven Investments closed their rights issue that raised US$16,547,873 (J$2.1 billion) resulting from the sale of an additional 68,949,472 ordinary shares. Barita could be a good fit for them as well as others within the sector, especially with an established Unit Trust portfolio. In the past investors were of the view that Barita could make a good fit for Mayberry Investments. Information glean suggest that they are not one of the arties showing an interest just now. Victoria Mutual Group has just started a Unit Trust schemes but the cost of a start up is high until it gets to a critical mass, Jamaica National has no unit trust portfolio and just started in the stockbrokerage business. Barita would make a great fit for them but it is unsure that their Chairman, Oliver Clarke would want to sanction that move at this time.

VMBS seems to be an interested party.

Barita has 445.877 million shares issued with a market capitalization of just over $3 billion, a simple majority holding would cost just over $1.5 billion at current price, assuming a price higher than the current one would result in a higher sum. The amount of capital raised by Proven would translate to $10 per share for a simple majority in Barita. IC Insider.com projects earnings for the current year at 90 cents. With the listed investments banks trading at PEs around 11 times, 2017 earnings, a reasonable value of $10 per share seems probable. With the company having unrealized gains not showing in the normal profit, a price around $10 should be attractive to both buyers and sellers at this time. An investor with cash would want to get as much of the shares of the majority owner, but with a mandatory offer having to be made to minority shareholders, they may want to go for a smaller amount initially with 65 to 70 percent looking viable. NCB Group have been on expansion run as well and the combination of NCB Capital Markets and Barita could create synergies. NCB group owns all of the investment arm making a merger with Barita down the road very viable.
Barita is primarily involved in stockbroking, Unit Trust management and repo business. The Unit Trust business that is poised to grow rapidly in a low interest rate environment, would be a big attraction for Proven who currently have no such business within their portfolio.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Feature Stories, Street News & Views Tagged With: Barita Investments, Jamaica Stock Exchange, NCB Capital Markets, Proven Investments, Victoria Mutual Group

Bonus on cards for Carreras

August 2, 2017 by IC Insider.com

Carreras as high as $108 after stock split announcement.

Shareholders in cigarette marketers, Carreras could be enjoying the benefits that could flow from a stock split.
The company today advised that the Board of Directors will meet on August 8, to consider whether to recommend to the Company’s stockholders for consideration at the upcoming General Meeting scheduled for September 6, a split of the Company’s issued shares.
In Wednesday’s trading investors pushed the price to $108 in early trading. In recent weeks the stock has become very scares with low interest rates in the system and high dividend paid by the company.
Others to likely split as liquidity continues to dry up are Palace Amusement, Blue Power, Access Financial and NCB Financial Group that now has little selling of its shares with the price over $80 and 33 percent growth in earnings that should push full year earnings to more than $8 per share. Management of the company at a recent press briefing stated that no consideration has been given for this and suggested that the company won’t benefit from it. That in fact is not a correct statement as both the company and shareholders will benefit if it were to take place.