Following Angling Direct (LON:ANG) has certainly not been a profitable pastime for Master Investor readers – so far.
But are the times a-changing?
Angling Direct states that its purpose is to inspire everyone to get out and enjoy an exceptional fishing experience, regardless of background or ability, in the great outdoors.
I ask is it now time to get out and buy its shares?
The Business
The Norfolk-based Angling Direct is the leading omni-channel specialist fishing tackle retailer in the UK, with an established and growing presence in Europe.
It sells fishing tackle products and related equipment through its network of some 50 UK retail stores, as well as through its leading digital platform (www.anglingdirect.co.uk) and the MyAD Fishing Club app.
The company has three further native language websites in its key European territories (www.anglingdirect.de, .fr, .nl), with orders fulfilled by its international distribution centre in The Netherlands.
Angling Direct currently sells over 25,000 fishing tackle products from industry leading brands, alongside its own brands 'Advanta', and entry level offering 'Discover'.
The company has over 8.6m visitors to its websites each year and completes approximately 29,000 transactions each week in its stores.
Its product categories include: bait and additives; bait accessories; bait boats; bait boxes; bait making equipment; barrows and trolleys; bed chairs accessories; bed chairs; bite alarms; bivvies and shelters; bivvy accessories; buckets and riddles; catapults; chairs; clothing; cooking equipment; fish care; files, fly lines; fly storage, gift cards; indicators; lighting; luggage; nets; tools umbrellas, and others.
Recent Trading Update
On Wednesday 21st August the group announced its Half Year Trading Update for the six months to end-July.
It declared that it had delivered a robust revenue performance in the first half of its 2025 financial year.
The company could now see some success of its work on third-party ranging and availability, an increasingly compelling own brand offer and the growth of the MyAD omni-channel customer loyalty club to over 330k subscribers (January 2024: 220k).
It indicated a 6.2% increase in UK sales to £43.5m (£40.9m), while its European sales stood still at £2.4m, while its net cash position was down 3.8% at £17.0m (£17.6m).
At that time the group noted that the positive momentum seen in H1 25 had continued into H2 and that the Board remained confident that the group is trading in line with full-year consensus market expectations.
CEO Steve Crowe stated that:
“The progress made on expanding our UK footprint, alongside the roll out of our customer loyalty club, MyAD, and the associated growth of revenues in our existing UK stores and digital platforms, provides further confidence in achieving our medium-term UK revenue target of £100m.
In the UK, we have leveraged our balance sheet strength to accelerate our new store roll out programme, with the opening of two new stores and the acquisition of three businesses, increasing our UK customer reach.
In Europe, we are pleased to note the opening of our first store in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in May which continues to scale footfall and revenues.
We remain focused on delivering on our medium-term objectives as announced in the Final Results on 14 May 2024.
During H1 25 we executed further strategic and operational changes to deliver upon these and will provide further detail on this progress at the interim results on 8th October.”
The Equity
There are some 77.27m shares in issue.
The larger holders include Gresham House Asset Management (21.53%), BGF Investment Management (14.66%), Canaccord Genuity Wealth (8.74%), and Avellemy Ltd (4.43%).
Private holders of note include Martyn Page, Dir, (14.25%), William Hill (11.94%) and Richard Beaumont (3.87%).
Analyst Views
The current consensus market expectations for the year to end-January 2025 are for revenues of £88.4m and pre-IFRS 16 EBITDA of £3.15m.
Analyst Matthew McEachran at Singer Capital Markets currently has a Buy note out on the group, looking for 51p as his Price Objective.
His estimates for this year are for £89.0m (£81.7m) revenues, with adjusted pre-tax profits of £1.8m (£1.4m), lifting earnings to 1.8p (1.6p) per share.
For the coming year he sees £98.8m sales, £2.1m profits and 2.0p per share in earnings.
My View
Despite this group having some £I5m cash in the bank, set against its current £27.4m market capitalisation, I am somewhat reticent to make any predictions about where this group’s shares are headed – because the company and its investors have suffered so much previously.
However, I would like to hope that its Management has corrected its previous collapsing profitability.
Its shares, which peaked at 90p in May 2021, subsequently fell away to 24p, before picking back up to 45p just after Christmas last year, since when they have been as low as 33p.
Now at 35.5p they may well see another upward move on the back of more confident corporate news – possibly this coming Tuesday, who knows?
(Profile 29.10.19 @ 58p set a Target Price of 100p)
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