MARKET WATCH: Hulamin; Esor and Trenco
Perhaps Hennie Van der Merwe can accelerate a restructuring exercise that will unlock value for shareholders in Trencor
Reason to hope? I can imagine the collective sigh of relief early on Monday morning when many of my small cap correspondents spied the trading update from aluminium specialist Hulamin.Considering the uneven profit performances from Hulamin over the past few years, shareholders might be forgiven for tempering earnings expectations – even after a sprightly interim showing. The trading statement — underpinned by record volumes of 214,000t as well as strong improvements in yields and recoveries – estimates headline earnings to come in between 114c/share and 121c/share for the year to end-December. That suggests a markedly better second-half performance, with stronger cash flows likely to reduce debt — and hopefully ensure that Hulamin commits to a fairly generous dividend policy. In fact, the nature of the year-end dividend declaration will be most revealing about what Hulamin executives expect for financial 2017.A three-times cover has been bandied about previously, which would mean pe...
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