Date: Thursday 23 May 2013
LONDON (ShareCast) - At a 33 per cent premium to their net asset value one could be forgiven for worrying that shares of Great Portland Estates are considerably overvalued. After all, that was the valuation reached just before the Great Bubble burst, with an all too familiar ending. Further, the company is essentially a big bet that the London office market will continue to thrive in the long-term. Having said that, the current Chief Executive has 'called the market' correctly before and in the last downturn the company bought land on the cheap. Significantly, 81 per cent of the firm´s assets are in the West End and not just in London. This area has not seen the sort of rental growth witnessed during the early Noughties. Even so, there is no harm in taking some profits on shares that have outperformed, says The Times´s Tempus.
Some brokers have moderated their pessimism towards outsourcing giant Capita in the last few days, raising their recommendations on the shares to 'hold' versus 'sell' before. That follows the company´s deal this week with telecoms group O2 for customer service operations which is worth £1.2bn over 10 years. Indeed, Capita has secured about half of all public sector awards by value over the past 12 months and it has now augmented this with a major private sector win. Significantly, the firm only recently entered the customer relationship management space. The shares are trading on a 2013 multiple of 17.9, falling to 16.3, which is by no means cheap. The prospective yield is 2.5%, rising to 2.8%. However, with top-line growth now accelerating, The Daily Telegraph´s Questor team keeps a hold recommendation.
Primary Health Properties has gone back into the market to raise fresh funds to buy more properties. It is raising £60m, or possibly more, but almost two thirds is being earmarked for retail investors, the company having launched a retail bond of a similar size. The price is a reasonable 315p a share, against a closing price of 323¾p yesterday; the shares yield approaching 6%.
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