Mattioli Woods (MW) has reported a solid set of interims in challenging market conditions and its Management maintains a confident outlook. They have backed this up by increasing the interim dividend 6% from 8.3p to 8.8p
Total client assets closed H1 on £14.6bn, a 3.2% fall y-o-y (£15.1bn on 30 Nov 21): a creditable performance considering huge market and economic uncertainty prevailed. Revenue increased 10% y-o-y from £49.9m in H1 22 to £54.9m in in H1-23, with organic revenue growing 2.2%. Adjusted EBITDA fell from £15.8m to £15.0m on a higher cost base, but PBT increased 46% from £3.3m to £4.8m, while basic EPS jumped 69% from 3.5p to 5.9p
Our revenue forecasts have been trimmed by around 3%, but management have indicated that cost reductions, mostly variable staff pay, should result in the group delivering profits roughly in line with previous forecasts. Encouragingly, MW’s net cash position remained robust at £38.3m and it has no debt.
We keep our fundamental valuation at 950p per share (more than 50% above the current share price), using a DCF methodology with conservative assumptions. In addition, MW’s PER of 12.9 (using adj. PAT) is currently well below a peer group median of 17.8
