Welcome to our new product “Friday Takeaway”
This will delve a little deeper on individual companies and focus on non-house stocks under £200m market capitalisation to help raise awareness
We wish our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New 2025!
| Index | Thursday 12 December Close | Week’s Change |
| FTSE 100 | 8,311.76 | +0.12% |
| FTSE Small Cap | 6,928.16 | +0.15% |
| AIM All Share | 737.56 | +0.00% |
Alphabetically arranged
Share prices and market capitalisations taken from the current price on the
day of publication
BBSN.L Big opportunities knock
RUA.L Abiss a very going concern
Brave Bison 2.28p £28.74m (BBSN.L)
| Price | Results | Largest Shareholders | Value |
| 2.2-2.23p | Y/E December | Lord Michael Ashcroft 24.68% | Media Advertising |
| Spread: 2.73% | Report April | Oliver and Theodore Green 19.5% | Recent acquisition |
| 52 week High/Low: 2.9/ 1.85 p | Report Interims September | James Russell DeLeon 7.55% | Net Cash |
| Slater Investments 4.66% | Modest rating | ||
| River Merchant Capital 4.40% | Buy and build |
Source: Alpha Terminal
A very acquisitive and ambitious social media Company with four divisions on a mission to be a market-leading digital advertising and technology services provider. It’s a big space and BBSN is supported by 25% shareholder Lord Ashcroft, and Oliver Green, the CEO with 19.5% and part of a family with a deep heritage in the media sector.
Its Social Chain division is working with ‘social influencers’ creating and distributing ‘compelling’ content to attract viewers. The Performance division plans media campaigns on platforms such as Google, Meta, TikTok, Amazon and Youtube. Brave Bison Commerce creates, improves and maintains transactional websites and recently signed a contract with a Finnish homeware retailer worth c.£1m over two years. Bison Media Network is a channel consultancy for sports and entertainment and recently expanded with an acquisition.
Engage was acquired for £10.6m, made up of an initial £2.1m cash and £2.0m in shares and a three-year contingent consideration of up to £6.5m. Engage is a global sports marketing company working with large sports brands and federations including Formula 1, ICC, Real Madrid and New Zealand Rugby. Its pro-forma Y/E Dec 24 turnover is expected to be £6.9m with an EBITDA loss of £0.3m. The combined and streamlined group data driven approach should help sporting rights holders and sports federations clients to maximise their IP, boost fan engagement and drive commercial performance.
Trading for H2 2024 is reported to be inline with expectations for an Adjusted EBIT of around £3.6m in Y/E December 2024. The Company may have been partly distracted by the unsuccessful hostile bid for the listed Mission Group. After the Engage acquisition, net cash is circa £4.7m, leaving sufficient working capital with perhaps room for smaller acquisitions.
Comment: Organic growth should start supplementing acquisitive growth and an EBITDA/EV of c.6x seems modest.
RUA Life Sciences 11.25p £7.14m (RUA.L)
| Price | Results | Largest Shareholders | Value |
| 11-12p | Y/E September | Dowgate Capital 12.25% | Strategy Traction |
| Spread: 9.1% | Report June | Hargreaves Lansdown 10.84% | Interim growth |
| 52 week High/Low: 15/ 8.65p | Report Interims January | Interactive Investor 7.68% Rathbones 6.52% | Astute Acquisition |
| Mr Clive Titcomb 6.49% | £3.8 cash to profitability | ||
| AJ Bell Stockbrokers 6.15% |
Source: Alpha Terminal
RUA Life Sciences’ development strategy was recentred last year on two key deliverables: leveraging its IP and advancing subcontract manufacturing specialist medical devices and components. It raised £4m at 11p, in November 2023 to achieve profitability by commercialising and reducing R&D costs and expanding contract manufacturing. The astute Abiss acquisition in early September doubled manufacturing capacity and the interims showed reduced costs.
The Interims to end September 2024 reported a 92% increase in revenue to £1.5m, although the previous year had been adversely impacted by supply line issues. The GP margin increased from 78% to 83% and the reported profits are £631k, or a loss of £425k after deducting the £1m profit from the acquisition’s assets, which has been included. It is anyway a significant improvement from the comparative year’s £1.3m loss and reflects a 16% reduction in administration costs.
There are four business units with RUA: Contract medical device manufacturing the largest with sales increasing 116% to £1.2m. RUA Biomaterials are materials implanted in a body such as to repair hernias, its revenue increased 19% to £238k. The RUA Vascular and RUA Structural Heart units are pre-revenue but seeking licensing deals. The Company is internally developing Elast-Eon polymers which are now widely accepted as being the most biostable of all polyurethane materials and as such are being used in long term implantation. Elast-Eon polymers will enable the next generation of cardiovascular medical devices. The development strategy is focused on licensing or commercialising the existing IP, within budget, to accelerate cash generation.
In September 2024, Abiss Group, a medical device manufacturer based in France, was acquired for just £68k from the parent company’s administrators. It was introduced to RUA by a client keen to ensure continuity of supply. It will be merged into RUA’s Medical Devices and Components business unit and double its scale with opportunities for further growth. Abiss has a market position in Stress Urinary Incontinence and pelvic floor repair which could use Elast-Econ polymers. Abiss seems a bargain buy as it was acquired with some recoverable debt and an Euro 900k order backlog which is being delivered. A very going concern!
The Financial Y/E is being changed to September to suit the deal, so the next report will be unaudited second interims or the 12 months to March 2025, which are likely to be in June. These should show operating at break-even and with the windfall going concern asset revaluation c. £2m. The net cash is £3.8m which should achieve sustainable profitability with room for further selective acquisitions.
Comment: The interims and acquisition progress shows that the bigger risk could be missing the upside.
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