Stocks round-up: Novacyt, Safestore, Blue Prism, Berkeley Energia

A Covid winner, old favourites and star stocks feature in today’s analysis, plus a 330% gain for one.

Novacyt (LSE:NCYT) and Safestore (LSE:SAFE) re-energised their faltering share prices today during a mixed session for followers of AIM-listed ten-baggers, and other high-flyers past and present.

The latest round of updates brought disappointment for holders of shares in advertising technology business Tremor International (LSE:TRMR) - known as Taptica until last year - and robotic software provider Blue Prism, which fell 8% after half-year results.

But there were further gains for Berkeley Energia (LSE:BKY), despite the company behind a uranium mining project in Spain seeing no reason for its shares soaring 70% this week alone.

Novacyt (LSE:NCYT) has been the hottest stock on AIM during the junior market's 25th year, with the company's success in developing Covid-19 testing tools propelling it from relative obscurity to the top 10 list of most-popular shares on the interactive investor platform.

The shares peaked at 529p on 16 April, meaning investors who bought back in late January when Novacyt first disclosed its testing progress would have been sitting on a profit of more than 3,000%. More recent buyers, however, have been left disappointed as the stock slipped back to just above the 200p mark at the start of this week.

They've recovered a little since then and were up as much as 15% to 276p today after Novacyt disclosed the launch of three new products to support laboratories testing for Covid-19. They include one for use by labs involved in performing high volumes of tests.

Source: TradingView. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

The recent share price decline comes amid signs the coronavirus is losing its potency in many European countries, as well as the possibility a vaccine will reduce demand for such tests.

In the meantime, the low capital intensity of its manufacturing process means Novacyt is generating significant levels of cash. It is also reaping benefits from having a much bigger base of global customers for its wider portfolio of diagnostic products.

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Safestore boasts an impressive track record of share price growth dating back six years, with the recent market sell-off the first serious setback for followers of this FTSE 250 index-listed stock.

The self-storage provider dropped 42% from the record highs seen at the start of the year to as low as 501p in mid-March, although some recent reassurance for income investors has meant it is back trading at 754p.

The company paid a dividend of 12p a share worth £25.3 million in April, while today's interim results revealed an increase in the half-year payment of 7.3% to 5.9p a share. It also pointed out it was capable of generating free cash after dividends sufficient to fund the building of two to three new stores per year depending on location and availability of land.

CEO Frederic Vecchioli said:

"We believe the resilient characteristics of the self-storage industry, together with our leading market positions across the UK and Paris, place the business in a strong position to withstand the economic uncertainty arising from Covid-19.”

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Blue Prism (LSE:PRSM), which is among the top 20 biggest stocks on AIM with a market cap of more than £1 billion, saw its shares slip 7% to 1,152p after reporting a wider half-year loss of £41.4 million.

Revenues still jumped 70% to £68.5 million for the six months to 30 April, despite headwinds from the pandemic as customers of its automation software have focused on business continuity, with inevitable consequences for deal sizes and conversion rates.

Blue Prism recorded 1,864 customers at the end of the period, an increase of 39% on a year earlier and a useful base for the longer-term retention and upselling of additional products. Its software for remote and distributed ways of working should also make Blue Prism a potential future beneficiary of the pandemic.

It now boasts significant balance sheet strength after raising a further £100 million in a placing at 1,100p a share in April - 15 months after generating £100 million at the same share price. Operating cash outflows have reduced from the second half of last year and the company is sticking by forecasts it will be cash break-even by next year.

The former AIM ten-bagger, which has yet to make a profit, saw its shares peak at 2,375p in September 2018.

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Tremor International (LSE:TRMR) was created in April 2019 through the merger of Taptica - AIM's International Company of the Year in 2017 - and RhythmOne, which will be better known to many investors as digital advertising firm Blinkx.

Tremor works with more than 450 advertisers including Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Disney (NYSE:DIS), Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), OpenTable, Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE), and Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), as well as more than 50,000 supply and publishing partners worldwide.

Shares in the new entity peaked at 216p in January after it struck a deal to buy video marketplace technology firm Unruly from media giant NewsCorp. Under the terms of the deal, Tremor gained the exclusive rights to sell outstream video on more than 50 NewsCorp titles in the UK, US and Australia in return for giving NewsCorp a 6.91% stake in the company.

The deal was struck just as the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the cutting of advertising budgets across all platforms, particularly the travel, hospitality, automotive and retail verticals.

Tremor said today that first-half revenues of between US$131-135 million will be 27-29% lower than expected, with an adjusted EBITDA loss in the region of $3-6 million. However, it has been encouraged by signs of recovery in May with further improvement evident this month.

Despite its optimism, shares fell 4% to 140p as Tremor said it was still too early to give financial guidance for 2020.

Berkeley Energia, meanwhile, continues to attract buying interest after surging by 330% since April and by more than 70% this week alone. 

Source: TradingView. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

The company, which is currently working on the approvals needed to commence construction of the Salamanca mine and bring it into production, said it was not aware of any material information.

Berkeley, also listed in Spain and Australia, was a star stock in 2016 when it more than doubled in value. Shares today rose another 1% to 27p.