19.12.2024
Following this morning’s Trading Update, we now know that the AIM listed independent specialist finance provider Time Finance (LON:TIME) has been doing better than the market has been expecting in its six months to end-November.
Following fourteen quarters of growth in its lending, the company has reported a record lending book, record first-half revenues and record Interim profits.
The Business
Time Finance helps UK businesses thrive and survive through the provision of flexible funding facilities.
It offers a multi-product range for SMEs concentrating on Asset, Loan and Invoice Finance.
While focussed on being an 'own-book' lender, the group does retain the ability to broke-on deals where appropriate, enabling it to optimise business levels through market and economic cycles.
At the start of October, the group announced that it had renewed and increased its back-to-back invoice finance funding facility with NatWest to £65m, with £55m fully committed and an additional £10m Accordian element.
Together with recently extended asset finance facilities, that were arranged with other long-standing and supportive funding partners the group considers that it is extremely well positioned to continue to fund its future growth plans with total funding facilities available of over £225m.
Latest Trading Update
This morning the group announced that its first-half revenues were up 16% to £18.2m (£15.7m), while its pre-tax profits were an impressive 44% better at £3.9m (£2.7m), with indications that its margins were 4% higher 21% (17%).
The group’s lending book was 11% up at a record £209.4m (£188.6m), while net arrears held steady at around 5% and with just a 1% net debt write-off.
The company reported that it was currently seeing a continuing positive trading momentum, which leads to expectations that its financial performance for the full year will be at least in line with the upgraded market guidance stated on Tuesday 12th November.
Management Comment
CEO Ed Rimmer stated that:
"The Board are very encouraged by the performance in the first half of the current financial year.
In line with our strategy, we have continued to increase the size of our lending book and, crucially, have done so without compromising on credit quality.
This is borne out by the stable nature of both our arrears and our write-offs.
This approach, combined with a renewed focus on margins, has led to significant increases in both revenues and profitability, both of which are record figures for the first half of a financial year.
We have real confidence that the Group is well placed to continue on this growth trajectory, building long-term value for our shareholders, and I look forward to updating our shareholders on our future strategy through to May 2028 in Q1 of 2025."
Strategic Plan
A key element of the Company's four-year strategic plan, from June 2021 to May 2025, was to increase the size of its lending book by primarily focussing on Invoice Finance and the 'Hard' subset of Asset Finance as they are, typically, both larger in average loan size and more secure.
Reflecting this focus, these core areas accounted for approximately 85% of new deal volume originated in H1 2024/25, and now make up approximately 77% of the total lending book as at 30th November.
This compares to their contribution of 51% of new deal volume origination and 52% of the total lending book at the start of the four-year strategic plan.
Analyst View
At Cavendish Capital Markets, analyst Andrew Renton’s current year to end-May 2025 estimates show revenues of £35.1m (£33.2m), with adjusted pre-tax profits of £7.5m (£6.0m) and boosting earnings to 6.1p (4.9p) per share.
For the next year to end-May 2026 he looks for £37.0m in revenue and £8.3m profits, generating 6.8p per share in earnings.
Confidently he has again reiterated his recently raised Price Objective of 112p for the group’s shares.
In My View
I have followed this company very closely since its float way back in 2006 when it was called 1pm, raising £1.3m on its AIM debut.
After a number of small finance sector acquisitions, it has subsequently grown into a very viable and commercially attractive business, that has massive upside in both profits and share price.
The quality of the ‘book’ has not been lessened as the company has continued to grow its lending book to record sizes and generating record revenues.
I continue to believe that a share price rise, to trade up from 58p to around the 80p level, should be an early possibility.
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