This is a quality stock.
Just starting a thread - I'll post more very shortly.

K******

StockMarketWire.com
Severfield has swung to a FY pretax profit of £9.6m, from a year-ago loss of £191,000, as revenue firmed appreciably to £239.4m, from £201.5m.

The structural steel group proposed a final dividend of 1p a share, taking the total to 1.5p, which Severfield said reflected its current performance and confidence in future prospects.

"Our increased profitability is as a result of our focus on operational improvements and efficiencies over the last three years," said CEO Ian Lawson.

"With the strength of the platform from which the group now operates and the opportunity for further margin improvement, our target is now to double our underlying profit before tax over the next four years," he added in a statement.

"With the current UK order book at its highest level for over six years and a continued stable market environment, the Group is well placed to continue delivering against its near-term financial targets whilst continuing to build for the longer term.

"Overall the outlook remains encouragingly positive."

StockMarketWire.com
Severfield, a structural steel group, has been awarded a contract on the new Google headquarters in King's Cross, London.

Severfield will provide 15,900 tonnes of structural steelwork services for the new 11-storey building with the work scheduled to commence on site in June 2018.

Alan Dunsmore, acting chief executive officer, Severfield plc, said: "This contract win adds to our recently announced strong order book of £245m and supports Severfield's position as the market leader with unrivalled design, fabrication and construction capabilities."

StockMarketWire.com
Structural steel specialist Severfield said its UK order book had fallen in value since June, though its Indian order book had grown.

The UK order book at 1 September was £210m, compared to £237m on 1 June, but remained in line with normal order book levels, the company said.

'The order book reflects a higher proportion of smaller projects, particularly in the industrial and distribution sector, which typically have shorter lead times,' it added.

'Our pipeline of potential future orders has remained stable with a good balance of work across all key market sectors.'

In India, the order book at 1 September was worth 128m, up from £106m at 1 June.

The company said the strong Indian performance had prompted it to agree to a factory capacity expansion with its joint venture partner there.

The expansion would be financed by a combination of equity of around £8m, provided in equal cash amounts of £4m by the group and partner JSW, and debt of around £8m, provided directly by Indian lenders.

'The group's trading performance and financial position remains in line with management expectations and the outlook for the year ending 31 March 2019 remains unchanged,' Severfield said.

'Following the higher profit from certain project completions in first half of the prior year, we expect the profits in the first and second half of the current year to be more equally weighted.'

I have a decent stake in SFR. UK order book looks a little disappointing to me.

On the other hand the Indian order book sounds almost tantalising... " a number of higher margin commercial projects"..


The Indian order book has increased again to GBP128m at 1 September (1 June: GBP106m). With this record order book, and a growing level of new opportunities, which includes a number of interesting higher margin commercial projects, the Indian business ('JSSL') is well positioned to take advantage of a market for structural steel in India which continues to improve.

I like this stock as the growth potential in India is huge, the order book is now large enough to give good economies of scale and they seem to be getting a grip on margins. The market doesn't seem that bothered though about the India story and how fast the volume is growing there.

This is one of the dogs I hold my portfolio.

Was about £15 in 2007, but I hope one learns from mistakes.

Grrrr.

Upgraded by Peel to 100p today if that helps Fred.

I'm in at 69p from 2015, so it's not exactly done much for me either given the dividend yield was zero when I bought it. Dividend yield now up to 5.6% on premise the special continues, which I think it will as the balance sheet is very strong.

I was feeling much better a few weeks ago when it hit 88p, 3.4p dividend since then but a pullback to 77p seems overdone to me especially as SFR have continued to re-iterate full year guidance.

I'm happy to hold, churn the dividend and watch India play out. It seems a good option given the Brexit anxiety.

The "Indian" connection may be useful.

W/see.