Ann: Half Year Report to Shareholders, page-8

Particularly pleasing export growth (31% vs last Dec half) so sales growth which has been great anyway may accelerate from here?

I was interested in the increase in stock and whether it represented excess inventory so I had a look at stock vs revenue for the past 6 quarters.  Stock sits at 49% of sales ($32.6m stock vs $67m sales) for the current half year.  It has been between 29% and 37% for the past 4 quarters, but 5 quarters ago, at June 13, was at 48% ($18.3m stock vs $38.3m sales).  Given the growth, the stock looks more like an opportunity for accelerated growth than a problem to me.

(Source: Half year and annual reports). Subject to typos, here are the figures:

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4
1		$m	$m
2		Stock	Half year Revenue	stock/revenue
3	Jun-13	18.3	38.3	48%
4	Dec-13	14.1	43.2	33%
5	Jun-14	13.7	42.8	32%
6	Dec-14	16.6	57.9	29%
7	Jun-15	23.3	63.0	37%
8	Dec-15	32.6	67.0	49%

Whilst debt has increased in the half year (to fund the acquisition), so has net assets, so overall gearing is about the same.

Not sure how the figures could be better although I don't know what the analysts were expecting. The PE looks low at 16.9 for a growth stock (rough calc based on calendar 15 so don't quote me on this figure), but in this market who knows what will happen on Monday.