unheralded capital asset - TOUCH GROUP

a few buys comnig in at 1.45p last few days... could see a nice tick up on only a few buys

Could do well from the Japanese Disaster as the company has a lot of medical publications on the effects of nuclear contamination and also publications on the nuclear power industry.

the website quotes the company as "an international business-to-business publisher providing cutting-edge information that specialises in meeting the needs and requirements of the pharmaceutical and medical communities in both digital media and print. We also focus on the energy industry, covering nuclear power, renewable energy sources, gas and oil"

www.touchbriefings.com

I had posted a decent-length reply to this but your post got pulled earlier by the time I sent it. Perhaps the moderators could help me out here.

Essentially, for a company who specialise in "medical journals", none which I have heard of, I was (un)surprised to see that none of their journals feature in the Journal Citation Reports of Thomson Reuters (who bought over Institute of Science Information in 1992). Not only are they low impact factors but they seem to have NO impact factor - nobody will want to publish in them and nobody will want to read them.

I'm not sure why the Japanese situtation will be the catalyst for everyone to sack all their well respected journals and read Touch Group publications that they had previously never heard of. Indeed, I don't think the situation in Japan is going to make me alter my journal reading behaviour in any way whatsoever.

Furthermore, for a publishing group their annual report is fairly straightfoward. It appears to have been conjured it MS Word, printed out and scanned on to their website. It is fine...but it's not what I'd expect from a group which makes digital content as their bread and butter.

I think it appropriate to also draw your attention to an unheralded capital asset embedded in our Company in the form of our portfolio of branded medical journals which have been established over the years.

We produce in total 62 journals, 44 of these have been produced for over three years. Taking just these 44, the average period that they have been in production is over six years. The total "averaged" annual revenue figure for these 44 journals is in excess of £2.7m. In addition, we are generating reprint revenue from these journals which this year alone will be in excess of £750,000.

CEO statement.

i think the market cap is way low. they are growing and have also expanded.

the placing on 17th feb also gives them money to expand even more

Vincent Isaacs, Executive Chairman of Touch, stated:



The time required to build and develop a complex business such as Touch Group plc was under-estimated. However, our major shareholders have recognised this fact and have supported our development over the past three years unstintingly.



From the basis of a now stable infrastructure, the main assets we have built are an intellectual sales force and technical teams, coupled with a wholly owned world-class library of journals, medical and energy papers, both online and in print. None of these assets are reflected on our balance sheet.



The Placing which has just been completed will enable us to provide further technical resource for our sales force and technical teams, bringing forward anticipated benefits.

jseth.

maybe you have not read the articles/publications but they are by others in the profession. They now have a licensing agreement with doctors.net.uk, which enhances the publications distribution and availabilitly for people working in the healthcare sector. They are working hard to grow the product and because the digital era is making this cheaper then their margins are growing.

Stuart Winship, CEO of Touch Briefings, said: "Whilst it is difficult to quantify the expected revenue from this agreement, it meets many of our strategic objectives around the widest possible dissemination of our rich content to a highly targeted audience. There is no other organisation in the UK that is so actively engaged with medical professionals as Doctors.net.uk and we are delighted to have teamed up with them."



http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail.html?announcementId=10699530


Also they are improving on a disappointing 2009

Highlights



· Turnover down 6% £2,689,000 (£2,870,000)

· Trading loss* reduced by 31% £471,000 (£686,000)

· Operating loss reduced by 49% £471,000 (£916,000)

· Gross Margins increased to 54.7% (44.5%)

· Orders Carried Forward up 10% £2,543,000 (£2,319,000)

· Continued focus on a balanced range of revenue streams


Also the CEO sounds pretty positiive in the Interim Statement

Stuart Winship, our CEO, and his managers are fully credited with building a team that is becoming acknowledged and recognised as a "knowledge provider" to the pharmaceutical industry. Our targeted areas of Medical Communications, Online, Medical Content Research, for the Pharmaceutical Device and Diagnostic Industries are gathering momentum. The focus on improving margins is beginning to show results. Gross margins improved to 54.7% due to a combination of increased digital distribution of the journals and greater online margins. Our bespoke medical communications product, which is a highly tailored set of core solutions in four key areas that include Medical Publications, Education Materials, Medical Publishing and Online Solutions, generates high gross and operating margin. Further, repeat business is making an increasingly important contribution to our turnover figure, and we expect this to continue going forward. We are working hard to increase volume.



We are going forward with an increasing pipeline of high value and strategic opportunities which are starting to be fulfilled. This includes the expansion of the R&D Pharma Publications and Digital offerings. Whilst our portfolio of online sites currently stands at 8, it is intended that this will be extended as quickly as we can to cover all the major 'ologies, thereby providing a comprehensive range. We are confident we have the right products, reinforced by positive feedback from our customers, but market outlook remains difficult so management focus will also be on conserving cash and maintaining tight control over costs.



The value of building our digital archive library is starting to pay off. Last financial year we sold £630,000 of reprints both in print and on line from our archive library. This year we should achieve nearly one million in revenue. The margins of this business are high because commissioning costs were met when content was originated.


They are starting to build revenues and with the placing they now have stability to do this with a bigger workforce.

I just feel the company is very undervalued at £2.5-£3m when you think how much the midical database/journals are worth alone, let alone the business that is already buit up