Intoxicating development | Anything left for shareholders? | Selling the silver
News covered here includes our assessment of results from a heavily indebted flooring group where debt holders appear to have the upper hand; we consider whether there will be anything left for shareholders of the listed company. Elsewhere, one of AIM’s corporate undertakers looks well-placed to benefit from rising demand for its restructuring services following the recent 2025 Autumn Budget and one of our Bonkers Bargains continues to impress. Read on here for our thoughts on this and other news.
Victoria: is there anything left for shareholders? The headline comments accompanying half year results from flooring manufacturer Victoria (AIM:VCP), refer to “a resilient performance characterised by strict cost discipline and significant margin expansion.” Conversely, the facts point to a 7% decline in revenue, 13% increase in the adjusted pre-tax loss to £15.4m and a statutory net loss of a whopping £139.4m. More significantly, a free cash outflow of £40.8m (HY 2024: Outflow £24m), which included £17m of refinancing costs, saw period end net debt climb to a staggering £1 billion. Unfortunately, even this figure excludes another £286m of Preferred equity…