Upgrade to forecast is latest show of foresight
Foresight Group delivered a bullish upgrade yesterday, with Bernard Fairman, its executive chairman, hailing an “outstanding year” for the renewables-focused investment manager, achieving “exceptional results against a challenging market backdrop”.
The announcement was warmly welcomed by investors, who drove up its share price by nearly 10 per cent after it said its revenues were set to be “significantly up on the prior year” and would beat City forecasts.
Analysts had already been predicting revenues of £116.6 million for the year to the end of March, up from £86.1 million last year.
Foresight said it was strengthening its guidance for earnings before interest, tax and other charges to the top end of its previous range. It said assets under management had risen by 37 per cent to £12.2 billion, while funds under management had risen by 34 per cent to £9 billion, well in excess of its targets.
The business was founded in 1984 by Fairman, 73, and was floated in February 2021 in an initial public offering that netted its boss almost £100 million. However, despite the growth in Foresight’s business since the listing and yesterday’s share price rise of 35p, or 9.2 per cent, to 416p, the stock remains below its IPO prioce of at 420p.
Fairman, who remains Foresight’s biggest shareholder with a 30 per cent stake, said in December — when its shares were changing hands for about 385p — that the business could be taken private again unless its valuation improved from that “ridiculous” level, which he said was about half what it should be. “Either the price will go up and we’ll stay on the market, or we’ll get bought at a sensible price, or we’ll go private again,” he said.
Fairman said yesterday that the outlook for the coming year was “very positive”. The company said it had a “strong pipeline of organic fundraising scheduled for 2024” and reiterated its target of increasing assets under management by 20 per cent to 25 per cent per annum on a rolling three-year average basis.
