Shares: Hyder Consulting up 32%, Mouchel 39% down

Hyder Consulting

Hyder Consulting enjoyed a 32% surge in its share price thanks entirely to the knock-on effect of its results announced on 8 June. In brief - they were rosy.

Jeremy Browne, analyst at stockbroker Fairfax, says the actions by new chief executive Ivor Catto, previously managing director of WS Atkins’s design and engineering solutions division, is enforcing internal changes to improve profitability.

As a result, bonus schemes for all managers will be based solely on profit achieved in their sector/region – and even then the rewards will only flow if the cash conversion is acceptable.

A few new management changes have been brushed in: Kevin Jones becomes md of Australia while Wael Allen, an ex-Skanska face, arrives as md of Middle East, a bonus being that Wael speaks Arabic.

Hyder shares have been trading at around 140p. Francesca Raleigh, analyst at Numis, anticipates a target of 189p while Michael Parkinson at Brewin Dolphin has a 12-month target figure of 170p.

Mouchel

Mouchel put out a disappointing trading update on 18 June and its share price promptly dived. All in all, they fell by 39% in the latest rolling four-week period.

Mouchel’s issues are weak markets in both its rail and its Dubai operations. One analyst has dropped his anticipated 2009 pre-tax profit figure from £47m to £40m and taken an even bigger slice out of his 2010 projected profit figure, trimming it back from £51m to £40m.

Andrews Sykes

Andrews Sykes’ share price rocketed by almost a half in June for next to no reason. That tends to happen whenever when one individual holds 86% of the total shares (like in this case) leaving everyone else to squabble for the rest. In city parlance, AS’s shares are “illiquid”.

And things are not going to get any easier in that respect because the board is pushing shareholders to give them power to purchase up to 13% of the ordinary shares in issue.

Which rather begs the question – why do they want to be on the Stock Exchange at all?