Published by Directorzone Markets Ltd on January 14, 2019, 9:00 am in News, Other
Thursday February 14th 2019
EndsThursday February 14th 2019
game developer – mochi ice cream
- footwear retailer –
AV equipment
Edinburgh :: London :: Leicester:: Richmond
Rockstar North £79.2m | Little Moons £4.5m | Shoe Zone £160.6m | Vitec £353.3m
News about 4 UK growth companies and/or accelerators + turnover in the GRID marketplace 6th - 12th January 2019:
ROCKSTAR NORTH: game developer – Edinburgh
Games developer Rockstar North’s best shot | Peter Evans, The Sunday Times. January 6 2019
DZ profile: Rockstar North Limited
Business: video game developer of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption video games
Launched: 1997
Location: Edinburgh
Financials: reported profit before tax of £8.3m in the year to March 31, up from £3.8m in the previous 12 months, on turnover that rose by 39% to £79.2m. The company paid a £15m dividend.
Investment: is ultimately owned by American games company TAKE TWO INTERACTIVE
News: Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 was released late last year, after the end of the company’s reporting period. It brought in about £560m worldwide on its opening weekend.
LITTLE MOONS: mochi ice cream - London
Great balls of ice cream proved a hit | Liam Kelly, The Sunday Times. January 6 2019
DZ profile: V&H; Limited (Little Moons)
Business: dessert maker selling their mochi ice cream — small balls of gelato wrapped in sticky rice dough — to restaurants including the Japanese chain YO! SUSHI, in HARRODS and SELFRIDGES, and in supermarkets such as WHOLE FOODS, WAITROSE and OCADO. The name was inspired by mochitsuki, the Japanese ceremony where the rice dough is made; tsuki translates as moon.
Launched: 2008
Location: Park Royal, northwest London
Founders: Howard, 33 and Vivien, 39 Wong
Staff: nearly 100 people
Financials: made pre-tax profits of £623,000 on sales of £4.5m in the year to last June
Investment: has never taken outside investment,
News: is looking for new space after growing too big for its factory
SHOE ZONE: footwear retailer - Leicester
Shoe Zone shares soar as retailer posts record profits | Jessica Clark, City A.M. 9 January 2019
DZ profile: Shoe Zone Plc
Business: value footwear retailer with a portfolio of over 500 stores. Sells over 20 million pairs of shoes per annum and, in 2013, the average retail price per pair of shoes was £9.77.
Launched: 1980
Location: Leicester, UK and the Republic of Ireland.
Founders: Brothers Michael and Christopher Smith purchased Bensonshoe in 1980.
Staff: 3,750. Chief executive Nick Davis
Financials: Key Fundamentals to 30-Sep-17; Revenue £157.8m; Pre-Tax £9.5m. Profit before tax increased 18.4 per cent to £11.3m and revenue 1.8 per cent to £160.6m last year. Cashflow grew by 7.2 per cent to £15m while the firm's balance sheet remains debt free. Digital revenue increased 19.9 per cent to £9.8m, contributing profits of £2.6m.
Investment: Quoted on AIM since May 2014
News: developed and launched new store equipment in-house, saving around £50,000 per refit and opened 19 out-of-town Big Box concept stores with a further 20 targeted this year.
VITEC: AV equipment - Richmond
UK supply-chain groups focus on growth opportunities | Michael Pooler, FT. January 11, 2019
DZ profile: The Vitec Group Plc.
Business: maker of audio and visual equipment for the television and film-making industries. Vitec is tapping into demand from so-called “independent content creators”, which produce audio-visual content outside of traditional TV studios.
Launched: Founded in 1910 as Vinten, its equipment played a role in the world’s first public television transmission tests by the BBC in 1936.
Location: Richmond
Financials: Pre-tax profit jumped 20 per cent to £19.7m in the six months ended June 30, as revenue increased 11.2 per cent to £183.3m. Key Fundamentals to 31-Dec-17 - Revenue £353.3m; Pre-Tax £27.4m
Investment: Quoted on LSE, Main Market since Dec 1972
News:
1. opened a new factory and headquarters in its hometown of Bury St Edmunds in the east of England last year.
2. a key objective for the company is to expand into the Asia-Pacific region to get closer to its customers.
3. …recently paid $55m to acquire AMIMON, a California-based company that designs and develops chipsets and modules for real-time wireless video transmission. Management said the deal would enable expansion into the on-location sports and news market.
