A very honest company report

Company reports can often be a good place to start when looking for trading and investing opportunities, share price will often move, good or bad, depending on what is reported. This morning a very small company, Fiske gave its interim results and you don't always find this level of honesty. As it is a tidler the shares may not be that liquid anyway, which may be the reason why the price hasn't moved at all. With this statement you don't have to read between the lines.

Chairman's Statement

The only good thing I can say about the results for the half year ending 30th November 2012 is that the final figure is a plus, albeit a figure so small as to be insignificant. As I am sure shareholders are aware the period under review has been a particularly difficult time to make profits in our business. Basically we have broken even, a totally unacceptable outcome. I can assure you that we are taking steps to reduce costs by a target of 5% and equally to boost income of the same proportion.

It is true that most Stockbrokers have fallen on bad times, mostly because they relied heavily on corporate finance fees. We are not in that position as we regard corporate finance business as having a huge conflict of interest with advising private client funds.

The image of private client stockbrokers has been badly affected by recent events and we continue to stress our old fashioned emphasis on value for money and integrity. In that context it is important to accept that more activity can only be justified if it is in the client's best interest. This has affected our short term results, but we are confident that many interesting opportunities will arise and our clients will be in a position to take advantage of them.

In addition to our private client department, where we are, as always, in discussions to add to our advisors, we have a healthy institutional business. We have strengthened this side of the firm with a new unit, Baden Hill, which is establishing itself as a distinctive and expanding element in that area.

In view of the disappointing level of profit, we will only be paying a token interim dividend of ¼p per share.

http://www.digitallook.com/news/rns/20687900-24826/FKE-Interim_Results_html