Five to buy
Ibstock
The Mail on Sunday A “lacklustre” housing market and tough trading have seen shares in Britain’s top brick-maker halve in three years. This year will be difficult, too, as housebuilders scale back construction. But on a medium-term view the outlook is brighter. Hit by inflation, Ibstock is delivering “chunky” cost cuts, while innovations to make low-carbon and lightweight bricks should help Ibstock maintain its leading market position. 144p
Costain Group
Interactive Investor Shares in this infrastructure contractor plunged by 90% between 2018 and March 2020 following a succession of delays and disappointments on key contracts. Operating margins remain razor-thin, but on a forward price/earnings (p/e) ratio of 6.3, many of the problems are in the price. The country needs to invest heavily in the energy grid and updating ailing water infrastructure, which implies steady demand for Costain. With big asset managers such as BlackRock taking an interest in infrastructure, the sector could be due a rerating. 72p
Safestore
Investors’ Chronicle Weakening property values have hit profits at this self-storage landlord and operator, but its underlying performance is encouraging. Underlying earnings rose by more than 5% for the year to 31 October as expansion and acquisitions brought in new customers.
Given the weak economic backdrop, a 3.7% dividend yield and 8% rise in net asset value (NAV) per share is impressive and seems to represent decent value. “Contrarian buy.” 811p
Seeing Machines
The Sunday Times Many “outlandish” claims are made about artificial intelligence (AI), but this aim-listed road-safety specialist might be one of the few able to deliver. The Australian group’s technology, already deployed in more than a million cars and tens of thousands of commercial vehicles worldwide, monitors drivers’ behaviour and alerts them if they start to show signs of fatigue. Regulation means such driver-monitoring systems are quickly becoming standard in new vehicles, so although still loss-making, the firm enjoys a substantial tailwind. 5.3p
Trustpilot
Shares Shares in this Danish consumers’ review platform have doubled in the past six months thanks to “repeated earnings upgrades” and a promising new CEO. There is competition from the likes of US rival Yelp, but with 167 million reviews and thousands of firms using Trustpilot for consumer-data analytics, it enjoys “valuable network benefits” and is finally putting “more muscle on mar
