Numis sees tangible commercial progress at Allied Minds, upgrades it to 'buy'

Analysts at Numis upgraded their rating on intellectual property group Allied Minds on Thursday, highlighting the fact that the 15% drop in its net asset value per share over the last year was merely the result of a "further clean-up in the portfolio".

However, at the same time as choosing to upgrade their recommendation for the shares firm to 'buy' from 'add', Numis dropped its target price on Allied Minds to 168p from its previous figure of 187p on the back of the weaker US dollar.

"The NAV per share at Dec-17 is in-line with expectations at 200c/143p, down 15% from Dec-16 driven by a further clean-up in the portfolio. Management objectives for 2018 target tangible commercial progress across the top six companies, which now represent 95% of the portfolio value," wrote Nick James and Sally Taylor of Numis.

The analysts pointed to the ongoing Series B financing process at Spin Transfer, which they said was sufficiently capitalised to bridge the gap through to completion of the round, as well as its targeting of commercial revenue at Federated Wireless and HawkEye and the addition of two or more customer agreements at BridgeSat, as evidence of management now eyeing "tangible commercial progress" across Allied Minds' top six companies, which together represent 95% of its entire portfolio value.