Volvere continues acquisition trail, plans for share buyback

Shares in turnaround investment firm Volvere soared as continues to seek investments in line with company strategy and plans to increase the level of share buybacks.

The group reported a £0.27m loss for the six months ended June 30th 2012 compared to a £0.92m profit the year before following its investment in Quizfactor.

Revenue increased to £6.88m from £4.67m for the half-year period while net assets per share grew to a new high of £3.71 a share in the first half of 2012.

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Commenting on the results, Chairman David Buchler explained: "The reduction in profitability was mainly due to the continuing investment in Quizfactor. The site is now operational and the amount of traffic is increasing through marketing and a number of partnering programs. I expect that we will see the first revenues for Quizfactor next year."

Volvere added that Shire Foods' performance was encouraging over the period. The group bought 80% of the frozen pie and pasty manufacturing business in July 2011.

Its online marketing and data services firm Interactive Prospect Targeting, of which it owns 45.5%, performed satisfactorily.

The security solutions business, Sira Defence and Security Limited was hit by weak order intake, particularly in the solutions development part of its business.

Looking ahead the group said it sees a number of good opportunities: "We estimate that the return to normalised economic growth in the UK is still 2-3 years away. As a result we continue to seek investment opportunities that have identifiable problems that we can fix but that are not dependent on general economic recovery."

Volvere said it has sold most of its treasury investments for good profit during the period and it has used some of the cash generated to increase the level of share buybacks.

"The level of our share price continues to be well below our net asset value per share which we believe does not reflect fairly the company's prospects. As a result we intend to write to shareholders shortly to seek approval for a renewal and extension of our share buyback authority," it said.

CJ