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news Shareleague Thames Valley presented by in association with


Three Oxford companies were among the region’s leaders when it came to share price rises in January, with Oxford BioMedica – a leading gene and cell therapy group – headlining with a 23% increase.


It has just been awarded a £3 miilion grant by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, to support home efforts in producing viral vectors.


Among the smaller quoted companies Oxford Metrics, which provides analytics software for infrastructure asset management and motion measurement, saw a 12% rise. Recent work includes creating a temporary stage inside Pinewood Studios for work on the Oscar-nominated film Star Wars: The Last Jedi.


A third high-riser was Oxford Technology, whose 2 VCT fund showed a 22% increase. after recently scheduling an 8p dividend for February.


Star performer of the month was Sopheon, which has its UK base near Lightwater, Surrey. The group, which for 15 years has been supporting innovation management solutions including software, saw its shares jump an amazing 56%.


Sopheon announced solid growth in 2017 with revenues expected to rise from $23m in 2016 to over $28m last year. The final quarter performance included signing substantial deals in the USA and Germany.


Large (over £1 billion) Closing price


ULTRA ELECTRONICS HDG. ASHTEAD GROUP SPECTRIS SKY


FERGUSON GENUS


VODAFONE GROUP RWS HOLDINGS SHIRE


MICRO FOCUS INTL.


31/12/2017 1,347.0 1,992.0 2,487.0 1,012.0 5,330.0 2,531.0 235.0 461.3


3,900.0 2,523.0


Closing price 31/01/2018 1,526.0 2,105.0 2,609.0 1,059.0 5,436.0 2,420.0 224.6 427.5


3,327.5 2,150.0


Medium (£250 million to £1 billion) Closing price


OXFORD BIOMEDICA


ACCESSO TECHNOLOGY GROUP OXFORD INSTRUMENTS RPS GROUP SDL


FIDESSA GROUP MICROGEN


SERCO GROUP GALLIFORD TRY MCBRIDE


31/12/2017 8.9


1,962.5 851.0 272.3 439.0


2,531.0 467.5 98.9


1,286.0 230.5


SOPHEON INTERSERVE


OXFORD METRICS MCKAY SECURITIES LATHAM(JAMES)


MICHELMERSH BRICK HDG. LOK’N STORE GROUP ANGLE ECKOH


SINCLAIR PHARMA


31/12/2017 360.0 95.5 58.3


240.0 790.0 91.5


425.0 55.5 45.5 26.1


Sub £50 million Closing price


BEZANT RESOURCES


JOHN LEWIS OF HUNGERFORD OXFORD TECHNOLOGY 2 VCT FUTURA MEDICAL DEWHURST VERNALIS


IMMEDIA GROUP GOTECH GROUP STARVEST


MILESTONE GROUP


31/12/2017 0.4 0.9


22.5 29.8


755.0 8.7


27.5 0.5 3.9 0.4


Closing price 31/01/2018 10.9


2,240.0 920.0 291.5 457.0


2,355.0 422.5 88.7


1,092.0 178.0


Small (£50 million to £250 million) Closing price


Closing price 31/01/2018 563.0 106.8 65.0


245.0 787.5 85.5


395.0 50.0 40.8 22.9


Closing price 31/01/2018 0.5 1.1


27.5 33.5


842.5 7.2


22.5 0.4 3.0 0.3


Change in share price 13% 6% 5% 5% 2%


-4% -4% -7%


-15% -15%


Change in share price 23% 14% 8% 7% 4%


-7%


-10% -10% -15% -23%


Change in share price 56% 12% 12% 2% 0%


-7% -7%


-10% -10% -13%


Change in share price 26% 24% 22% 13% 12% -18% -18% -22% -23% -24%


Business advisory and chartered accountancy firm Haines Watts has released the latest in its on-going study into the issues affecting UK SMEs and their owners


The latest study explores the struggle business owners face to unify senior teams effectively behind the complexities of their own business strategies and reveals that the price of failing to do so is a lack of co-ordination, siloed teams and unfulfilled growth ambitions.


Barry Potter, partner, explained: “More than one in three (33%) business owners in the South East fear that their management team will cause them to hit a growth ceiling. Their concerns are legitimate – almost half (47%) of local management teams have never helped grow a business prior to the one they now work in.”


Business owners and the teams that support them have to work hard to put the planning and communication in place that can overcome the challenge of experience and unleash their businesses’ growth potential. According to research conducted among 500 UK SMEs by top 15 chartered accountants Haines Watts, there are several obstacles to overcome:


Poor planning


Nearly nine in 10 of South East business owners (89%) are only able to spend between 1-10% of their working week planning for the future. In contrast, business owners who are able to step back and focus predominantly on planning are more than twice as likely to run fast-growth businesses (annual growth greater than 15%). Despite that, these strategic leaders only constitute 9% of business owners nationally.


On the other hand, SMEs with low growth (less than 5%) are less likely to have a full strategic plan and are more likely to describe their business plan as nothing more than a financial forecast for


8 businessmag.co.uk


the bank – true for more than half (53%) of low-growth SMEs in the UK.


Failure to communicate


Despite almost half of business owners lacking trust in their management teams, the teams themselves don’t realise that trust isn’t there. Four fifths (88%) of South East senior managers believe they fully understand the business owner’s goals and similar numbers (85%) hold the often false belief they would be trusted to run the business even in the owner’s absence.


Perhaps most worryingly of all, more than half of South East business owners (51%) find themselves hiding their concerns from their teams because they are worried about showing vulnerability.


Lack of support


Even among business owners across the whole country who have a full formal management team, only just over half (60%) believe that they have the full support of that team. But only just under a quarter of senior managers in the South East (23%) are actively aware that they have a divergent vision of the business’s future to the owner.


The perceived lack of support is so stark that two out of every five (44%) SME owners in the South East believe that their business couldn’t survive more than a single week without them at the helm.


Jane Wills, partner, summarises the situation: “For SMEs, which are often considered the engine room of the UK economy, the impact of this trend can be damning. Responsibility falls on business owners to provide senior managers with a unifying vision for the future of the business, and the freedom to deliver it.”


For further information about the Haines Watts Group: hwca.com/for-love-or-money/


Management teams a barrier to growth


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – MARCH/APRIL 2018


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