Premium content from Motley Fool Hidden Winners UK
Our monthly Best Buys Now are designed to highlight our team’s three favourite, most timely Buys from our growing list of small-cap recommendations, to help Fools build out their stock portfolios.
“Best Buys Now” Pick #1:
Treatt (LSE:TET)
Why we like it: “Treatt (LSE: TET) is a speciality chemicals business that focuses on providing ingredients for customers primarily in the food & beverage space. Between 2012 and the end of 2023, CEO Daemmon Reeve and the board have successfully repositioned the company from being a low-margin supplier of commoditised bulk chemicals into the relatively-higher-margin player it is today. They’ve done this by moving up the value-added chain and working more closely with customers to supply specialised ingredients tailor-made for their products.
“While Reeve has departed the business, Treatt’s performance over the past few years has been impressive, and new chief exec David Shannon inherits a company operating in a position of strength. The company’s newly upgraded UK HQ and expanded facility in Florida give it expanded and upgraded lab, production, and warehousing facilities, which management believes will provide a base for continued growth. With a large and growing end market to target, and an attractive strategy to continue working its way up the value-added chain, we believe Treatt’s long-term potential is exciting, even if the new boss will have to work to gain the trust of the market in the same way as longtime CEO Reeve did.”
Why we like it now: Treatt shows strong financial performance, with 16% H2 revenue growth driven by organic business expansion and a 7% increase in adjusted EBITDA, thanks to growth momentum in China. Moreover, the company reduced its net debt significantly to £0.7 million, reflecting robust cash generation and cost discipline. It is now trading at 20.9 times earnings versus the industry leaders of 36 times. We are convinced that its recent record of increasing profits and managing spending against tough market conditions makes this a price worth paying.
