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Stock No.1

The first company on the list is Robert Walters (RWA). They are a UK listed global recruitment company that operates in 29 different countries providing staffing solutions across several different industries.

The Robert Walters share price has been in free-fall for quite some time as you can see below, dropping 86% in the last 5 years.

This is an industry wide issue in the recruitment sector, with only the more specialist players seeing growth in hiring. This comes as a result of a protracted slowdown following the post-covid hiring boom, exacerbated by higher interest rates and inflation meaning companies spend less on recruitment and instead look to trim staff levels.

There is also fear around AI an how that could affect the hiring process, if companies can leverage AI to do their recruiting why would they need a Robert Walters?

However I can’t help but feel this share is near the bottom. Trading on a Price to Book of 0.6 and a Price to Sales of 0.08 shares certainly look very cheap and despite Robert Walters being loss making currently, it is well placed for an operationally geared recovery and it wouldn’t take much growth for this to start feeding down to the bottom line.

Their recent trading update also sounds more positive, with revenue broadly flat YOY rather than the large falls they’ve seen in recent years.

Rest of the world was actually up 23% but Europe continues to drag its heels at a -16% YOY fall. Still as mentioned only a -2% fall in net fees overall signals this may be the point financials begin to turn when compared to the -17% drop in the previous year. They also have a nice net cash position of circa £20m which equates to just under a third of their market cap, so the resilience is there to ride out the remainder of the downturn.

There is the opinion that the recruitment sector is in terminal decline and a recovery will never come but I think that’s being overly pessimistic. The sector will adapt to AI threats in my opinion as will we all and demand for new services will appear just as old ones die off. Therefore I think Robert Walters is definitely one to watch closely as this looks like a good entry point in anticipation of a cyclical recovery. See my valuation table below showing potential upside.

Stock No.2

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I made some changes to my stock spreadsheet recently which drew my attention to the stock currently sat in 1st position based on forecast returns. It is there by quite some margin too and is currently one of my largest holdings in the portfolio. So I decided it would be remiss of me to not explain my investment thesis on this one and make it the subject of this weeks article.

Overview

The payment processing space feels crowded and highly competitive I must admit, with the likes of PayPal, Adyen, Toast and others all vying for market share and striving to keep up with the latest technological developments in the fintech space. They aren’t all offering exactly the same service, with some focusing more on in person POS systems and others being more online oriented, but there is enough overlap to consider the sector competitive. However I believe one company stands out for a variety of reasons that I will go into more detail on here, that company is Shift4 payments.

What do Shift4 do? In a nutshell they are a payment processing solutions provider with a specific focus on the hospitality industry, they are the number 1 provider in the stadiums and entertainment space, and number 2 only to Toast in the restaurants space. They offer online payments solutions for websites as well as fully integrated POS hardware and software for taking in person payments at stadiums, restaurants and other venues.

Thesis

What first drew me to Shift4 was the ‘stickiness’ of its business model. Whereas online only payment providers can fairly easily be replaced or have payment volume routed through other means (think of the various options you have at checkout when buying online Google pay, PayPal, Stripe Etc.) Providing in person payment solutions tends to be a lot harder for customers to switch away from. The investment required in the hardware needed to take payments in restaurants for example makes it very costly to switch to another provider, and the level of integration these systems have in the customer’s wider management systems would make it very time consuming and risky to switch. In a lot of cases the company would have to shut down the systems that run the whole business in order to swap out shift4 for a competitor, meaning lost sales and downtime.

So why pick Shift4 over a competitor like Toast? They both have sticky business models.

In both of the below graphs Shift4 is represented in blue and Toast in orange:

Forward PE Ratio

Revenue Growth

As you can see Shift4 currently trades on a forward PE ratio of 11x (This figure does vary depending on where you look but can be as low as 7x) compared to Toasts 28x, so this ticks the value box. So that raises the question are you paying a premium on Toast for faster growth? But again looking at the second graph Shift4 has now actually surpassed Toast in terms of revenue growth YOY.

Shares of Shift4 have declined 42% in the last year, that’s a nearly halving of value in a period where revenue has grown 25% and adjusted EPS grew 16%. This just does not make sense to me when one of its closest competitors is trading on a much higher multiple with similar growth. I also believe Shift4’s business model is stronger and more diversified than Toasts in an economic downturn because it is spread across hospitality whereas Toast is more heavily focused on restaurants making it more vulnerable to waning demand in that particular area.

Acquisitions

Shift4 has in the past been very active in the M&A space making several strategic acquisitions, but the most recent one in particular could be game changing for the company. This is the acquisition of Global Blue, a world leader in tax-free shopping. Their main revenue stream is helping tourists reclaim the VAT on luxury goods when shopping abroad, and taking a cut of the refund as a fee. This is an over $500m revenue company growing at 20% a year that Shift4 has bolted on, but not only that it offers Shift4 access to luxury retailers in the European market it otherwise wouldn’t have had. This opens up a massive cross sell opportunity for Shift4 to sell its POS systems and services to these retailers and bolster its European footprint.

Global Blue is not expected to contribute to EPS until late 2026, meaning this is a tailwind that could drive EPS to accelerate faster in 2026 than forecast. Shift4 have forecast very conservative EPS numbers for 2026, and I believe these are very beatable in a year where they stand to benefit from the world cup in the USA and the Global Blue integration completing.

Balance Sheet

Shift4’s balance sheet is where the risk does start to come in, they have good coverage when it comes to liquidity with the current ratio coming out at 1.66 and cash levels being a healthy quarter of their market cap.

But when we look at debt to equity levels you start to see a riskier picture, debt sat at 232% of equity as at Dec 25 and even when you account for the near $1b in cash this still leaves debt at uncomfortable levels for me personally.

The mitigating factors for this are obviously the fact they are a very acquisitive company with the recent purchase of Global Blue contributing significantly to these high debt levels. The jump in debt and reduction in cash on the above graphic are as a result of the $1.5b cash purchase of Global Blue, which when accounting for Global Blue’s debt transferred across in the sale comes to an EV value of approximately $2.5b.

Shift4 has stated they intend to focus on bringing leverage down following this deal and given the above mentioned synergies with Global Blue, I feel comfortable with the company taking on the debt to fund this as long as it is managed correctly and we see efforts to reduce it down in the long term.

It should also be mentioned Shift4 has commenced a significant share buyback initiative worth $1b. This began in Nov 25 and has roughly $500m left which equates to roughly 13.5% of the market cap at the time of writing. This will be partially offset by the share based compensation that Shift4 uses to pay staff but is nevertheless a significant portion which should fuel future share price rises. At these depressed share price levels I would also not be surprised to see them announce further buybacks once this one has completed, further squeezing the pool of shares outstanding and forcing the price up.

I always think insider buying is a great indicator that a company is just priced wrong by the market. Some very significant buys from the former CEO and co-founder Jared Isaacman. If a co-founder is putting this much of his own money into buying shares I see it as a great indication of where the valuation is at currently.

Risks

There are some notable risks worth mentioning, as above I touched on the debt levels and it is worth keeping an eye on these but currently I do not foresee this being a major issue as long as it is controlled correctly and they are paying it down. Slowing down the share buybacks and using funds to pay down debt would in my opinion be a good move.

There is also execution risk with the Global Blue Acquisition but I personally see great long term upside and synergy from this even if it may take longer than expected to fully realise the added value.

The big one is the fact that Shift4 is quite heavily exposed to economic downturn and recessions. Given its focus on the hospitality sector, any major fall in spending on non-essentials like meals out and stadium events would lead to less payment volume for Shift4’s customers and therefore less revenue for Shift4. This is a notable risk in both impact and probability given the current outlook for global economies but I feel this is largely priced in anyway given how far the share price has fallen. This is however definitely worth considering as part of the investment thesis.

Conclusion

Shift4 has historically traded on a PE ratio of around 20, so if it executes on its expected growth forecasts then the share price could rerate and we could see a multi-bagger on our hands from these levels. When plugging the forecast figures into my spreadsheet I get the below results, and Shift4 easily has the best forecast return of any stock I’ve recently looked at. This is not even factoring in the large share buybacks currently underway.

If it does hit a PE ratio of 20 and really executes on the Global Blue integration you could see margins expand further than the assumed 8% and upside could be even higher. As always do your own research but this looks like a great opportunity to me with the tailwinds coming up this year for Shift4, far too much pessimism is priced into this stock at current levels.

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The information on this website is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or tax advice. I am not a financial advisor, and this content should not be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Investing involves risks, including the loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any financial decisions

Just a quick update on the posting schedule before we get into this weeks stock idea. I will be posting a new stock deep dive weekly on Wednesdays, free subscribers will get access to one of these a fortnight and this access will last 2 weeks after which the article will only be accessible to paid subscribers. Paid subscribers will have access to weekly deep dives and the full archive as well as my stock screener spreadsheet. Please consider subscribing to support my work!

Overview

The stock in the spotlight this week is Hims and Hers Health, Ticker HIMS. For those of you not familiar Hims is a telehealth platform that effectively sells solutions to common health problems including hair loss, sexual health and weight loss that traditionally would have only been available on prescription from a doctor.

Their selling point is that they offer a discreet and easy to use platform to help people with sensitive health issues including online consultations and a subscription based model that means you get your prescription without the need for pharmacy visits.

Thesis

Just as a disclaimer I do not currently own shares in HIMS but have done previously and do believe it is a very attractive proposition at these price levels. HIMS currently trades around the $20 mark at the time of writing down from around $60 as recently as September 2025, that’s a fall of over 68%. This is largely down to a lawsuit filed by Novo Nordisk against HIMS as a result of the ‘copycat’ weight loss pills HIMS had started selling after Novo stopped supplying their GLP-1 weight loss injections to HIMS. This has now been resolved and Novo has even entered into an agreement to start supplying HIMS with their weight loss injections again.

There has also been scrutiny over slowing revenue growth, with previous years seeing over 50% a year growth they are now forecasting a more modest 19% at the midpoint of guidance for 2026.

19% growth is still nothing to sniff at and they are expected to maintain revenue growth in the mid to high teens through to 2028 meaning this still represents impressive growth. Add in the deal with Novo and the acquisition of Eucalyptus, a mainly Asia based telehealth company growing ARR at a triple digit rate, and you get the injection of extra growth that could definitely see HIMS exceed forecasts for 2026 and beyond. It also gives HIMS more penetration into the Asian markets it currently does not have.

Looking closer at valuation and bottom line growth, on first look it appears HIMS is quite richly valued on a forward PE of 32 and only 19% forecast revenue growth as outlined above. However I do not believe this factors in the extra growth from the acquisition and Novo deal, as well as the fact that EPS has been compressed in recent years due to heavy investment in capex and scaling operations internationally. This investment is fuelling revenue growth but will eventually drop down to bottom line growth, as evidenced by the forecast 62% net profit growth YOY in 2028. HIMS also operates at above 70% gross profit margin, meaning it has great operational leverage and benefits massively from cross-selling new products to existing customers, something it is succeeding at doing.

Moving on to look at the financial health of the company and its balance sheet. Debt to equity stands at 180% as of Dec 2025 which on first glance is a concern, but factor in their cash pile of $577m against the debt of $972m and it starts to look a lot more reasonable. The company is ultimately investing heavily in future growth and so you would expect it to be using leverage to fuel this, as long as it is managed correctly I have no issue but worth keeping an eye on. The debt is also mostly made up of convertible notes at 0% so there is no servicing cost to the company and they can repay these with equity if need be, though obviously the potential shareholder dilution from this is also something to be aware of.

An acquisitive growth company like Hims would be expected to have higher debt levels than a more mature one, and looking at the liquidity metrics their current ratio stands at 1.9x currently so I see no short term issues there.

The company is also currently executing a $250m share buyback scheme started in Nov 25 and lasting for 3 years. This represents circa 5% of the current market cap at the time of writing. One thing I really like about Hims and something I like to look for in companies is the leadership/ownership structure. I love to see companies where the leadership have significant skin in the game, especially where the CEO is the original founder. I think this gives more reassurance to investors that their interests are aligned with that of the leadership. At Hims the CEO and original founder is Andrew Dudum who currently owns 7.86% of the company, and as outlined above I think this gives him incentive to act in the best interests of shareholders.

When I ran the forecast numbers on my spreadsheet it came out at an impressive average 5 year return of 115% with my assumed worst case scenario being a 72% return.

Conclusion

The 115% average return represents a 5 year CAGR of 16.5% and given some of these numbers I have assumed are conservative, i.e. it could be argued an aggressively expanding growth company like this should be valued on a higher multiple than 20x earnings, I think this represents a great entry point for investors looking at adding Hims to their portfolio. I personally am considering opening a position around the $20 mark as this just looks too cheap to me for a founder led growth business that is a leader in its area and has several catalysts for reacceleration of growth.

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The information on this website is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or tax advice. I am not a financial advisor, and this content should not be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Investing involves risks, including the loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any financial decisions

For my first stock review on substack I’ll be taking a look at a company that is currently seen by many as a value trap. However it currently trades on multiples reserved for dead companies, and I believe this company is far from dead. That company is Future PLC. I currently hold a position in this company and given the recent profit warning and share price fall thought it would be a good stock to start on, it certainly seems to divide opinion.

Overview

Just a brief overview of what Future do for those of you who aren’t already aware. They are in essence a media company that owns a large portfolio of magazine and newsletter brands across sectors such as gaming, technology, lifestyle and finance. They also own the price comparison website Go Compare.

Their revenue comes from subscriptions to the magazines, paid advertising on their magazine websites and commission from click through sales on these as well as the revenue from go compare.

Thesis

Future’s share price has fallen 46% YTD in 2026 at the time of writing, with 28% of this fall coming on 31/03 alone. Why has the share price halved in just 3 months? This is largely driven by the fear that AI will destroy future’s revenues it receives from advertising and sales commission, as traffic to its magazine websites and go compare is diverted through AI models instead. People wanting to see reviews for a new game for example may simply use Google Gemini instead to produce the results rather than clicking through to Future’s websites.

Revenue and earnings have fallen over the past few years but are expected to stabilise and even return to modest growth based on current analyst forecasts. On 31/03 they issued a profit warning stating that:

Looking ahead, audience sessions will remain volatile and we are taking a cautious view for the balance of the year. The expected benefits of our strategic initiatives and growth in B2B and Go.Compare are being offset by the continued decline in programmatic advertising and ecommerce revenue. The Group now expects H2 organic revenue to decline year-on-year by a low single-digit percentage. As a result, the full year EBITDA margin is expected to be in the range of 25-27%.

EBITDA margins were expected to be 30% for FY26 so at the midpoint they are reducing guidance for the margin by 4%. This is not great news and it could be said the stock deserved to be down 28% on the day. However looking at the valuation side of things Future now trades on a forward PE of roughly 3x even after adjusting for the profit warning, this essentially prices in complete failure of the company and disintegration of its revenue streams in the face of AI which I do not think will happen.

In their latest trading update they mentioned Go compare revenues have started to grow again in March and they are seeing growth in their new AI based initiatives including particularly strong growth in ‘Future optic’ which is their attempt to increase their visibility on AI models to create a new revenue stream. Add all of this to their acquisition of SheerLuxe, a social publisher that mainly bypasses search engines and drives revenue through social media and podcasts, and you can see they are not standing still but are developing AI resilient revenue streams. It is also worth mentioning that it is in the interest of the AI companies to revenue share with companies like Future, as without the online magazines (i.e if Future goes bust) then there will be no content to feed into the AI models when people search for it. So whilst the revenue Future gains from agreements with companies like OpenAI may be less profitable than it currently gets from its own traffic, it will in my opinion still have a reasonable source of revenue from AI searches that can then be supplemented with its other streams that are being introduced.

In terms of their balance sheet health, it could certainly be better with net debt now exceeding the market cap based on the figures above, this is I believe more a reflection on the extremely depressed share price than it is the level of debt though. The business is highly cash generative and has been conducting generous share buybacks recently announcing a £30m buyback in December 25 that is ongoing. I would personally however like to see the cash used to pay down the debt more as this will feed nicely into bottom line growth due to reduced interest payments and may help boost investor confidence in the health of the company.

It is also worth noting there has been some director buys in December but I would like to see some more coming through now that the share price has almost halved since the turn of the year, to signal confidence in the company going forward.

Conclusion

Future is definitely one of the riskier plays in my portfolio which is why I am limiting it to a 5% maximum of the total portfolio. No-one knows how AI will ultimately impact businesses in the long term but I can’t help but feel it has been way overblown when it comes to Future, the Fwd PE ratio of less than 3 times is just too cheap. Some people will say ‘its cheap for a reason’ but I genuinely believe investors will be rewarded for their patience on this one as it develops alternative revenue streams and stabilises. The share buybacks will also help and they have mentioned de leveraging in their latest update which when adding the two together should help support the share price. There is also always the possibility of it becoming a takeover target when the shares are this cheap and it is still a very cash generative business.

As above running the numbers on what returns could be expected from a 5 year holding period if they hit the numbers forecasted, it comes out at 105% return even if they do not grow revenue and there is no margin expansion. This also only assumes a modest PE ratio of 8. These are conservative forecasts in my opinion and still produce a return in excess of 100%, with share buybacks to add on top as well.

As always do you own research but I will be adding to my own position in Future at these levels.

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The information on this website is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or tax advice. I am not a financial advisor, and this content should not be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Investing involves risks, including the loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any financial decisions

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Hello everyone, welcome to my brand new shiny substack. The aim of which is to offer up stocks and shares ideas that I have researched and the thesis/catalysts behind these that make them interesting. You can then hopefully do your own further research and come to your own conclusion on them, hopefully finding some fruitful investments along the way.

Why?

I’ve been investing for several years now and really enjoy researching and evaluating new companies for possible investment. The hope is in sharing this information with yourselves it may highlight some gems for you to also profit from in the long run. I mainly focus on UK & US stocks and will outline my portfolio holdings below for full transparency. I invest in companies of all size although I tend to avoid micro-caps due to the risk and volatility.

The current plan will be to post a weekly review of a share that has caught my eye and the investment thesis behind it. Then maybe further down the line this can be increased in regularity and expanded upon.

My Current Holdings

Below are the positions I currently hold. I will probably review these for you in the weekly posts to come so you can get an idea of the reasons for me taking positions in these and then follow on with your own research if it has piqued your interest. I use Trading212 as my platform for my stocks and shares ISA, it’s a great platform with zero commission and I cant recommend it enough (I’m not sponsored or anything just a genuine recommendation) if anyone reading this would like to get a free share worth up to £100 for signing up to trading212 if you could use my referral code it would be much appreciated, just click the link below or navigate to: https://www.trading212.com/invite/GIJN05dT

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As mentioned above the portfolio is a mix of US and UK stocks, there are also the two index funds in there that are relatively new positions but I will only be reviewing and discussing individual stocks and shares not the index funds.

I will start publishing reviews of the stocks in my portfolio next week and then weekly onwards every Wednesday, then adding some new ones that I am considering adding to the portfolio or have just found interesting as we go. I have been adding to these positions over the last few weeks as markets have dropped due to the middle east conflict, a lot of these look way too cheap to me and great value so it feels like a good time to be taking advantage of all the fear in the market currently. Though as always I am drip feeding the cash into these positions so as to not burn through it too quickly given the market could keep falling for a while yet.

The information on this website is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or tax advice. I am not a financial advisor, and this content should not be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Investing involves risks, including the loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any financial decisions

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