Shore Capital sees further upside for Alfa Financial Software

(Sharecast News) - Alfa Financial Software's share price jumped on Thursday after the asset finance tech company impressed with "exceptionally strong" interim results, according to Shore Capital. In line with a recent trading update, the group delivered 22% organic revenue growth in the first half, compared with Shore Capital's full-year forecast of 13%, which implies a slowdown to just 7% in the second half.

First-half earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) growth of 33% was also tracking ahead of the broker's current full-year estimates.

"While H2 will be impacted by FX headwinds, higher opex and a possible skew towards lower margin revenue lines (software engineering performance unlikely to be repeated), we continue to see upside risk to our top-of-the-range EBIT estimate," Shore Capital said in a research note.

The broker kept a 'buy' rating on the stock, saying it remains a "top pick" with a fair value estimate of 270p, compared with Thursday afternoon's price of 231.5p - up 6.4% on the day.

Regarding Alfa's valuation, the stock continues to trade at a modest premium to historical averages on multiple measures, but Shore Capital reckons "this can be supported by the growth acceleration, improving forecast visibility, and increasing scale".