There are a lot of UK stocks trading for pennies right now. According to my data provider, there are around 800 stocks on the London Stock Exchange today trading for less than £1.
Now, not all of these companies are worth investing in, of course. There are plenty of low-quality businesses in that group of stocks.
But there are some absolute gems as well. Here’s one that I think is worth considering today.
hVIVO (LSE: HVO) is a small company in the Healthcare sector that specialises in services for clinical trials and lab testing. Headquartered in London, it provides end-to-end early clinical development services to a large, established, and growing repeat client base, which includes four of the top 10 largest global biopharma companies.
Currently, shares in hVIVO trade for just 28p. At that share price, its market-cap is around £189m.
From an investment perspective, hVIVO’s a lot going for it, in my view.
For starters, it’s growing at an impressive pace. Over the last three years, revenues have climbed from £20.6m to £56m – growth of 172%. This year and next, analysts expect revenue of £61.9m and £67.7m.
It’s worth noting here that the company’s targeting revenue of £100m by 2028. So it clearly expects the growth to continue in the years ahead.
One thing that should help to drive growth is its new state-of-the-art facility in Canary Wharf. This should enable the company to scale up rapidly.
Secondly, the company’s now profitable. This year, analysts expect hVIVO to generate a net profit of £9.1m and earnings per share of 1.41p. Profits are important because they reduce risk for investors. They also make companies much easier to value.
In terms of the valuation here, it looks attractive to me. Currently, the forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is 19.7, falling to 16.4 using the consensus earnings forecast for 2025.
Given the growth the company’s generating, we appear to have a classic ‘growth-at-a-reasonable-price’ (GARP) stock. Over the years, I’ve found that GARP stocks often outperform the market over time.
Finally, there are dividends on offer too. The yield here isn’t huge (0.8%) as the company only started paying dividends last year.
But the payout’s growing and I see scope for substantial increases in the years ahead. That’s because the dividend coverage ratio (the ratio of earnings to dividends) is very high at over six.
Now of course, there are a few risks to consider here. One is volatility in profits, which is quite common among small growth companies in the process of expanding. This could lead to future share price volatility.