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:
Judges Scientific (LSE:JDG)
Why we like it: “Judges Scientific (LSE: JDG) owns a carefully acquired, select group of niche specialist scientific equipment manufacturers, growing from a £4m investment vehicle in 2003 to a business valued at over £440m by the market today. It has achieved this growth with a common-sense, savvy approach to acquisitions — buying world-leading companies that boast ‘an established product range, an international customer profile and sustainable sales, profits and cash generation’.
“Chief executive David Cicurel founded the company and has led it ever since, sticking to his method of acquiring companies like these very selectively. Cicurel remains the ‘key man’ at Judges. Even in retirement – which the 74-year-old CEO isn’t contemplating any time soon – he would like to work in an advisory capacity on acquisitions. Additionally, we’re satisfied with what we see as the strength of the wider management team, which includes Mark Lavelle, formerly of Halma, and COO of Judges since 2017.”
Why we like it now: Judges Scientific experienced a challenging year in 2024, impacted by the delayed Geotek coring expedition and generally weak order intake, particularly from China. However, the share price has already halved and appears to have overreacted. The 2025 performance so far is in line with the board’s expectations, supported by the Japanese coring contract and a “healthy” order book. We recommend buying on the dip in anticipation of an earnings recovery in 2025. Currently, analysts’ consensus forecasts are for revenue growth of 11% for Judges in 2025.
