If 2020 & 2021 were the years of the pandemic & vaccinations, then hopefully 2022 & 2023 will become the years of supply chain rebalancing and life normalisation.

However this process is taking longer than anticipated. One reason being the Russia/Ukraine war, with another being that labour markets are not 100% efficient. Here there are record job vacancies & low unemployment - not only spanning tech, hospitality & healthcare, but also traditional professions like audit.

Similarly, Venture Life said today that its auditor was taking longer than usual to complete its work. Not because of any major issue with the numbers, but simply reflecting a lack of resource due to staff absentees, holidays, covid, etc

As such  Venture Life (VLG ) now expects to release its final 2021 results in early May.

Reiterating too previous guidance of revenue up 8% to £32.6m (split H2’21 at £18.7m, or +35% vs H1 £13.9m), adjusted EBITDA “in line with expectations” (consensus £6.3m-£6.5m) & net debt of £3.2m (pre-IFRS16). Driven by strong demand at BBI HEALTHCARE & Helsinn, alongside growth from made-to-order, customer partnered brands (eg Bayer).

Similarly EBITDA margins also rose from 14% in H1 to an estimated 23% in H2, thanks to favourable product mix, operating leverage and higher gross margins.

But that’s not all. On top of this momentum, VLG is also launching a number of other exciting initiatives in 2022. Not least:

  1. ‘white labelling’ some of its lesser known brands (eg to treat Rosacea) with several large health & beauty retailers,
  2. progressing an aggressive expansion plan for its leading prostrate cancer management product Pomi-T and
  3. targeting a minimum of £1m of sales this year in China, where new distributor Samarkand has recently been appointed.

Wrt valuation, at 37p the stock trades on <6.5x 2022 EBITDA compared to typical OTC branded firms at 15x-20x. In fact only 2 months’ ago,Unilever offered GSK £50bn (equivalent to 20x EBITDA) for its much bigger, yet slower growing consumer healthcare division.

Little wonder therefore that astute investor Simon Thompson of Investors' Chronicle sees the attractions too - particularly vs his 100p price target & Cenkos Securities plc’s upside scenario of 127p.

Watch this space.