the ferret...must read

There's no stopping SKILLED GROUP (SKE) now that the buyers have
got the bit between their teeth.
Yesterday the shares rose a further 44c to $6.25 before closing
at $6.17.
As we said in yesterday's column, the market loves a good
acquisition and Skilled has obviously struck the jackpot by buying Swan
Contract Personnel, which generates normalised revenue of $130 million
and EBIT of $6.83 million.
Skilled was $4.86 when the takeover was announced last Wednesday
and at yesterday's peak had put on $1.39 since the deal.
That's a market value gain of more than $140 million on the back
of an extra $6.83 million in EBIT.
Not bad odds.
However, there must surely be something else going on.
Skilled has traded in wild fashion before.
On December 19, when CEO Greg Hargrave confirmed to
Corporatefile it was confident of delivering 2007 year EBITDA of $62 to
$65 million, compared with $47.5 million in 2006.
Despite that Skilled fell from $5.55 to $5.08 that day and
continued to slide until $4.60 on January 11.
At latest levels Skilled appears to be on a forward p/e of about
20.