Solid State plc (AIM:SOLI) is looking for acquisitions. During the Solid State plc results presentation, Peter James, Chief Financial Officer, said, "M&A has been an important part of our strategy over recent years. and it continues to be.
We look at M&A to deliver on the strategy where it's a lower risk execution than organic growth. It absolutely will complement the organic opportunities and be aligned to the strategy that John has just taken you through." "In the near term, probably more likely to be focused around strategically aligned bolt-ons. However, larger step function transactions is still part of the toolkit.
And if the right opportunities arose, we would look to pursue those as well." "We've got a well-established sort of framework and financial discipline for evaluation of opportunities. And to be honest, the business is fussy, and we walk away from far more opportunities than we ever complete. That said, we will remain opportunistic and the current business environment means I think there is potential for opportunistic M&A to come to the market in the periods ahead.
So looking forward in terms of capital allocation, I'm going to start on the far side, shareholder return. Our progressive dividend policy was maintained, and it's an important discipline and financial discipline for us to maintain. We absolutely will use our cash generation to fund bolt-on M&A, but also, yes, we are a public company, and we have, in the past, used the markets to support those opportunities as well." John Macmichael, Interim Chief Executive, said, "The only thing I would add to that is that we have an active M&A pipeline that we're studying at the moment, and that does span the U.K. and the United States".
