January 2026 - Hidden Value

#UKSTOCKS #MAB #PTEC

Introduction

This is the first “Hidden Value” screen of 2026.

This screen will be run 4 times a year, in January, April, July and October, thus providing a quarterly view.

If you have not yet seen the full list of screens or the 2026 schedule, here is a link to that original article.

The Hidden Value Screen

Screen Overview

This screen is available in the Sharescope Filter Library, it’s titled “Briefed Up - Q02 - Hidden Value”.

For those of you needing any orientation with filters, this Sharescope article is very useful, as it also includes details on how to access the library and these filters.

Do remember, for additional help and support, all Sharescope subscribers can book free training sessions here.

Screen Frequency

Every quarter, on the third Sunday of January, April, July and October, 4 times a year.

Obviously this one is slightly delayed (as explained in my original post in this series).

But, on posting this, it means from now on we should be sticking to the original schedule for the rest of the year.

Screen Objective

• Identify stocks where the Market capitalisation is at least a 25% discount to the Net Tangible Asset Value (NTAV), ex-leases & goodwill.

PURPOSE - Identify potential (hidden) value plays and stocks with a potential “safety net” where the share price should find a degree of support from the balance sheet strength.

Screen Parameters

Stock Universe Settings

• Market Cap: Default - £10m to No limit - To exclude small illiquid stocks

• Sectors: Default - Exclude “Tobacco”, “Industrial Metals and Mining”, “Precious Metals and Mining”, and “Oil, Gas and Coal” - To exclude sectors I don’t typically invest in

• ISIN Country of Register: Default - Exclude “JP” and “FR” - To exclude these specific foreign registered stocks

Note: My default stock list is always “LSE shares (excluding Investment Trusts (ITs))”.

Base Settings

• The Net Tangible Asset Value (NTAV), ex-leases & goodwill - Is greater than zero

• The Market capitalisation - Is at least 25% less than the NTAV

Optional Settings

(To potentially return less results)

• Forecast EPS (for next year) - Is greater than 0 (check the company if forecast to make a profit next year)

• The Dividend yield (for this year) - Is greater than 0 (check the company paid a dividend this year - you could change this to next year should you wish)

• The Dividend cover (for this year) - If greater than 1.5x (a brief quality check on the yield - if you change the yield to next year, it would make sense to also change this to next year too)

January 2026 - Hidden Value

The default settings return 29 stocks this month, so I decided to also ensure the company is forecast to make a profit next year.

This reduced the list from 29 stocks to 18.

Settings Used

Stock Universe Settings

• No change to defaults

Base Settings

• No change to defaults

Optional Settings

• Forecast EPS (for next year) - Checked and set to 0

• The Dividend yield (for this year) - Unchecked

• The Dividend cover (for this year) - Unchecked

Actual Settings

Results

Note: I have changed the sorting order to the NTAV discount percentage to highlight those stocks with the most “hidden value”.

“Our View”

Paul has kindly allowed me to provide the current view from the Small/Mid Caps with Paul Scott Substack database for the Top 5 stocks from the results, so here they are…

I should really have excluded quite a few sectors here because at times, many stocks in certain sectors often trade at a discount to NTAV. I have included the sectors to provide a complete list so those who invest in those sectors can use the information.

Excluding the “Banks”, “REITs”, “Closed End Investments” and “Investment Banking and Brokerage Services”, I come up with a Top 2, not a Top 5 (above).

Personally, when running the filter for myself, I do exclude these sectors completely and typically manipulate the list using the other parameters. In fact, I may well do this in the next quarter.

Members of the Small/Mid Caps with Paul Scott Substack can click here to access details and commentary for the vast majority of all of the stocks from the above results (although note, the coverage may not be complete for the excluded sectors). The full history for most UK stocks is available via the online search tool, a database covering over 12 months of updates in some cases.

For example, MAB, from the online search tool…

Members of the Small/Mid Caps with Paul Scott Substack get:

• Access to the complete history, and current view, of over 800 UK stocks

• Main section articles on over 200 of those UK stocks

• Morning RNS announcement analysis, out before the market open

• Daily analysis of up to 30 stocks a day, even more on very busy news days

• Exclusive interviews

• Up to 5 podcasts a week. and a weekly update video

• Access to an active and growing community of UK investors, where participation is encouraged

• A team (which includes me) with almost 100 years of joint investing experience, focused on delivering the best coverage of the UK stock market

In Focus

MAB - This pubs group trades at a 40% or so discount to NTAV and has done so for some time. On that basis, on a single digit PER, it looks good value and is worth looking into. However, it is worth noting that the balance sheet is complicated, the net debt is rather high, and perhaps rightly so, it does not and is not forecast to pay a dividend.

PTEC - Claims to be the leading platform, content, and services provider in the online gambling industry, whose customers include DraftKings, Caesars, and MGM - It has recently transitioned to be a pure B2B play. This is quite an interesting company but on the NTAV front it is just worth double-checking that it reflects the effects of the large disposal done last year. On a high-teen forward PER it’s not cheap but the growth forecasts are ambitious. Probably one for sector experts only.

This quarter’s list is quite small but I did not intend it to be that way.

I think in the future I will exclude the sectors mentioned above and try and get a longer list of shares in sectors I (and I think readers) usually invest in. Any comments on this please let me know - So next time we perhaps have more to work with!

Summary

The Small/Mid Caps with Paul Scott Substack

If you are not already a subscriber to the Small/Mid Caps with Paul Scott Substack and are interested in a 1 week FREE trial, click here to access all of the features mentioned above.

Sharescope

If you are not already a subscriber to the excellent Sharescope software we use every day over at the Small/Mid Caps with Paul Scott Substack, click here for the Small/Mid Caps with Paul Scott Substack deal and get:

• A discount to the annual subscription fee

• Access to this screen and all my other screens - Copy, amend and run them with your own parameters, as and when you want, across any markets you want to

• FREE direct, in-house telephone, email, and chat support, 8am to 5:30pm

• FREE one-to-one training with a Sharescope expert, as many sessions as you need

• A 30-day money-back guarantee, for annual subscriptions and new subscribers only

Thank You

Yeah! That’s us nicely up to date now with the January schedule for 2026!

As above, we should now be able to stick to the original schedule for the rest of the year.

As always, if you have any suggestions for improvement, or any feedback at all, do please leave a comment.

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next one!

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is vital that you check all figures in this article for yourself, as they may be inaccurate or may have changed since publication.

MORE IMPORTANTLY: No investment advice intended, for information only, I may hold all, some, none, of the stocks mentioned in this article - Do Your Own Research!

Jon