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17 May 2026
By Maynard Paton
I am once again looking for ‘value bargains’ and revisiting a screen that identifies companies trading at less than book value.
Importantly, this screen attempts to avoid ‘value traps’ by demanding the shares offer net cash, dividend payments and a history of trading above book value.
The exact filter criteria I redeployed were:
- A price to net tangible assets of no more than 1;
- A dividend being paid during the most recent year;
- A 10-year average price to net tangible assets of at least 1;
- Net borrowings less total leases of no more than 0 (i.e. a net cash position excluding IFRS 16 lease obligations), and;
- A share price denominated in pounds sterling.
This time ShareScope returned 20 companies:
I selected SThree because I was very surprised to discover this recruitment agency was trading below book value alongside asset-heavy shares such as house builders.
But sure enough, SThree’s 164p shares were priced a fraction less than the group’s 172p per share net tangible asset value:
I see the shares have in the past traded at beyond 5x net tangible value.
Let’s take a closer look.
Read my full STHREE article for ShareScope >>Maynard Paton
