In this our final big feature as a weekly publication, the Shares team has gone to the ideas well one last time to identify five stocks that individual members of our team really like.

There is a pretty broad spread of ideas both by market value and by sector, read on to discover more about these conviction plays and why the authors are such big fans. 

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AG Barr (BAG)

Price : 685p 

Market cap  : £763 million

In my years covering the beverages sector, one high-quality business whose results have rarely left a sour taste in the mouths of investors is AG Barr (BAG), the drinks group whose strong brands include iconic Scottish fizzy drink IRN-BRU as well as Rubicon, Boost and FUNKIN.

Under long-serving CEO Roger White, AG Barr was transformed from a regional soft drinks maker into a branded ‘multi-beverage business’, an evolution that has left the company strategically well-placed for growth under the stewardship of White’s successor, Euan Sutherland.

AG Barr’s beloved tipples, allied to world-class manufacturing sites at Cumbernauld and Milton Keynes, no little marketing clout, high returns on capital and a fortress balance sheet represent a cocktail of enduring competitive strengths. Continuing to take share in the UK soft drinks market, AG Barr is expanding operating margins through ongoing efficiency and in-sourcing initiatives, and has the pricing power to mitigate inflationary pressures.

The £763 million cap is growing sales at acquired branded porridge-to-plant-based milk business MOMA and more recently snapped up a 50.1% stake in Innate-Essence, for an initial consideration of £15 million. For the uninitiated, Innate-Essence owns The Turmeric Co., a leading brand in the functional shots market, as well as a number of other speciality health drinks with growth potential.

On 29 July, the FTSE 250 company served up a robust update for the first half ended 26 July 2025, with trading momentum picking up as the half progressed and AG Barr highlighting ‘several record volume weeks’ in the second quarter.

For the year to January 2026, Shore Capital sees adjusted pre-tax profits bubbling up from £58.5 million to £65 million ahead of £70 million in 2027, and forecasts year-end net cash north of £50 million on the balance sheet. I believe the strong momentum behind the business means earnings upgrades should be on the way, potentially as soon as the half-year results on 30 September.

Based on forecast earnings of 43.6p, AG Barr trades on a forward price to earnings ratio of 15.7 falling to rather palatable 14.6 on the broker’s 2027 estimate of 46.9p, while copious cash generation and a robust balance sheet provide the company with the firepower for further accretive acquisitions in high-growth drinks categories and the capacity to keep paying out progressive dividends into the future.

I share the view of Panmure Liberum, which believes that AG Barr has ‘significant opportunities for value creation through distribution gains, product innovation, and portfolio extension in the UK.’ [JC]

 

Bloomsbury (BMY)

Price : 483p

Market cap : £387 million

In my view there is very little not to like about Bloomsbury Publishing (BMY). The publishing house, founded by current CEO Nigel Newton in 1986, achieved astonishing success with JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. For which the upcoming HBO series could help boost backlist sales.

After a difficult period in the wake of the initial Pottermania craze waned, the publisher has pursued a more diversified strategy while still benefiting from having some blockbuster authors on its books such as ‘romantasy’ writer Sarah J. Maas. 

Maas topped bestseller lists in the UK and US this year with the paperback launch of House of Flame and Shadow of June.

The publisher is award winning and won many accolades this year including Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards and Publicity Campaign of the Year for Gillian Anderson’s Want.

The stock is widely held by several funds and features in the top 10 holdings of the Free Spirit Fund (BYYQC495) and Montanaro UK Income (BYSRYZ31).

The shares have stalled a little of late, after a great run coming out of the pandemic as people rediscovered a love of reading. A July trading update forecast full-year revenue to be £335.9 million and to deliver adjusted pre-tax profit of £41.6 million in line with consensus expectations which didn’t exactly get the pulses running.

But I always like to these a company CEO (and in Bloomsbury’s case the founder) snapping up shares, Newton recently bought £100,000 shares on 29 August, if he has faith so should investors, particularly with the shares trading on an attractive price to earnings ratio of 12.6 times and a FCF (free cash flow) yield of 7.6%

Bloomsbury has plenty of new titles in the pipeline, Sarah J. Maas’s next title A Court of Thorns and Roses Book 6 is slated for release late in 2025 or early 2026.

The appointment of a new CFO and COO Keith Underwood (18 September) could bring uplift to the share price, as Underwood brings 20 years of media experience and expertise to the company after Penny Scott-Bayfield’s retirement.

In addition, the company now boasts a highly diverse portfolio by division, genre, format, and geography.

It has notably branched out into academic publishing, a move accelerated by the acquisition of US academic publisher Rowman & Littlefield for £65 million in 2024. This newly-acquired business contributed £19.8 million in revenue within nine months of the deal and boosted the academic and professional division’s profit by 34%. [SG]

 

Trustpilot (TRST)   

Price : 231p

Market cap : £944 million

Simply put, ratings platform Trustpilot (TRST) looks a winning proposition to this author.

In a world where purchases of goods and services are increasingly taking place online Trustpilot provides a really important function for consumers and businesses alike. From a personal perspective if you’re buying from someone you cannot see then knowing other people have had a positive experience offers much needed reassurance.

During the pandemic, like many of its peers, Trustpilot’s business enjoyed a surge as more people turned to ecommerce. Currently, the platform hosts 330 million active reviews, with annual recurring revenues reaching $230 million by the end of 2024.

Thousands of companies now rely on Trustpilot for both customer transparency and essential analytics derived from its rich database. This fuels a classic network effect: as more consumers contribute reviews, Trustpilot’s insights grow in value for businesses.

This virtuous cycle means consumers are drawn to Trustpilot because it features the most relevant services and reviews, while more businesses feel compelled to join the platform in order to reach these engaged buyers.

Research shows that 87% of consumers in the UK and US find ads more trustworthy when they include the Trustpilot logo and star ratings, with 63% of EU consumers saying a strong Trustpilot score increases their likelihood to purchase.

While facing strong competition from firms such as Yelp (YELP:NYSE), Trustpilot’s brand has already become a familiar choice for millions of buyers worldwide and it is the market leader by number of reviews and levels of engagement.

One area which has sparked concern among investors is rising investment costs not being reflected in the P&L. While the merits of this from an accounting point of view can be debated the decision to invest for future growth is a sound one from our perspective.

Recent first-half results (16 September) were encouraging with cash flow and earnings coming in materially ahead of expectations . Average annual contract value was up 17% year-on-year to $9,781 with the company snaring some bigger name clients like Barclays, Boots, Lindt, ING and Experian.

Optically the shares do not look particularly cheap, trading on 55 times 2026 earnings but for us this is a long-term story and investors should not get too hung up on short-term earnings multiples.

Notably the strong cash generation supported the unveiling of a fresh £30 million share buyback programme alongside the recent first-half results and further returns of capital to shareholders look likely. The scheduled departure of chief financial officer Hanno Damm in 2026 does not give us any great cause for concern. [TS] 

 

SRT Marine Systems (SRT:AIM)

Price : 74p

Market cap : £185 million

I doubt anyone, least of all my colleagues, will be surprised at my choice of stock to hold ‘forever’, as I have championed SRT Marine Systems (SRT:AIM) almost since I arrived at Shares.

During that time, the Radstock-based company has grown into the global leader in AIS/VHF navigation and communication transceivers for boats as well as a leading supplier of advanced turn-key marine domain awareness and management systems to coast guard and fisheries agencies around the world.

Chief executive Simon Tucker compares the evolution of marine domain management with the dawn of air traffic control, which started a century ago at London’s Croydon airport and is still developing today.

Just as there was a need to monitor which planes were in the sky, not just to reduce the risk of accidents but to know who was doing what and where, so government agencies today need to know which boats are where in order to solve issues such as border sovereignty, smuggling, illegal fishing, pollution and navigational safety.

Each system is tailored specifically to a customer’s needs, with a range of unique functions including airborne, surface and subsea monitoring, and is installed and connected by SRT.

Sites are scalable into a fully integrated surveillance system if needed, giving governments and national agencies complete control over their fisheries and sea lanes.

The firm’s customers include several Asian and Middle Eastern nations, and the more countries buy into the need for marine domain management the more SRT’s systems are becoming the de facto standard, creating strong barriers to entry.

While each site is manned and operated by local agents, staff are trained by SRT and the firm has in-country managers to provide ongoing support and build capacity if needed.

As its systems orders, which can run into the hundreds of millions of pounds in value, translate into sales, so the firm’s top and bottom line are set to grow rapidly over the rest of this decade.

For the year to June 2025, revenue rose 423% from under £15 million to over £77 million and the firm swung from a loss of £14.4 million to a profit of £4.4 million.

At the last count, SRT had a validated pipeline of new system contracts worth roughly £1.4 billion, in addition to which the latest generation of transceivers is set to begin shipping before the end of this year, so I am expecting more positive news flow ahead of the AGM in December.

 

Disclaimer: Ian Conway owns shares in SRT Marine Systems

 

 

Wise (WISE)   

Price : £11

Market cap  : £13.7 billion

The most successful companies tend to be the ones which solve real-world problems. For decades moving money across borders was slow, cumbersome and expensive as big banks marked up exchange rates and applied hidden charges.

In 2011 Kristos Kaarmann, co-founder and chief executive of money transfer company Wise (WISE) set out to make cross border money transfers more transparent, faster, cheaper and more reliable than correspondent networks.

The business was floated in 2021 in the biggest direct listing on the London Stock Exchange, valuing the company at £8 billion. This means no money was raised and no existing shareholders sold any shares.

It is also worth noting the dual class structure which gives the founders enhanced voting rights.

In the year to 31 March 2025 Wise moved £145 billion across borders for 15.6 million people and businesses. That represents less than 5% and 1% market share respectively of the approximately £32 trillion market opportunity, providing a long runway of growth.

Management believes the business can sustainably grow revenues by between 15% and 20% a year and achieve operating margins of between 13% to 15%.

If the company can deliver on those goals, it implies profits will grow five-fold over the next decade. That does not look a stretch given operating profits have increased at a compound annual growth rate of 89% since 2020, or 24.5 times.

Wise is laser focused on delivering value and transparency to its customers and, importantly, it shares operational efficiencies and scale benefits with its customers through lower fees. The company estimates its customers save between £1.6 billion and £2 billion annually. 

The firm’s average fee across all routes was reduced again in 2025 by 14 basis points to 0.53%.

Wise has a huge advantage over incumbent banks who often see international transfers as an add-on service rather than a core competency. 

Big banks typically charge 2.7% for major currency transfers and nearly 10% for less mainstream currencies.  A further cost advantage of Wise’s model is that two thirds of new customer growth is through word of mouth.

Perhaps surprisingly, many banks have been encouraging their customers to use Wise which has led the company to develop the ‘Wise platform’ offering banks and institutions the same experience as retail customers.

It is a win-win for customers, banks, and Wise, claims Kaarmann.

Partners include Standard Chartered (STAN), Morgan Stanley (MS:NYSE), Monzo, Raiffeisen Bank International and Itau. 

Wise has built infrastructure to connect to local payment systems with more than 90 integrations via domestic banks and eight direct connections, in its push to create ‘the’ network for the world’s money.

I believe the company has many decades of growth ahead and will continue to create shareholder value. [MG]

 

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