Market minnows: Westminster Group may be one to watch

Westminster Group

Share price: 8.7p

The hunt by the media and investors for stocks which could benefit or be hit by the virus crisis has at times been as chaotic and unpredictable as the outbreak itself. With this in mind comes a tiddler which may quietly get a boost from the global carnage. Westminster Group is an AIM-listed security group.

Westminster has been supplying fever detection and surveillance systems around the world, particularly in Asia since the virus emerged. There’s been a drip-drip of news on new work from the US to Hong Kong and Vietnam.

The group provides a range of services — from installing and maintaining emergency lighting systems in buildings to supplying “non-aggressive” equipment like bomb detection kit to armies.

But its border security arm is the key division. It does not directly employ the staff, but manages the processes of passing through security and installing technology. The firm argues its reputation, helped by its best of British name, is trusted across the world, providing assurance to airlines landing at airports that screening has been effective.

One of its largest contracts is at the Freetown National Airport in Sierra Leone, and west Africa looks a growth area. A new contract screening containers at the port of Tema in Ghana, to the east of the capital Accra, is expected to prove fruitful.