The Investment Column: Wait for completion of reforms before building a stake in Amec

For the past six years Amec has been slowly turning itself from your bog standard construction company into a specialist engineering services group. Yesterday, Amec promised to have this process complete by the end of the year, a few months after Sir Peter Mason, the group's chief executive and architect of the reform, is due to retire.

Investors were not particularly impressed by the latest promise as many had hoped that yesterday's results would see Amec actually announce the disposal of its French electrical services unit Spie - a key part of its restructuring. Instead, Sir Peter will in the coming days start to circulate a document which details the business to potential buyers and a deal is unlikely to be done and dusted until July. City analysts are far from sure how much Amec will get for the unit - estimates vary from £300m to £600m.

The next step will see the group split its remaining operations into two separate companies - engineering services, which does things like design oil rigs, and a UK infrastructure operation which will house Amec's various private finance initiative (PFI) investments. The exact mechanism by which this will be achieved is not yet clear. A separate quote for the infrastructure unit is a possibility as is an outright sale.

The remaining engineering services business will focus on the energy sector. For now that seems a pretty smart strategy. These days companies involved with providing support to the oil and gas industry are enjoying record growth. However, until it becomes apparent how much Amec's various disposals are going to raise, the group's shares are best avoided. Although it posted a 7 per cent rise in profits to £124m, debt, at £420m, is too high and the proceeds from a sale of Spie are needed to reduce this. Investors should revisit the stock once the restructuring is fully complete.

Shore Capital

While the country whips itself into the requisite frenzy of optimism over the likely success of Beckham et al this summer, there's a little corner of London's West End betting on Germany.

Not on its football team of course, (that could be construed as a touch unpatriotic), but on its property market. On Berlin real estate, to be precise.

Shore Capital, the boutique investment bank, has raised £185m to buy homes in the German capital. Add borrowings from elsewhere and Puma Brandenburg - the investment fund, whose shares can themselves be traded on the Alternative Investment Market as of this morning - commands buying power approaching £1bn.

A rental culture and plentiful government-built housing has left apartments there costing about one-tenth of the price of London per square foot, and cheaper than in Budapest, Prague or Warsaw. But cheap mortgages and an influx of Germans into their capital over the past decade make the property market ripe for a boom.

While Shore is betting on price rises, management fees alone from a fully invested fund are slated to bring in about £3m a year. Should Berlin property prices double over the next five years, ShoreCap pockets something like £70m. For a firm this size, that's no small beer.

The remainder of the group - about 60 per cent of turnover - is dominated by traditional stockbroking activities. News yesterday that pre-tax profits almost doubled last year to £12.5m spurred the shares 0.25p to a record 62p, valuing the company at £166m.

That means they are trading somewhere about 18 times expected earnings, compared with about 20 times for rival stockbrokers. With London's smaller companies' market booming and ShoreCap's unique business mix, the shares are a buy.

JKX Oil & Gas

JKX Oil & Gas has a great track record when it comes to operating in former Communist countries and yesterday's annual results from the explorer underlined this fact. The group announced that its 2005 pre-tax profits had more than doubled to $51m and so had its payout to shareholders.

JKX is focused on the Ukraine, where it has four fields producing oil and gas. But building up these assets has not been easy. Operating in former Communist countries is an uncertain business even when your local partner is the state. Between 1999 and 2002 the company fought several legal battles against its state-owned partners and eventually triumphed. Going forward this experience puts JKX in good stead as it looks for further opportunities in the region.

The future is also rosy for its existing operations in the Ukraine. The gas it produces it sells on the local market and here, because of well-publicised pressure from Russia, prices have been soaring and are likely to continue to do so for some time to come as Moscow insists that its former satellites pay the going European rate for gas.

At 329p, the company trades on a rating of just 12 times forecasts earnings for this year. This is too low a rating for a quality player like JKX. Buy.