Crest Nicholson: H1 2006 results
Residential and mixed used developer Crest Nicholson reported falling profits and flat sales in the half year to April 2006 which was blamed on a change in accounting rules.
The company reported that operating profit declined by 17% to £48.8m while pre-tax profit declined by 20% to £39.2m. Crest Nicholson said that reported profits were affected […]
Bradford & Bingley: H1 2006 trading update
Bradford & Bingley, reported that the momentum seen in its last full year results has continued in the first half of the current year. In a trading update released today the bank said that new business volumes have been “very healthy”, credit quality “sound” and that profits were in line with market expectations.
While margins on […]
HBOS: H1 2006 trading update
HBOS said trading for the first half of 2006 was “robust” with stable interest margins, a good contribution from non-interest income and tight cost control expected to drive earnings.
The company said it had maintained its market share in terms of net mortgage lending which may mean that volumes have dropped compared to last year due […]
DSG: 2005/6 results
Most of the key numbers in the results were no surprise. The fall in sales at The Link has already been disclosed in the first half results and the trading statement. We had already inferred the lower margins at PC World from the sales growth and market trends.
DSG International’s total sales growth of 8% (excluding […]
Emap: Sale of French magazines
The French consumer magazine business has been sold for 550m euros, approximately £380m. This is a revenue multiple of 1.2× and an EV/EBIT of 10×.
This is a good price for a declining business.
£285m is to be returned to shareholders.
It does not significantly change our view on the value of Emap, which is now trading on […]
Whitbread: trading statement
There has been little change since last year. The budget hotel chain, Premier Travel Inn continues to produce strong like-for-like growth (6.7%) on top of its expansion (another 7%) while pubs continue to decline (sales down 2% like-for-like).
The remaining businesses, David Lloyd Leisure and the high street restaurants produced flat or negative like-for-like growth in […]
Lloyds TSB: 2006 H1 results
Lloyds TSB reported that it expects to deliver “a strong trading performance” for the first half of 2006.
The bank said that corporate lending, the main driver of growth last year has continued to perform well while retail banking has shown substantial improvement, with volumes said to be “well ahead” of last year. Bad debts in […]
British Energy: 2005/6 results
British Energy reported that it had made “good progress” in the year to March 2006. A change in the accounting year end from July to March means that it is difficult to assess just how well the company has done, since like-for-like figures are not available for comparison.
By way of explanation the company states that […]
Severn Trent: 2005/6 results
Severn Trent, a water company, reported that operating profits (before exceptional charges) for the year to March 2006 rose 22.4% (to £488.2m).
Severn Trent Water, which accounted for around 81% of operating profits in 2006, reported a 13.4% increase in turnover (to £1,150.9m) on the back of a regulatory price increase of 15.2%. The disposal of […]
Pennon: 2005/6 results
Water company Pennon reported that operating profit rose 16% (to £175.1m) in the year to March 2006, driven by regulatory price increases.
The company runs South West Water and Viridor Waste. South West Water (which earned around 80% of the company’s operating profits in the current year) holds the water and sewerage appointments for Devon, Cornwall […]
Vedanta: 2005/6 results
Higher commodity prices improved Indian miner Vedanta’s EBITDA margin 5.7 percentage points to 29.8%. Higher prices and the first full year contribution from a major acquisition last year doubled revenues.
Like any miner, the key driver is commodity prices. Although Vedanta’s markets are different from those of other London listed miners (it sells most of its […]
Aggreko: H1 trading statement
The trading statement was positive in tone but contained few solid numbers apart from the very encouraging $32m in extra revenue from storm damage in the US.
More importantly there has been strong growth in several businesses including underlying growth in the US (i.e. excluding the one-off benefit of the storm damage).
In addition Aggreko also said […]
FKI: 2005/6 results
Cyclical recovery at FKI strengthened further in the second half and full year turnover growth reached 13.8%.
Margins were little changed as the benefits of operational gearing and cost reductions were offset by rising commodity and energy prices.
Most of the profit growth came from lifting equipment. This was already the largest business (it now generates 41% […]
Tesco: Q1 trading statement
Like-for-like sales growth in the UK of 4.5% was very slightly lower than in the second half of last year. Expansion added another 3.5%, exactly the same as last year.
International sales continued to grow very strongly if not as good as last year, up 15%.
At 326p The price has barely changed since we last looked […]
Woolworths: AGM trading statement
Sales in the retail business continued to slide but this also continued to be offset by growth in the music and video wholesale and publishing business - total sales were almost unchanged, down just 0.4% so far this year.
The high growth in wholesale sales outside the group (i.e. not to Woolworths shops) of 21.2% is […]
Spirent: profit warning
Spirent’s performance has deteriorated quite sharply over the last month and its performance analysis division (the better performing of its two core businesses last year) is now expected to make a profit of around £5m less than previously expected.
The transition to new products is clearly proving difficult. We do continue to expect recovery in Spirent’s […]
Johnson Matthey: 2005/6 results
Despite low total sales growth (3%) performance during the year was good with EPS growth of 9%. The catalysts (53% of operating profit) and precious metals (25% of operating profit) divisions did particularly well driven by both volume growth and higher precious metal prices.
The only area of significant under-performance was the pharmaceutical division (13.4% […]
Grainger Trust: H1 2006 results
Grainger Trust, a manager of residential property reported weaker figures for the half year to March 2006 – the first real-estate company to do so.
Grainger reported that Net Asset Value per share dropped to 459p from 475p at end September 2005. Upto now most real-estate managers have reported strong increases in NAV, due to the […]
Royal Bank of Scotland: H1 2006 trading statement
The Royal Bank of Scotland said that trading in the half year to June 2006 was in line with expectations.
Highlights of the company’s half year performance are expected to include organic growth in income, a narrowing of margins, good cost control and a small improvement in overall credit metrics.
Income growth is reportedly being driven by […]
Benfield: H1 2006 trading update
Reinsurance broker Benfield reported poor trading conditions in the first half of the year, not unexpected given that insurance volumes have fallen following the catastrophe losses of last year.
The impact of the huge losses last year has been to restrict underwriting capacity, hence the lower volumes. Benfield reported that ‘in loss-affected areas there has been […]