Retail reporting bonanza set to reveal festive cheer January 12, 2010 TOMORROW promises a reporting bonanza, with Christmas updates expected to reveal robust trading over the festive season. Home Retail Group, owner of Argos and Homebase, is expected to reveal an increase in their 2009/2010 profit forecast after sales growth last year. Meanwhile Halfords, HMV, Mothercare, Premier Oil and Premier Foods, the UK’s largest food producer, [...]
Debenhams caught in icy blast from shareholders January 12, 2010 THE cold snap wasn’t quite over for high street stalwart Debenhams at its annual general meeting yesterday as the board came under fire from beleaguered shareholders keen to know when their pockets would be padded with dividends once again. At the company’s London-based meeting, chairman John Lovering worked hard to reassure investors that the company [...]
Game Group issues profit warning January 12, 2010 COMPUTER games retailer Game Group yesterday cut its full-year profit forecast following poor Christmas sales, which were hit by growing supermarket competition and a slowing video games market. The results bucked the trend elsewhere for healthy festive spending. A survey showed British retailers enjoyed the biggest rise in total sales in a December since 2005. [...]
ARE THE TESCO FIGURES A SIGN OF BETTER TIMES AHEAD? January 12, 2010 SAM HART | CHARLES STANLEY “We continue to believe that conditions in the UK food retail industry remain relatively benign and expect a tail wind of higher food price inflation to return later in 2010. As such, we expect Tesco to continue to deliver high single/ low double-digit growth for at least the next three [...]
French set for Camelot bid scrutiny January 12, 2010 THERE are “major questions” over a bid for National Lottery operator Camelot by a French state-run company, according to the European Gaming and Betting Association. La Française des Jeux, which is eyeing a bid within the next month, has a complete monopoly in its domestic market. European bodies and rival bidders are looking into whether [...]
Waitrose and Sainsbury’s boost their brands January 12, 2010 RETAILERS have had a bumper Christmas according to the British?Retail?Consortium, but here is my review of 2009 as far as supermarkets are concerned. Graph 1 shows the share of total attention that each of the six received on BrandIndex. Over the course of 2009, Aldi and Asda dropped, Tesco and Morrison’s stayed steady, and Waitrose [...]
Iceland debt negotiations break down January 12, 2010 ICELAND’S hopes of striking a new deal on repaying vast sums to Britain and the Netherlands were dealt a setback yesterday when the island’s Dutch creditors said no fresh negotiations were underway. Iceland’s president refused last week to sign a bill setting out terms for repaying more than $5bn (£3.19bn) owed to the two countries, [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS January 12, 2010 GREENE KING Collins Stewart believes Greene King is under valued and recommends investors “buy”. It says both growth and resilience are built into its business model and thinks its estimates are achievable. The availability of efficient debt allows the pub company continued investment when other firms are likely to struggle, it says. SABMILLER Evolution Securities [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 12, 2010 KBC Peel Hunt The mid and small cap corporate broking firm has made three senior hires. Stuart Duncan joins Peel Hunt’s equity research team from The Royal Bank of Scotland. Mark McGuinness, previously co-head of sales trading at Numis Securities, joins as a director in the sales trading team. Duncan and McGuinness join Andrew Chapman [...]
Cadbury chief’s plea: ‘Don’t let Kraft steal your company’ January 12, 2010 CADBURY has launched a renewed attack on Kraft’s unwanted bid for the company and issued upbeat trading figures to back its case. The British chocolate maker accused the US food giant of dramatically undervaluing the company. Revenues grew by 6 per cent in the second half of 2009 at Cadbury according to the figures issued [...]