Persimmon bucks the gloom to deliver a surge in earnings August 21, 2012 PERSIMMON reported a surge in half year profits yesterday as it focused on selling higher priced family homes in more affluent areas of the country, but warned that mortgage conditions for homebuyers remained tough. The UK’s largest housebuilder by market value said pre-tax profits rose 65 per cent to £98.7m in the six months to [...]
Asda says disposable income is up for first time in two years August 21, 2012 BRITISH households were £1 a week better off in July compared to the same month a year earlier, the largest annual increase in more than two years, according to the latest figures from Asda’s income tracker. Families had £151 a week left over last month after paying bills, up 0.6 per cent on the previous [...]
Ferrexpo profit dented by rising costs and falling iron ore prices August 21, 2012 UKRAINIAN iron ore producer Ferrexpo said yesterday its core profit fell 40 per cent in the first half, hurt by a rise in the cost of extracting the metal and lower global iron ore prices. Ferrexpo said higher energy costs and domestic inflation in Ukraine pushed up the cost of extracting each tonne by 25 [...]
Analyst Views | How did persimmon’s performance compare to its housebuilding peers? August 21, 2012 ROBIN HARDY PEEL HUNT Results ahead of expectations but the pre-close did under guide on margins. Earnings before tax and interest margins grew by 320 basis points despite the change in focus from growth to income generation and we are raising forecasts by around five per cent. RICHARD HUNTER HARGEAVES LANSDOWNE Whilst much of the [...]
Dev Secs makes £41m disposals August 21, 2012 Development Securities yesterday sold off a residential and two retail sites at Westminster Palace Gardens, Central London, the Wick Site in Littlehampton, and a retail park in Burnley for £40.9m. The Wick site was pre-sold to supermarket Morrisons for £12.5m, which plans to develop a 47,500 square feet store, a petrol station and a car [...]
UK Commercial swings to a loss August 21, 2012 UK Commercial Property Trust (UKCPT) swung into the red in the first half of the year and suffered a decline in its net asset value. The largest UK commercial property trust yesterday posted a loss before tax of £4.43m in the six months to 30 June against a profit of £32.8m this time last year, [...]
Mortgage and savings fraud soar August 21, 2012 Measured fraud in the mortgage industry soared between April and June, while across financial services as a whole fraud inched down, according to figures from Experian. Thirty-nine in every 10,000 mortgage applications were fraudulent in the second quarter of 2012, a rise of seven on the same period in 2011. Of these, almost a quarter [...]
Oman delays weigh on John Wood Group August 21, 2012 BRITISH energy services company John Wood Group is working hard to resolve problems with two key contracts that are holding it back, its chief executive said yesterday. Delays in a contract with Petroleum Development Oman have ratcheted up losses on the project and weighed on John Wood’s shares, but the company said that it expects [...]
Pirc hits out at Essar chairman August 21, 2012 SHAREHOLDER advisory body Pirc has advised investors in Essar Energy to vote down the firm’s chairman Prashant Ruia. Pirc has concerns that Ruia, whose family has a large indirect interest in the London-listed firm, is not sufficiently independent to be an effective chairman. Essar appointed Prashant after his uncle Ravi stepped down from the role [...]
CNOOC profits and dividend fall August 21, 2012 China’s leading offshore oil producer CNOOC Ltd said yesterday its first-half net profit fell by almost a fifth – twice as much as the market had expected – and it cut its dividend by 40 per cent to make room for its $15.1bn acquisition of Canadian oil firm Nexen. Shares fell as much as 5.5 [...]
