Princess Highway just favoured in Oaks battle with Great Heavens July 19, 2012 WHEN John Gosden supplemented impressive Lancashire Oaks winner, Great Heavens, for Sunday’s Irish version (3.20pm) earlier this week, I was certain I’d be backing her with the testing conditions sure to play to her strengths. However, it’s all about the price in this game; I was expecting her to be around the 3/1 second favourite [...]
ANALYST VIEWS | WHAT DOES TODAY’S STATEMENT MEAN FOR LAND SECURITIES? July 18, 2012 ALAN CARTER INVESTEC Land Securities always does developments well, or at least that is what we have been told by them. This statement is going to need to hold true over the coming two years as developments come to fruition, at a time when the first signs of weakness are starting to appear. ‘Hold’. ALISON [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 18, 2012 Baroda Pioneer The asset management firm has appointed Jaideep Bhattacharya as its managing director. He joins from UTI Mutual Fund, where he was previously group president and chief marketing officer. Bhattacharya has also held senior roles at ICICI, the Indian bank. VTB Capital Peter Stonor has been appointed global head of infrastructure and transport for [...]
Entrepreneurs hopeful for 2013 July 17, 2012 British entrepreneurs have not yet shaken their gloom about the UK economy – but are increasingly confident about their own ventures, according to Investec data seen by City A.M. A third of entrepreneurs expect the economy to deteriorate in the next year, compared to 27 per cent who predict an uptick. But for their own [...]
Retail investors step in where others fear to tread July 16, 2012 With UK institutional shareholders effectively closing the door on supporting money-raising for anything that has the smell of risk about it, like an IPO or new issue for instance, some companies and their financial advisers have been scurrying around to find new methods of raising capital. One such instrument that has been gaining currency in [...]
ANALYST VIEWS | WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR SAGE? July 16, 2012 WILL WALLIS NUMIS While UK growth has been “good”, Europe overall is flat, implying that mainland Europe is into negative territory. It is appropriate to be cautious about Q4 and beyond and we pull our recommendation back to Hold from Add. JULIAN YATES INVESTEC While the US is slowly improving and emerging markets are solid, [...]
Cove Energy sale drags into its eighth month as Shell extends July 12, 2012 THE SALE of Cove Energy enters its eighth month today, with pursuer Shell extending its offer for a fourth time. So far Shell has persuaded just 3.27 per cent of investors to accept its £1.12m bid. Mozambique-focused Cove, which opened its data room to potential bidders on 13 December, is also fielding advances from Thai [...]
ANALYST VIEWS | SHOULD THE SLOWDOWN IN BURBERRY’S SALES BE A CAUSE FOR CONCERN? July 11, 2012 BETHANY HOCKING INVESTEC Burberry is flagging a “more challenging external environment” and we expect the shares to suffer due to this comment and the small miss. We note, however, that full year guidance appears unchanged and the first quarter is Burberry’s smallest quarter. This year is also against the toughest comparatives (comparatives progressively weaken through [...]
Diamond: unfair and unfounded to say I was not candid July 10, 2012 BOB Diamond yesterday accused the Treasury select committee of tarnishing his reputation as the Libor scandal surrounding the bank he once ran continues to unfold. In a letter to chairman Andrew Tyrie, the former Barclays boss expressed “dismay” at the suggestion that he was “less than candid with the committee last week,” calling the implication [...]
ANALYST VIEWS | WHAT HAS SPARKED MARKS & SPENCER’S POOR TRADING PERFORMANCE? July 10, 2012 BETHANY HOCKING INVESTEC The ongoing outperformance of food is making M&S a structurally lower gross margin business, with food gross margin around 20 basis points lower than of clothing. Clothing still accounts for roughly half of profits, however, so issues there are in need of a solution and the management changes are thus positive, but [...]