Best of the Brokers for 24 March 2015 March 23, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com INVESTEC Numis reiterated its “hold” rating on the asset management group following its pre-close update. The broker said it had made some “very modest forecast changes” as a result of the update, with predicted earnings per share revised downwards, from 36.4p to 35.6p. [...]
Best of the Brokers for 16 March 2015 March 16, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com FENNER FinnCap reiterated its “hold” rating on the manufacturing firm after a trading update which prompted the broker to reduce its forecasts for 2015 and 2016. Year-end debt has been increased to £160m in part due to dollar debt translation. Target price is [...]
Serco slumps after £1.4bn loss March 12, 2015 SERCO boss Sir Rupert Soames has waived a £908,000 bonus after the outsourcing firm reported a loss of £1.35bn for 2014, compared with a profit of £108m the year before. Shares tumbled by 15 per cent as the market reacted to a set of results the company described as “very poor”. According to Serco, the [...]
AstraZeneca and TSB help London reverse declines – London Report March 12, 2015 UK SHARES rose yesterday, led by challenger bank TSB after it received a takeover offer, and by drugs group AstraZeneca on optimism about key trial results. Shares in TSB, which was spun off from Lloyds and listed at 280p per share last year, rose 23 per cent to 326p after it received a takeover bid [...]
Serco share price plunges as much as 16 per cent after first revenue fall in 25 years March 12, 2015 The figures Outsourcing firm Serco said full-year revenue fell to £3.95bn, down from £4.28bn a year earlier. The company also made a £1.35bn operating loss, compared to a £146m operating profit in 2013. Shares in Serco fell as much as 16 per cent to 174p in mid-morning trade as investors reacted to the results. Why it's interesting Serco's woes [...]
Troubled Serco could be target for short-sellers February 15, 2015 Struggling outsourcing firm Serco is attracting attention from short-sellers, who are expecting further bad news from the company this year. Hampshire-based Serco revealed in November that it was to raise £550m through a rights issue, at the same time announcing a profit warning for 2014. The firm did not pay a dividend last year as [...]
The 100 City people you need to follow on Twitter this year, day three: Chairmen and chief executives January 7, 2015 Last year was a tough one to be a leader in the City. As regulators got tough on businesses in the finance, energy and infrastructure sectors, there was a moral panic about who pays how much tax, with various companies having their dirty washing put unceremoniously on display. So you can forgive chairmen and chief [...]
Philip Clarke, Euan Sutherland and Dov Charney – the bosses who left us in 2014 December 19, 2014 This year has had its fair share of disasters – from the Co-op’s continued struggles to Tesco’s melting share price. But what of the people behind the stories? We’ve got the best, worst and most surprising people moves of the year. 1. Philip Clarke makes an unceremonious departure from Tesco Clarke stepped down at [...]
Serco in the clear: City of London Police find no evidence of any “corporate-wide conspiracy” December 19, 2014 Outsourcing firm Serco has finally received some good news after a disastrous year. After being asked last year to conduct an investigation into whether Serco staff had been misleadingly recording prisoners as ready for court when they were not, the Crown Prosecution Service has accepted the view of the City of London Police and put [...]
Outsourcing giants targeted by MPs’ report December 9, 2014 A POWERFUL committee of MPs is calling for big private-sector contracts for government services to be broken up and divided between smaller suppliers, to avoid a too-big-to-fail disaster. The Public Accounts Committee claims that Whitehall departments are not running big contracts effectively and that the taxpayer is often not getting value for money. The MPs [...]