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Sterling Helps Compass Pay £1bn Special Dividend
Compass Group CPG received a big helping hand from the weakness of sterling which added an extra 15% to revenue, operating profit and earnings per share for the first half year to 31st March. The result is that the company can afford to celebrate with a proposal to pay a special dividend of £1bn, as well as raising the interim dividend by another 5.7%. Well done sterling.
Revenue for the half year rose by 20.3% but on an organic basis this was reduced to a more realistic figure of 3.6%, North America leading the way with a rise of 7% and the board remains excited about the long term prospects of the company. Let us hope that sterling does not wipe the smile off their faces by reverting to a more realistic valuation.
Barratt Developments BDEV is firing on all cylinders and expects house completions for the year to the end of June will be the highest for nine years. It displays no signs of the ills which have begun to afflict some of its competitors and appears to be going from strnegth to strength. Profits are expected to be at the top end of current analysts estimates. Total forward sales as at the 7th May were at record levels after a rise of 12.7%. Market conditions remain good and attractive mortgage finance is widely available. Private average selling prices have shown upward momentum, as the company euphemistically puts it and the net cash position at the year end will be ahead of expectations at £600m.
ITV PLC ITV saw total revenue fall by 1% in the quarter to the end of March whilst total external revenue was down by 3% and family NAR fell by 6% over the 4 months to the end of April, with a forecast ofr further declines of 8% in May and 15-20% in June, making a total first half decline of 9%. One good sign among the statistics was a rise of 4% in viewing share for the quarter and guidance for the full year remains unchanged.
Marshalls MSLH. Group revenue rose by 6% compared to last year, in the 4 months to the 30th April, whilst sales in the domestic end market increased by 13%. Order books are at their highest ever and the board is becoming increasingly encourage about the groups overall performance for the current year.
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Metro Bank – Providing A Service, Does Pay
Metro Bank MTRO Cheeky little Metro Bank is giving the big bad banks a lesson in growth and has now moved into profit for each quarter of the second half. Profit before tax in quarter 3 was a tiny £0.6m, increasing to £1.5m in quarter 4. Losses for the full year shrank from £46.4m in 2015 to £11.7m. Asset growth came in at 64%, lending and deposit growth were both at record levels with rises 56% and 66% respectively, whilst revenue was up by 62%. Somebody must love its policy of actually trying to provide a service to its customers.
Barratt Developments BDEV Despite a fall of 5.8% in completions and revenue down by 3.2% in the six months to 31st December, Barratt claims it was a strong half year with profit before tax up by 8.8% and shareholders rewarded with a rise of 21.7% in the interim dividend. Total forward sales orders now stand at record levels after a rise of 17%. The one statistic which is omitted for some strange reason, is the increase in the average selling price. I wonder why.
Lloyds Banking Group LLOY is increasing its final ordinary dividend by 13% and maintaining last year’s special dividend of 0.5p meaning an overall rise for the year of 11%. Statutory 2016 profit before tax rose by 158% to £4.2b and earnings per share by 263%, whilst operating costs were reduced by 3%.
Gooch & Housego GHH good trading conditions during the first four months of the current financial year enabled GHH to see its order book up by 64.9% as at 31st January compared to last year, although on a like for like basis, excluding foreign exchange movements and acquisitions, the figure comes in at a more modest 19.4%. So far trading for the full year is expected to be in line but there does seem to be a hint of optimism in today’s trading update as a result of continuing good market conditions.
Hotel Chocolat HOTC produced strong growth in both sales and profitability in the 6 months to 25th December. Profit before tax rose by 28% on reported revenue up by 14% and the net cash position was transformed with a positive balance of £16.1m compared to debt of £1m at the end of the previous year.
Blue Prism Group PRSM now expects full year revenue will be materially ahead of current market expectations following the positive trading momentum evidenced at the end of last year, continuing into the current year.
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Countrywide and Barratt See Markets Collapsing.
Countrywide CWD Suffered badly in quarter four with figures showing the beginning of a slump in the housing market which is going to get worse in 2017. Countrywide is the largest agent in the business with national coverage and local reach, so these figures do not relate just to inner London or the Home Counties. They present a picture of what could be the end of the grossly overheated housing market all over the country. Results for the full year to 31st December are expected to show a 6% drop in transactions. Fourth quarter income declined to £179m. from 2015’s £196m It is expected that sales in 2017 will decline further, impacted by a continuation of lower volumes than in 2016.
Barratt Development BDEV does claims a healthy housing market with strong demand for new houses during its second half to the 31st December and that is all very true, provided you ignore London which is hardly realistic for a national housebuilder. Yesterdays update from Barratt’s showed that sales in London had plunged by over in 50% in the 6 months to 30th December, down from 842 to 367.As against that completions outside London were at their highest level for 9 years but the fall in London was so severe that total completions for the half year fell from 7,626 to 7,180.
The average selling price rose by 3.9% but for the poor private buyer the increase averaged 5.3%. Barrat claims that one of the main reasons for the strength of the market is continued government support, which does raise the oft asked question as to why the government should continue spending taxpayers money to fuel an already overheated market. Cynics may say that it is just the Tories looking after their own and ignoring basic economics.
Total forward sales are up by 15% and profit before tax for the six months is expected to rise by 7%, with a further 7% expected in the first half of 2017
Mitchells & Butler MAB enjoyed strong Xmas trading with what the CEO describes as an encouraging performance. Like for like sales over the 7 weeks to the 7th January rose by 2.9%, compared to a tiny 0.5% for the 8 weeks to the 19th November. Margins however are expected to be lower than in 2015 because of cost pressures
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Futura Medical Hardens on Erectile Disfunction News
Barratt Developments BDEV Heaps praise on itself for its full year performance to the 30th June as if it was in any way responsible for the continuing housing boom which has enabled it to raise private average selling prices during the year by a mind boggling 10.4%. Perhaps they have forgotten but should remember that well worn phrase – “it’s the economy, stupid”. Profit before tax rose by 20.7%, revenue by 12.7% but completions were up by a comparatively meagre 5.3% and forward sales are up by an even smaller 4.1%. Shareholders do well out of the bonanza with a 19.1% increase in the final dividend.
Ashtead Group AHT enjoyed a strong first quarter with a 12% rise in revenue leading to a 4% increase in profit before tax. It also benefited to the tune of £17m from the collapse in the pound.
Trakm8 Holdings TRAK New orders have risen by 37% since the 1st April, of which 27% is organic growth. First half profits however are expected to be down on last year, with the decline being recouped in the traditionally stronger, second half.
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Wetherspoon Savages Mandelson and Cameron
Wetherspoon (JD) JDR Tim Martin devotes most of todays update to a withering attack on Christine La Garde, Cameron, Carney and all the others involved in the fear and terror propaganda machine known as Remain.
First the boring bits. For the 11 weeks to 10th July Wetherspoons like for like sales rose by 4% and for the 50 weeks to 10th July they were up by 3.4%. total sales for the 50 weeks rose by 5%.
As for the company’s outlook he says; Wetherspoon trade strengthened slightly in recent weeks and we consequently anticipate a modestly improved outcome for this financial year. Caution should be exercised in extrapolating current levels of sales growth for future years.” And then comes the killer thrust.
“Unbeknown to most voters, one of the “architects” of the Remain campaign, which devised the above approach, was Peter Mandelson (“How the struggle for Europe was lost”, Peter Mandelson, Financial Times, 2 July), who worked closely with Cameron, Osborne and others.
“In my opinion, the above individuals and organisations are either dishonest, or they have a poor understanding of economics, since democracy and prosperity are closely linked and the EU is clearly undemocratic. By voting to restore democracy in the UK, I believe the UK’s economic prospects will improve, although it is quite possible that the unprecedented and irresponsible doom-mongering, outlined above, may lead to some kind of slowdown.
Barratt Developments BDEV proclaims another strong performance for the year to 30th June with profit before tax expected to show a rise of 20%, after a 5.3% rise in completions and another huge rise of 10.6% in average selling prices. Not surprisingly Barratt remains supportive of governments schemes designed to ensure that housebuilders can continue to benefit from strong demand and inflation beating price rises.
Burberry BRBY continues to suffer from falling sales even in its most important markets, as it tries, so far without much signs of success, to position itself for long term growth in the midst of a challenging external environment. In the three months to the 30th June, Asia Pacific and Hong Kong, where it once rode so high, saw a double digit % decline in like for like sales whilst Continental Europe was depressed and saw a similar fall in sales to travelling luxury customers.The UK on the other hand did deliver mid, single digit % growth. Caution is also expressed about the outlook for wholesale sales since May and expects that the 6 months to the end of September will produce a fall of 10%.
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National Express Beats The Germans For Punctuality
National Express NEX With an 11% rise in revenue during the first four months of the year, taking into account acquisitions and the start of German rail operations in December, National Express has enjoyed a strong start to 2016. Passenger numbers have grown and revenue has increased across all divisions. In Spain passenger numbers have grown by 5%, in Morocco they are up by 11%, whilst North America has had the best start ever to a year. In Germany the company is even beating the punctuality record of the previous rail operator.
William Hill WMH has had a tough start to the year as the wrong horses kept winning, especially at Cheltenham and the wrong European football teams kept losing. Net revenue for the 17 weeks to the 26th April was down heavily in some areas and only the strength of the US market with a rise of 46% helped to save the day and reduce the overall net revenue decline to 3%. Even online revenue was down by 11%.
TUI AG TUI The half year report delivered by the executive Board for the 6 months to the 31st March reads like an insult to the English language. It is now focused on becoming content concentric and vertically integrated as well as continuing to deliver merger synergies, other synergies, delivering against growth levers, operating in all stages of the value chain and benefiting from joint management of occupancy which also delivered further synergies. The actual figures are at least better than the Boards communication skills. It expects at least a 10% rise in underlying EBITA for this year and next and so far this year the rise comes in at 16.3%. Summer 2016 is in line with expectations. Just as long as they keep centric and synergised, it might actually turn out to be a good year.
Barratt Developments BDEV continues to benefit from the boom conditions created by the availability of mortgages and admits that it is focused on obtaining selling prices as high as possible. Market conditions for the 19 weeks to the 8th May have been strong, with good levels of demand creating a rise of 9.7% in forward orders. There are excellent land opportunities available and Barratt expects a significant improvement in performance for the full year.
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Taxpayer Subsidy Keeps Barratt Shareholders Happy
Barratt Developments (BDEV) admits, that like all the house builders, one of the two main factors keeping its shareholders happy, is the government subsidy to first time buyers. But elections have to be won one way or another, so the government is hardly likely to try and restore a bit of sense to the market, by ending it.
The interim dividend for the half year to 30th December is to be increased by 25% after a 19% rise in revenue and surges of over 40% in both profit before tax and basic earnings per share. One calming factor is that net private reservations per active site at 0.71, are flat on a year ago.
Tristel (TSTL) is raising its interim dividend by 95% to 1.14p after a 36% rise in profit before tax and a modest 8% rise in revenue. The company produces infection prevention and contamination control products for both humans and animals. Its shares have more than doubled in the past 9 months having risen from 70p to 145p
Grafenia (GRA) fears that its full year results will be significantly below current market expectations. Trading has become more challenging, its markets have never been more competitive and prices are suffering from downward pressure ( i.e. falling, to you and me) The downward pressure was not just on its prices as its share price went into freefall yesterday, collapsing 29% to 6.75p and having been over 20p as recently as the end of September
Gooch & Housego (GHH) expects first half profits will be materially below last years record level because of mixed market conditions
House Builders – Bleeding The Market Dry
The greed of the housebuilders knew no limits and it looks as if they may have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. The UK housing market has been bled dry by large annual price increases, way way above the rate of inflation. The housebuilders shrank their own market as more and more people became unable to buy even a starter home.
The builders saw an everlasting boom and ever rising dividends fuelled by ever rising prices. They suffered from short term memory loss as they forgot that booms always end and always in tears.
Barrat Developments BDEV is a prime example. In 2011 when the average private selling price was £178,300 it could not afford to pay a dividend but promised one for 2012. In 2012 Barratts profit before tax rose by 159%, the start of the boom but it still could not afford to pay a dividend. The average price rose slightly to £180,000.
In 2013 the dividend was restored with a payment of 2.5p per share after a rise of 73.7% in profit before tax, helped by another inflation beating price increase.
2014 may in retrospect have been the golden year. The average selling price soared to £241,600, profit before tax was up by 103% and the dividend was increased by a massive 312%.
2015 was still a good year but there were obvious signs of black clouds on the horizon. Profit before tax rose again but by a much more modest 44.8% and the rise in annual revenue was down to only 19.1%. But the shocker as far as the market was concerned was that the increase in average selling price fell to a comparatively meagre 8.7%. That hit the share price hard but the annual dividends for the year were still upped by 143.7% to 10p.
The history of Barratts share price illustrates the boom and bust nature of the company. In 2010 it was 50p before rising sharply to 275p and then collapsing again in 2011 & 2012 to 75p. as the dividends disappeared. Then came the boom which saw a rise to 660p as recently as last month, followed by a sharp and sudden retreat to 579p.
Perhaps the rot set in in July when the Investors Chronicle gave the kiss of death to house builders by claiming that they were due for further growth.
It is not just Barratts world which has been turned upside down. A few days ago Bovis lost 11% in one day and Persimmon topped the FTSE100 fallers list with a fall of 25p.
It is early days yet but it looks like those golden eggs may soon be in short supply. It will be interesting to see the reasons offered – “challenging conditions” etc etc plus the usual tired list of well used excuses could soon be be back in fashion.
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