21st May 2014 10:30
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Wednesday.
----------
COMPANIES
----------
Burberry Group PLC reported a higher pretax profit and revenues for its last financial year, as outerwear, large leather goods and menswear and demand in Asia continue to drive the business forward. The FTSE 100 luxury retailer also said it has appointed easyJet PLC Chief Executive Carolyn McCall to its board as a non-executive director. Burberry said that in the year ahead it will up investment, pumping around GBP200 million in capital expenditure focusing on its retail division, the Japanese market, and its beauty division, which the company brought back in-house last year. The demand for Burberry's goods has been driven by much of the same factors of late; travelling "luxury customers", particularly from Asia, buying the retailer's outerwear and leather goods, like its iconic trench coats and check-print patterned goods.
----------
SSE PLC reported a slight increase in pretax profit for the full year, as a one-off charge of GBP742.2 million coupled with a fall in profit for its retail business took its toll. The energy supplier posted pretax profit of GBP575.3 million for the year ended March 31, up from GBP571.3 million a year earlier, as its retail arm recorded a 29% fall in operating profit, reflecting lower use of energy by customers and higher costs including the cost of gas for Energy Supply. During the period, the company took a one-off charge of GBP747.2 million, resulted from scaling back of offshore wind projects and the planned disposals of what it called "non-core" businesses like street lighting contracts. This along with the write down in value of coal-fire stations hurt SSE's profit during the period.
----------
Great Portland Estates PLC reported an increase in profit and revenue for the full year, driven largely by valuation gains. The central London property development company posted pretax profit of GBP422.2 million for the year ended March 31, up from GBP180.6 million a year earlier, boosted by valuation gains of GBP306.9 million compared with GBP97.4 million a year earlier. At the period-end the company's portfolio was valued at GBP2.04 billion up from GBP1.86 billion a year earlier. The company said there were a number of key drivers behind this valuation movement including rental value growth. It said rental values grew 8.2% during the period, consisting of 7.2% and 12% increases for office and retail rental values, respectively.
----------
Shares in Britvic PLC were one of the biggest gainers on the FTSE 250, after the soft drinks maker said it delivered strong revenue, profit and margin growth in the first half of the year, supported by volume increases, higher prices and increased market share. The British maker of Robinsons cordial and Tango and Fruit Shoot soft drinks raised its interim dividend by 13% to 6.1 pence per share, highlighting a confident outlook for the year ahead, the company said. "Whilst we anticipate that the consumer environment is likely to remain challenging across our core markets, we remain confident of delivering [earnings before interest and taxes] in the range of GBP148 million to GBP156 million for the full year," said Chief Executive Simon Litherland in a statement. In the full 2013 financial year, Britvic recorded EBIT of GBP135 million.
----------
DCC PLC declared a 10% increase in its annual dividend, as it reported strong gains in both revenue and profit in its recent financial year, driven by acquisitions and by strong organic growth in its Technology and Healthcare divisions. The FTSE 250 sales and support-services group lifted its full-year dividend to 76.85 pence per share, up 10% from 69.86p the year before, which it said makes for the 20th consecutive year of dividend growth as a listed company. Revenue for the full year ended March 31 rose 6.2% to GBP11.23 billion from GBP10.57 billion the year before, boosting pretax profit by 16% to GBP123.9 million from 106.6 million.
----------
Antofagasta PLC said that it remains on track to meet its January-issued 2014 production guidance of 700,000 tonnes of copper. In a statement released ahead of the Chile-based copper miner's annual general meeting, Chairman Jean-Paul Luksic said that the company continues to work on reducing costs and further on enhancing the longer-term prospects of the business. Antofagasta said 2013 was a challenging year for the the company and mining sector as a whole, with the Chile-focused company facing pricing challenges from a more vulnerable market as a result of lower demand growth and weaker confidence in China as well as new mine supply coming on-stream, as a consequence of investment decisions made several years ago when the sector was still growing strongly.
----------
FirstGroup PLC said that trading during its full year was in line with expectations and recorded an improved statutory pretax profit, despite poor weather conditions hitting profits in its First Student and Greyhound businesses in its final quarter. In its preliminary results for the year to March 31, 2014, FirstGroup said its statutory pretax profit for the year was GBP58.5 million, up from a GBP28.9 million loss the previous year. On an adjusted basis, before amortisation and exceptional charges, pretax profit rose 23.1% to GBP111.9 million from GBP90.9 million last year. Revenue came in at GBP6.7 billion, down 2.7% from the GBP6.9 billion recorded for 2013.
----------
Telecom Plus PLC saw its shares jump to the top of the FTSE 250 in early trading after the multi-utility provider reported a rise in revenue, higher pretax profit and a boosted full-year dividend as the firm continues to grow its customer base. In its final results for the year to March 31, 2014 the company said revenue rose 9.5% to GBP658.8 million from GBP601.5 million last year. Adjusted pretax profit jumped 25.3% to GBP44.6 million from GBP35.6 million the previous year. Telecom Plus boosted its dividend for the full-year by 12.9% to 35 pence per share from the 31 pence per share paid in 2013.
----------
Lloyds Banking Group PLC, the UK's biggest mortgage lender, has clamped down on high-risk loans in London amid mounting fears that households in the southeast are overstretching their finances as they chase a rapidly accelerating housing market, the Financial Times reports. The bank has decided that where a borrower is seeking a loan of more than GBP500,000, it will apply a limit of no more than four times income. The move is designed to address “specific inflationary pressures in the London housing market”, The FT quotes Lloyds as saying.
----------
Royal Mail Group PLC said it will pilot a Sunday afternoon parcel collection service from its busiest delivery offices this summer, a move that comes in the wake of its recent deal with unions that got agreement that staff would be more flexible in their working practices. In a statement, the company said the pilot would be run at about 100 of its delivery offices with the highest parcel volumes, meaning they're open for collection seven days a week. It will also trial a parcel delivery service in London, within the M25 motorway. It said the move would make it easier for online shoppers who work during the week to be able to collect their parcels.
----------
MARKETS
----------
UK stocks are trading mixed, with the FTSE100 marginally down, hovering around its multi-year high.
----------
FTSE 100: down 0.1% at 6796.5
FTSE 250: up 0.6% at 15530.76
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.3% at 792.1
----------
The pound has jumped to a multi-day high against the dollar and a multi-month high against the euro following stronger-than-expected UK retail sales data and the release of the Bank of England's latest Monetary Policy meeting minutes.
----------
GBP-USD: up at USD1.6888
EUR-USD: flat at USD1.3702
GOLD: down at USD1293.48 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD110.00 a barrel
(changes since end of previous GMT day)
----------
ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
----------
Bank of England policy makers unanimously decided to maintain the monetary policy but their views on the appropriate path of monetary policy varied, the minutes of their most recent meeting showed. At the monetary policy meeting, all members voted to maintain the key interest rate at 0.50% and quantitative easing at GBP 375 billion. All nine members agreed that, in the absence of other inflationary pressures, it would be necessary to see more evidence of slack reducing before an increase in interest rate would be warranted. "The committee would continue to refine its views as the economy evolved, and for some members the monetary policy decision was becoming more balanced," it said.
----------
UK retail sales increased at the strongest annual pace since May 2004, data from the Office for National Statistics showed. Retail sales volume including automotive fuel advanced 6.9% year-on-year in April, faster than the 4.8% rise seen in March. This was the highest annual growth in the quantity bought since May 2004 and exceeded the 5.1% rise forecast by economists. Excluding automotive fuel, retail sales climbed at a pace of 7.7% after rising 4.9% in March. That was also above the 5.4% expected increase. Month-on-month, overall retail sales volume growth improved to 1.3% in April from 0.5% in March. Similarly, growth in sales excluding automotive fuel accelerated to 1.8% from 0.1%.
----------
The Bank of Japan left its monetary policy unchanged and raised its assessment of capital expenditure, as the economy is expected to withstand the impact of sales tax hike. The policy board of the central bank decided to persists with its policy of increasing the monetary base at an annual pace of about JPY60 trillion to JPY70 trillion.
----------
Japan posted a merchandise trade deficit of JPY808.8 billion in April, the Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday - sliding into the red for the 22nd consecutive month. The headline figure missed forecasts for a shortfall of 646 billion yen following the 1,446 billion yen deficit in March. Exports climbed 5.1% on year, beating expectations for an increase of 4.8% following the 1.8% gain in the previous month. Imports jumped an annual 3.4% versus forecasts for an increase of 0.8% following the 18% surge a month earlier.
----------
China's economy added 4.73 million jobs in the first four months of 2014, which was higher by 30,000 from the same period of last year, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) said. The service sector has created more jobs despite slowing economic growth. Xin Changxing, vice minister of the MHRSS said the government is confident of achieving job target this year. Premier Li Keqiang set the job target first and then calculated GDP target for 2014. China aims to achieve about 7.5% economic growth.
----------
As Russia vows to veto an upcoming UN Security Council resolution to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, calls from the wider UN membership intensify to end the council's three-year gridlock on the brutal conflict. The UN Security Council is expected to vote on a resolution Thursday to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, and with Russia vowing to veto it, several UN member states are again calling for meaningful action by the council.
----------
At least 118 people were killed in a twin bombing at a crowded market in the Plateau State capital Jos in central Nigeria, a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said early Wednesday. And at least an additional 45 people were injured, according to Plateau State police commissioner Chris Olakpe.
----------
A Cairo court handed down a three-year jail sentence for former president Hosny Mubarak on charges of fraudulently spending millions of dollars on his private residences. The ousted leader's sons Gamal and Alaa both received four-year sentences in the case, in which the three were accused of embezzling more than 100 million Egyptian pounds (USD14 million) of public money. They were also jointly fined 125 million pounds (USD17.5 million).
----------
Copyright 2014 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
BurberryBritvicSSEDCCRMG.LFirstgroupGPOR.LBHP Group