Spire by St Brides

Severn Trent Lost For Words

Severn Trent SVT  Expects net Customer Outcome Delivery Incentive Rewards ODI will be ahead of previous guidance for 2016 -17 and will meet or exceed last years level.  This must be a good thing because it follows a strong operational performance in the three months to 31st December. All fine and good but what does it […]

Quoted Micro 30 January 2017

NEX / ISDX There was a sharp improvement in operating profit from £120,006 to £213,657 at Hydro Hotel, Eastbourne (HYDP) in the year to October 2016. Revenues improved from £3.13m to £3.21m, while gross margin jumped from 9.9% to 13.6%. Pre-tax profit rose from £133,576 to £224,352. Improved marketing has helped to boost trade but […]

Filtronic Returns to Profitability

Filtronic FTC traded strongly in the first half and returned to profitability as revenue leapt from £4.5m to £21.6m and turning last years half time loss of £4.1m into a profit of £1.8m. Increased sales of its main antenna product, and strengthening of its Wireless sales team were responsible for the turnaround. The Chairman went […]

Major Companies Blame Challenging Conditions Again

Rank Group RNK met challenging trading conditions in the 6 months to 31st December but is still raising its interim dividend by 11% after a fall of 17% in profit before tax and 14% in basic earnings per share. Like for like group revenue for the half year rose by 2%. Nothing like raising  a […]

W. H. Smith “Strong Group Performance” as High Street Falls 4%

W.H. Smith SMWH claims a strong performance across the group for the 21 weeks to 21st January, presumably hoping that nobody will go as far as reading the actual figures which show that High Street revenue actually fell by 4% and only travel revenue with a 10% increase, saved the day enabling Smiths to show […]

PZ Cussons Beaten By An Expected Backdrop of Challenges

PZ Cussons PZC produces one of the strangest apologias for a bad performance, seen in recent months. It faced, they claim, a backdrop full of challenges across most of the markets where they operate and as these were expected, the bad results present a solid performance. What is the logic or thinking behind that, one […]

Quoted Micro 23 January 2017

NEX / ISDX   Clinical decision support systems supplier DXS International (DXSP) increased its interim revenues by 17% to £1.78m and it has moved into profit. DXS has moved from a loss of £39,000 to a pre-tax profit of £64,000. DXS has won the tender for London Partnership Procurement, which has 100 members and is […]

Paddy Power Hurt by Trump And Football Bets

Paddy Power Betfair PPB  did not have a happy fourth quarter. Firstly it got its odds wrong on the US presidential elections and Trumps victory cost it almost £5m. On top of that its European sportsbook lost money on football bets in December and far too many customer friendly results reduced group revenue by some […]

Brainjuicer Trading Strongly Again

Brainjuicer BJU regained momentum in 2016 and traded strongly, especially in the US, after the modest performance of the two previous years. Gross profit for the year to the end of December rose by some 27% to about £25.6m and even after payments of £5.2m to shareholders by way of dividends and share buy backs, […]