Ian Pollard – #WPP Impacted By Client Losses.

WPP plc WPP a company with the spectre of its founder still lurking in the background is never a happy place to be. Naturally Sir Martin does not get a mention in WPP’s third quarter results but the way in which the company’s business has been impacted in many fields after his sudden departure, does […]

Ian Pollard – Whitbread #WTB UK Decline Turned Into “Growth”

Whitbread plc WTB tries to put a brave face on its first quarter results by headlining sales growth and expansion and ignoring the unhappy reality. The truth is that growth  is due to investment in new hotels and new Costa stores. On a like for like basis the quarter has been, to put it politely, […]

Ian Pollard – Savills becomes a ‘Residential Transaction Business Operator’.

Savills plc SVS no longer has estate agencies in the UK. They have gone posh, moved up market and now describe themselves as operating residential transaction businesses. That really will send the share price rocketing. Whatever they call themselves they have experienced a stronger than anticipated finish to the year, with the UK proving resilient […]

Ian Pollard – Mulberry Strategy Fails To Impress

Mulberry MUL claims it is delivering on its strategy, in which case it should perhaps get a new one. Retail sales for the half year to the 30 September rose by 2% but on a like for like basis they fell by 1% with both UK and International retail sales sliding. Demand from London tourists […]

JD Sports On Track For More Records

JD Sports (JD.) has produced yet another record set of half year results, with strong growth in the six months to 29th July producing a 41% rise in revenue. Profit before tax was up by 33% and the interim dividend is to be increased by 4%. Sales in the second half have continued at the […]

Ocado – English As A Foreign Language

Ocado Group OCDO got so bogged down in jargon in its half year results to the 28th May that one can easily believe they must have done it deliberately purely to show how clever they are compared to those of us who can only speak ordinary English which everybody else understands. Thus the report is […]

Royal Mail Drowns in Jargon

Royal Mail plc RMG How can any company be taken seriously when its CEO’s English appears to be so bad that she has to express herself in internal company jargon – thus ones breakfast reading of the goings on at Royal Mail includes – “movements in foreign exchange, ASM and GSO in GLS” Can the […]

Halfords – Massaging The Figures ?

Halfords Group HFD will in future issue its summer trading up date for a period of 20 weeks because it will help to make the figures look better. So this years update is issued in two parts, the first for the 13 weeks of quarter one and then the next 7 weeks trading to the […]

Our Leaders Exposed As They Abandon Ship

Who would have thought on Referendum Day, that within two weeks the whole of the country’s political leadership would, with one exception, have scuttled off caring not whether their country needed them and their years of experience in domestic and world affairs. To a man they admitted to being men of straw, without moral fibre […]