London pre-open: More gains expected

19th May 2009 07:50

Footsie is expected to build on yesterday's results as traders wade through the continuing stream of first quarter company results.Marks & Spencer is to cut its final dividend by a third after the clothes and food retailer saw a sharp drop in pre-tax profits. While sales in the year to March 28 were up by 0.4% from the previous year, they fell by 5.9% without the impact of new store openings and pre-tax profits fell to £706.2m from £1.13bn. M&S said it will rebase its dividend payment to 15p a share from the current 22.5p by reducing the final dividend by a third to 9.5p a share.Package tour giant TUI Travel saw operating losses widen at the interim stage, due to the weakness of sterling and the timing of Easter this year. The company said that current trading has continued to improve with cumulative bookings for the summer season in line with expectations. In the six months to 31 March 2009 the company's revenue grew to £5,379.3m from £5,154.6m, but the pre-tax loss widened to £455.3m from £424.8m.Heavy one-off charges, principally in Spain slashed mobile phone Vodafone's annual profit, though the underlyng numbers met forecasts. Group revenue for the year to March rose 15.6%to £41bn up 15.6%, and pro forma by 1.3%. Group adjusted operating profit rose by 16.7% to £11.8bn before impairment charges with underlying profits up by 10.0% to £14.5bn. Pre-tax profits, though, fell more than 50% to £4.2bn from £9bn.Dairy Crest, the firm behind Cathedral cheese and Country Life butter, posted a rise in revenues as customers continued buying its branded products in spite of the recession, but said it will cut future dividends by 25% to preserve cash. Adjusted pre-tax profits for the year to March 31 fell to £79.5m from £86m even as revenues climbed to £1.65bn from £1.57bn.Inter-dealer broker ICAP saw record revenue and profit last year, helped by successful acquisitions. Revenue in the year to 31 March 2009 rose 23% to £1,601m from £1,304m the year before, while pre-tax profit rose 2% to £281m from £275m.Tate & Lyle has appointed Javed Ahmed as its new chief executive. He will take over from current incumbent Iain Ferguson on 15 November. Iain Ferguson will continue in the CEO role until then to ensure an orderly handover, Tate added. Ahmed is currently Executive Vice President, Europe for Reckitt Benckiser and a member of the detergent maker's Executive Committee.