Sunday share tips: Sky, Pets at Home

26th Jul 2015 16:27

(ShareCast News) - The Sky is not falling, not yet at least. Household incomes speeding ahead at their fastest clip since 2001 have allowed Sky chief Jeremy Darroch to rise up to the challenge of seeing off competition from BT even while offering further enticements to prospective new subscribers. At the start of the year Sky even went as far as upping what it pays for the privilege of broadcasting most Premier League matches for a further three-years.To pay for that Darroch has already pushed through two increases in household charges to help him meet a goal for £100m in extra subscriber income. He has also shown a keen eye when it comes to finding new ways to take more money off people. Good examples of that are his "Buy and Keep" DVD delivery service and the streaming platform Now TV.Annual earnings are expected to have risen 16% to £1.4bn and the recent purchase of its Italian and German subsidiaries means it can now hawk its wares to another 100m homes. However, the stock is already trading at 21 times' earnings.Nonetheless, to date the only outfit that has been wounded in the fight for market share is TalkTalk. Last week the company warned it was seeing "softer" growth in broad-band than it had hoped for.Buy, says the Sunday Times's Danny Fortson.Brits are expected to spend over £4.5bn on food and accesories for their pets this year, including for the likes of gluten-free cat food and beer for dogs. Pets at Home is planning to meet that demand by opening 100 new stores in a country where there are already more pets than humans, although only half of households have one.Also in its favour, the firm run by Nick Wood controls 53% of the advanced nutrition market and over a third of the accesories market, both of which are growing fast. The firm is also rolling out vet and grooming services. Wood's VIP - which stands for Very Important Pets - loyalty programme may sound twee but it already has 3.2 members who in the next twelve months will be given access to their own shopping app.Profits are expected to rise by almost 12% next year to reach £97m and sales by another 9% to £794m. The dividend is also expected to be boosted to 6.1p from 5.4p for 2015. The stock has done well since listing but there is plenty of upside left. Buy, says the Mail on Sunday's Midas column.