Thursday preview: AB Foods, Enterprise Inns, St. James's Place

19th Jan 2011 17:05

A busy day is in prospect with Primark owner Associated British Foods one of the last retailers to update on Christmas trading, while updates are also expected from other blue-chips such as Enterprise Inns, Invensys, Man Group, Wolseley, easyJet and St. James's Place.It won't all be about Primark at Associated British Foods, however; the state of the UK sugar beet harvest, and whether it was affected by the winter chill, will also be of interest.Indebted pubs group Enterprise Inns will hope to be following in the footsteps of JD Wetherspoon, which shook off the effects of the bad December weather to post a bigger than expected rise in like for like (LFL) sales.Broker Peel Hunt is not optimistic, however."The weather disruption, affecting the large number of pubs in rural locations and community settings, is likely to have taken LFL income from pubs on substantive agreement below the rate of -2% reported at prelims. Given that these locations were particularly hard hit by snow but allowing for the effect of January 2010 extreme weather on comps, we anticipate quarterly net income per pub to have dropped by around 5%. We do not expect that this further decline will trigger material downgrades, however," the broker said. Investment analysts will be hoping for a bit more detail on the sale and leaseback of 29 pubs announced on 14 January. The deal raised £42.6m in cash for Enterprise, and was above the book value of £34.0m of the assets.Panmure Gordon notes that at its last update, the group was "seeing a consistent improvement in average net income performance," and thinks "that should have broadly continued as it benefits from its investment in the quality of the pub estate and licensees. However, we expect the group to echo the comments of other operators that trading immediately prior to Christmas will have been impacted by the bad weather. We also look for an update on disposals and sale and leasebacks, given previously outlined plans to sell c500 pubs and sale and leaseback c70 pubs during fiscal 2011." Wealth management group St James's Place will report fourth quarter new business sales figures. Panmure Gordon is expecting a strong sales performance despite some tough comparatives."Our forecast for 2010 life and pension sales including unit trusts is £574.1m annual premium equivalent (+30.2%), and Q4 in isolation at £145.0m annual premium equivalent (+8.8%)," the broker said."Following the rise in investment markets in Q4, we are forecasting that Funds Under Management will have increased by £1.6bn to £26.4bn at 31 December 2010, from the £24.8bn recorded at 30 Sept 2010. In addition, we anticipate that the number of Partners will have increased to 1552 (+6%) at 31 December (2009: 1464)," Panmure Gordon forecast. The CBI Industrial Trends survey for January is expected to show that the balance of manufacturers reporting that orders are at normal levels will be negative at -5%, a retreat from December's -3% level, but comfortably better than levels seen prior to December.INTERIMSNCC GroupINTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATETongaat-Hulett Ltd.INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSConvenience Store Sales (JPN)Producer Price Index (GER) (07:00)ECB Report (EU) (09:00)Consumer Confidence Indicator (EU) (10:00)Continuing Claims (US) (13:30)Initial Jobless Claims (US) (13:30)Existing Home Sales (US) (15:00)Leading Indicators (US) (15:00)Philadelphia Fed Index (US) (15:00)IMSSAssociated British Foods, Enterprise Inns, Invensys, Man GroupEGMSBanco de Chile ADR, OAO Omz ADR (Level 1)AGMSAberdeen Asset Management, Education Development International, Enterprise Inns, Euromoney Institutional Investor, WolseleyTRADING ANNOUNCEMENTSeasyJet, St. James's PlaceINTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSSupermarket Sales (JPN)PMI Manufacturing Survey (FRA) (08:00)PMI Service Sector Survey (08:00)IfO Business Climate (GER) (09:00)IfO Current Assessment (GER) (09:00)IfO Expectations (GER) (09:00)UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSCBI Business Optimism Index (10:00)CBI Trends Total Orders (10:00)