Thursday preview: Wm Morrison, Old Mutual, Clarkson...

10th Mar 2010 16:54

Supermarket chain Wm Morrison publishes figures without a chief executive as incoming CEO Dalton Philips isn't due to fill the hot seat until later this month.Instead, non-executive chairman Sir Ian Gibson and finance chief Richard Pennycook are expected to reveal underlying profit topped £760m last year, up from £655m in 2008.The group's last update in January confirmed that bosses were comfortable with consensus forecasts of about £757m.South African insurer Old Mutual also lines up final results Thursday. An update in November said third quarter sales momentum had improved in a better investment market.Its capital position was boosted with a £500m bond issuance in October and Charles Stanley says the group has made progress managing the risks in the US life business with the US life net unrealised investment loss position, down from $2.3bn at the end of 2008 to $614m.But it reckons there's still a lot of hard work to be done and wants to see a sustained period of improved performance before it tinkers with its negative view of the stock.Elsewhere, shipping broker Clarkson is tipped for normalised profits of £21.7m for 2009, EPS of 80.53p and a dividend of 42p putting the shares on a PER of 10.4x and a yield of 5.0%, says Charles Stanley.There may not be many surprises from IT infrastructure services provider Computacenter as it has already flagged 2009 numbers "materially ahead of consensus" expectations for of profit of £48.4m.Panmure Gordon expects the tone and outlook to be consistent with January's optimistic pre-close statement. Look for an increase in revenue to £2.37bn from £2.56m last time and a pre-tax profit of £52.9m versus £43.1m in 2008.INTERIMS Origin Enterprises INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Hartest Holdings INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Balance of Trade (US) (13:30) Weekly Jobless Claims (US) (13:30) Non-Farm Payrolls (FRA) (08:45) ECB Report (EU) (10:00) Gross Domestic Product (JPN) (23:50) RBA Bulletin (AUS) (00:00) Unemployment Rate (AUS) (00:00) Q3 Queen's Walk Investment Ltd. GMS City of London PR, ReGen Therapeutics, Weatherly International FINALS Arbuthnot Banking Group, Charlemagne Capital, Cineworld Group, Clarkson, Computacenter, Dignity, Dolphin Capital Investors, Flying Brands, Johnston Press, Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets, Old Mutual, Omega Insurance Holdings,Tikit AGMS Avesco Group, Jupiter Second Split Trust Geared Shares, Sanderson Group