Tuesday preview: G4S, Close Brothers, Wellstream

15th Mar 2010 09:28

International security firm G4S brings out full year results on Tuesday. Market expectations are for underlying profit before tax to climb to £366m from £336m the year before. Revenue is tipped to smash through the seven billion barrier to £7.06bn, up from £5.94bn in 2008. UBS is forecasting an 18% rise in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to £496m.Organic revenue growth at the nine month point was a creditable 4.2% compared to the 2008 performance, though the figure was down from 4.8% at the halfway stage. Analysts will be interested to see whether the growth rate continued to slide in the final quarter.Merchant bank Close Brothers is scheduled to declare figures for the six month period to the end of January. In the first five months of that period the group saw a strong performance in its Banking and Securities divisions. The former saw its loan book increase by 5% over the period from £2.36bn to £2.48bn but the latter saw a slow-down in activity in the final two months of 2009, so one of the main points of interest will be to see whether the slow-down at its Winterflood securities arm extended into the new year.Broker Numis Securities has forecast that Close Brothers will announce a pre-tax profit of £54.6m, which would put the company almost halfway to hitting the £110m pre-tax profit that is the market consensus view for the full year. Numis thinks the interim dividend will be held at 13.5p. 'We expect the company to confirm that loan book growth remains strong, margins remain wide and impairment is falling, although treasury income is likely to be weak reflecting low interest rates,' the broker said.Wellstream, which designs and manufactures flexible risers and flowlines for the oil and gas industry, had a tough 2009 as activity in the oil and gas sector tailed off. It said in January that earnings for the full year would be 'broadly in line with expectations'.Those expectations are for profit before tax of £50.31m , down from £77.48m the year before. Revenue is tipped to grow to £404.3m from £369.9m the year before. 'Anecdotal evidence of an improvement in market activity supports some optimism, although the board's outlook remains unchanged,' the company said in its January statement and that's a view that is echoed by UBS, which thinks it won't be until the first half of 2011 that year on year operating profit growth will return.INTERIMSAir Partner, Asian Citrus, Brooks Macdonald, Close Brothers GroupINTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSBoJ Intrest Rates (JPN) (00:00)Machine Tool Orders (JPN)Tertiary Industry Index (JPN)Building Permits (US) (13:30)FOMC Interest Rate (US) (18:15)Housing Starts (US) (13:30)Import Price Index (US) (12:30)RBA Interest Rate Minutes (AUS) (00:00)ZEW Survey (GER) (10:00)Consumer Price Index (FRA) (07:45)Consumer Price Index (EU) (10:00)FINALSAblon, Alpha Bank GDR (Reg S) USD, Amphion Innovations, Axis-Shield, Cello Group, Dealogic, Fairpoint Group, G4S, Hellenic Carriers, KBC Advanced Technologies, Kenmore European Industrial Fund, Wellstream Holdings, Win, Work GroupAGMSAll Leisure Group, BlackRock Commodities Income Inv Trust, THB Group, Wynnstay GroupUK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSConsumer Price Index (09:30)DCLG House Price Index (09:30)Retail Price Index (09:30)TRADING STATEMENTSRoyal Dutch Shell strategy update