Wednesday preview: Burberry, Experian, Punch Taverns

13th Oct 2009 17:55

Fashion group Burberry gives a trading update covering the July to September period, the second quarter in the company's financial year. This is an important quarter for the wholesale arm, as it begins to process Christmas orders.Broker Nomura Securities predicts second quarter sales will be down 2% to £320m, or down 12% on a constant currency basis. Retail sales are seen rising 12% to £146m, or 4% on a constant currency basis, though like for like (LFL) sales are slated to fall 4%.Wholesale revenues of £150m are predicted, down 14% (-25.2% on a constant currency basis) on a year earlier, while licensing revenues are expected to come in at around £25m.Credit checking firm Experian - like Burberry, a spin off from the old Great Universal Stores group - is scheduled to give a trading update covering the six months to the end of September. Swiss bank UBS is predicting a slight easing in the growth of organic sales in the second quarter after Experian warned that it expected little underlying organic growth overall in the first half of its financial year.Heavily indebted pub group Punch Taverns is expected to announce a £600m write-down in the value of its pub estate when it publishes full year results on Wednesday. At the half-year stage the group shifted the valuation of its estate down by £130m to £6.2bn.The group said back in August that trading results continue to reflect the challenging market conditions being faced across the sector, but that it was on track to meet management's expectations for the financial year.The market's expectations for the full year are for underlying profits before tax of £162.3m, up from a loss of £80.2m the year before, on sales of £1.44bn, down from £1.56bn a year earlier.The group is to put a number of its unwanted pubs under the hammer at auctioneer Christie & Co. It is not the first time it has gone down the auction route but it does suggest that it has been unable to get the prices it is seeking for these pubs, hence the expectation of a write down of the value of its pub estate. Broker Panmure Gordon notes Punch also has £556m (87p per share) of goodwill on the balance sheet, £88m of which relates to the Managed estate from the acquisitions of Spirit and Mill House Inns. 'We think there is a risk that the group's NAV [net asset value] per share undershoots the market's expectations,' the broker said.On the economic front, more grim news for job seekers is expected with UK unemployment on the International Labour Organization (ILO) measure expected to have risen sharply again in August as school and college leavers joined the jobs market.Expectations are for the ILO unemployment rate to have risen to 8%. The number of unemployed on the ILO calculation method is predicted to have risen by 140,000 in the June to August period, although this does at least represent a slow down from the 210,000 increase seen in the May to July period.Average earnings figures are also out and are tipped to have risen 1.5% in the three months to August from the corresponding period of 2008.INTERIMSBrown (N.) GroupINTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATEPremier Farnell, Restaurant GroupINTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATEAberdeen Growth VCT I, All Leisure Group, Ashley (Laura) Holding, BlackRock Smaller Companies Trust, British American Inv Trust, C&C Group, Camellia, Independent Media Distribution, Johnson Service Group, Mears Group, Melrose, Northbridge Industrial Services, Rightmove, Smith & Nephew, Tesco, TomkinsQUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATEBritish Land Co, Schroder Income Growth FundUK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSClaimant Count Unemployment Rate (09:30)Average Earnings (09:30)ILO Unemployment Rate (09:30)Manufacturing Unit Wage Costs (09:30)INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSBusiness Inventories (US) (15:00)FOMC Interest Rate Minutes (US) (19:00)Retail Sales (US) (13:30)Import Price Index (US) (13:30)Industrial Production (EC) (10:00)Domestic CGIP (JPN)Bank of Japan Target Rate (JPN)Consumer Confidence (JPN)FINALSAir Partner, Punch Taverns, WH SmithTRADING STATEMENTSExperian, Rio TintoEGMSNoventa Ltd.AGMSAdili, Avingtrans, Diageo, Eaga, Goodwin Plc, Manchester & London TrustUK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSUnemployment Rate (09:30)Average Earnings (09:30)FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATEMaxima Holdings, Yamana Gold IncFINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATEBegbies Traynor Group, Eaga, Eclectic Inv Trust, F&C Commercial Property Trust, Fidelity Asian Values, Hargreaves Services, Henderson EuroTrust, Jourdan, Networkers International, Quayle Munro, Strategic Equity Capital, Thorpe (F.W.), Wilmington Group