Asos on track to hit £1bn of sales by 2015 as profits beat analyst expectations October 23, 2013 Online retailer Asos has posted a whopping 23 per cent rise in full year pre-tax profit to £54.7m in the year to 31 August. Analysts had expected the company to post a profit of just £44.5 to 54m. That's not stopped Asos shares dropping on the open though. Shares are now trading about 4.7 per [...]
Asos, Sports Direct and Home Retail results stronger – but this is a success for e-street not the high street October 23, 2013 We've seen trading updates from a host of retailers this morning. Asos saw full year pre-tax profits beat consensus forecasts, Home Retail's Homebase and Argos saw like-for-like sales up 5.9 per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively in 26 weeks, and Sports Direct saw total sales up by 15.1 per cent in nine. But don't [...]
Bottom Line: Give up the fantasy and settle into real life March 18, 2014 INVESTORS love an excuse to panic. No sooner had Asos revealed yesterday that margins were likely to be squeezed this year as a result of slower sales and more investment, than shareholders had run screaming for the hills – wiping more than £1bn off the retailer in early trading. Fellow online players (and stock market [...]
CollectPlus plots growth plans to rival Post Office May 12, 2014 COLLECTPLUS launched a fresh assault on the Post Office today after announcing plans to expand its parcel returns and delivery service to 7,500 stores over the next 12 months. The company was launched in 2009 and has grown rapidly thanks to the boom in online shopping, click and collect, and consumers demanding more convenient ways [...]
Asos sees sales soar with strong UK market and new growth in US and Russia September 19, 2013 Online retailer Asos has announced UK retail sales up 47 per cent for the three months to the end of August with 49 per cent growth in the UK. (Release) Retail sales for the year were up 40 per cent year-on-year. The company had 7.1 million active customers at the end of August, up 42 [...]
What you need to know before the open April 2, 2014 European markets are set to open up this morning after positive data from the US. Corporate data House prices in March grew by 0.4 per cent, slower rate then previous months, according to the Nationwide building society. House prices are now 9.5 per cent higher than they were at the same point last year. Fashion [...]
Bottom Line: AO could be the next online retail success February 26, 2014 WHITE goods retailer AO.com has done little to dissuade comparisons with Asos, the phenomenally successful online fashion retailer that floated 13 years ago – when it announced listing plans earlier this month it even named former Asos chairman Brian McBride (also an ex-Amazon UK managing director) to its board. Yesterday’s 32 per cent rise in shares [...]
AO World shares steady after update showing 40pc growth April 10, 2014 SHARES IN newly-listed fridge seller AO World steadied yesterday after the firm’s maiden trading update confirmed it was on track to deliver 40 per cent revenue growth. AO, which floated in February, has been routed this week along with other tech stocks in London and the US on fears that a bubble was forming within [...]
London Report: Mortgage lending data to shine light on housing boom March 30, 2014 MORTGAGE approval data for February, due out today, are likely to highlight more growth in the heated housing market. The figures will be closely watched after the Bank of England last week warned some borrowers may be overstretching themselves in the current fast-moving market. Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data for manufacturing, construction and services published [...]
Best of the Brokers for 20 March 2014 March 19, 2014 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com ROLLS-ROYCE UBS has reversed its view on the engineering giant, moving from a “sell” to “buy” and hiking its target from 900p to 1,160p. The broker believes the firm’s cash conversion will improve towards the end of the decade and has raised its profit forecasts [...]