Best of the Brokers for 24 March 2014 March 24, 2014 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com ASOS UBS has kept its “neutral” rating on the online retailer but lowered its target price to 6,200p from 6,660p after a disappointing update on sales and margins last week. The broker expects the sales slowdown to be reversed in the second half, [...]
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 [...]
Shares plunge as Asos ramps up investment March 18, 2014 ASOS shares plunged eight per cent yesterday after the online fashion retailer said it will ramp up spending on warehouses to meet growing demand at the expense of short term profits. Chief executive Nick Robertson said it will lift capital expenditure this year to £68m from the £55m previously forecast as it accelerates its investment [...]
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 [...]
Asos’ profits warning is crushing online retailers March 18, 2014 This morning, Asos chief Nick Robertson delivered the surprise warning that the company’s earnings margin will decline this year to around 6.5 per cent. Shares crashed over 20 per cent on the news. The reason given is that the store’s upping its investment in warehouses in Europe, along with its new venture in China, and [...]
Asos shares are crashing on chief’s warning March 18, 2014 Asos has reported retail sales up 26 per cent year-on-year in the first two months of 2014 and is, it says, confident of hitting sales of £1bn for 2013/14. But shares have crashed over 20 per cent this morning, following chief executive Nick Robertson’s warning that the company's earnings margin will shrink this year to [...]
What you need to know before the open March 18, 2014 Markets remained resilient yesterday, in the face of sanctions being meted out by the EU on Russian and Ukrainian individuals. Today, expectations are that they’ll hold their nerve again, opening slightly higher, ahead of President Putin’s decision to the Russian parliament on whether to annex Crimea to Russia. Asian markets rallied in Tuesday trading – [...]
London Report: Osborne in spotlight as Britons await the 2014 Budget details March 17, 2014 THE spotlight will be on Chancellor George Osborne this Wednesday as he delivers the 2014 Budget. Other economic news includes the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) minutes plus unemployment figures, also on Wednesday, the CBI Industrial Trends survey on Thursday and government borrowing figures at the end of the week. The corporate calendar starts today [...]
Asos Indian rival Koovs raises £22m in London market debut March 10, 2014 AN INDIAN online fashion retailer set up by the former chairman of Asos launched on London’s Aim yesterday after raising raised £22m via a share placing. Shares in Bangalore-based Koovs were placed at 150p but jumped to 184p last night, valuing the company at around £44m. The company was founded in 2012 by Lord Alli [...]
The Power of Three: How big business could join government to support small companies March 10, 2014 IF I received a pound for every time a chief executive of a large firm said to me “we’d like to be the champions of small business”, I’d be comfortably off. However, over the past year, I’ve seen an increasing number of businesses not only voicing this statement, but acting on it. This is a [...]