The business week ahead

 

We round up main business and economic news scheduled for the week Monday 18th to Friday 22nd September.

Thursday

All eyes will turn to supermarket Morrisons when it reports half-year results not least because new chief executive Marc Bolland has taken over the day-to-day running of the company from Sir Ken Morrison.

The Bradford-based chain has faced difficulties since the acquisition of larger rival Safeway in 2005 but reported encouraging trading conditions over the summer. It boosted recovery hopes on August 3 after revealing like-for-like sales jumped 6.1% in the previous nine weeks.

Boardroom spats had been reported over the role of the group's 74-year-old chairman Sir Ken, son of the group's founder. But with that issue resolved as Sir Ken has relinquished control of the firm the City will be watching closely to see how Mr Bolland fares.

Sir Ken stays on as chairman until 2008 but Mr Bolland has taken control of the executive board, which is responsible for the day-to-day running of the group.

Jeremy Batstone, analyst at Charles Stanley is upbeat about the supermarket's results. 'Morrisons is expected to finally reap the initial benefits from the Safeway purchase,' he said.

Mr Batstone expects pre-tax profits for the six months to July 23 to come in at £122m against £34m for the same period last year. 'The increased scale afforded following the Safeway deal should have manifest itself in improved buying power and also the positive impact of cost savings,' he said.

But he added: 'Mr Bolland is going to have to address a pedestrian sales performance and serious work needs to be done to turnaround smaller Safeway stores.'

The maiden full-year results of Pizza Express owner Gondola Holdings are likely to be overshadowed by takeover talk this week. The restaurant chain is being eyed by private equity firm Cinven which is considering making a £559m offer.

It has the backing of key shareholders TDR Capital and Capricorn Ventures which have agreed to sell a stake of around 25% and investors will welcome any update over the future of the company when it delivers its results on Thursday.

Gondola only joined the stock market in November after Pizza Express was taken private for £278m more than two years ago by TDR and Capricorn, who later added the chains ASK and Zizzi.

There are currently around 315 Pizza Express restaurants, 110 under the ASK brand and 81 Zizzi's, and City analysts expect the company to deliver pre-tax profits of £49.3m for the year.

INTERIMS: Biocompatibles International, Carnival (Q3), Dawnay, Day Treveria, Freeplay Energy, Futura Medical, Peter Hambro Mining, Heritage Underwriting Agency, Incisive Media, Intercytex Group, InterQuest Group, Invu, London Capital Group Holdings, Wm Morrison Supermarkets, Pernod Ricard, Premier Oil, Telford Homes, UCM Group

FINALS: Gondola Holdings, NXT

AGMs: Smiths Group

EGMs: None scheduled

TRADING STATEMENT: Luminar, Daily Mail & General Trust

ECONOMICS: UK CBI monthly industrial trends (1100 BST), UK DMO gilt auction (1100 BST)

Friday

INTERIMS: InterQuest Group, Jumpit, James Halstead, New Star Asset Management, SPI Lasers, Sterling Energy

FINALS: PM Group

AGMs: None scheduled

EGMs: ID Data, Petroworld

ECONOMICS: UK Aug motor vehicle production (0930 BST)