There is nothing untoward about those figures. On the contrary, they would prompt me to look further if only because those ratings compare favourably with London's major broad-based index, the FTSE All-Share. By the weighted value of the 603 components of that index, it trades on a multiple of almost 30 times 2016's likely earnings, while its prospective dividend yield is about 3.3 per cent, although that comes from an aggregate payout that is not even covered once by its earnings.
True, the All-Share's rating conceals many distortions, most of which are caused by accounting losses within the mining and oil & gas sectors; these force up the average PE ratio and depress dividend cover. Yet take the 'industrials' sector grouping, a big part of the index (117 components) where profits are fairly free from distortions - even here the average earnings multiple for 2016 is almost 27 and the cover on dividends that produce a 2.6 per cent yield is slightly below 1.5 times.