From the beginning of next year, there will be a new person tasked with turning around the fortunes of BT (BT). This morning the telecoms company announced it has appointed Allison Kirkby to succeed outbound chief executive Philip Jansen.
Kirkby was a member of BT’s board and has been chief executive of Swedish telecoms company Telia since 2020. She will be taking on the challenge of implementing severe cost cutting throughout the business. Inflation pushing up the cost of its expensive Openreach investment coupled with increased competition from alternative network providers has been eating into BT’s cash flow. In response, earlier this year, it announced it would be cutting 40 per cent of 130,000 strong workforce by 2030.
With a forward price to earnings ratio of 7 it seems there is not much further for the company to fall but reversing the downward momentum will be hard. At least, for her sake and the cost of Openreach, inflation seems to have peaked. AS
Read more: BT is undoubtedly cheap – but are there too many risks?
Marshalls to cut headcount as trading falters
In March we questioned whether Marshalls (MSLH) had seen many tangible benefits from its £535mn acquisition of roofing specialist Marley Group. A few months on and trading remains problematic despite the impact of the deal. Shares pulled back sharply after the building materials supplier revealed that group revenue contracted by 13 per cent on a like-for-like basis, while adjusted profit before taxation for the June half year is expected to be around £33mn, a drop of £12mn from HY 2022.
Performance is being dogged by high levels of inflation, increasing interest rates and weak consumer confidence, so management has decided to implement 250 job cuts to bolster working capital. Nevertheless, the group recognised that “the result in the second half will be markedly weaker than the first half, and consequently expects to deliver a result for the full year that is lower than its previous expectations”. MR
Spectris boosts sales forecast
Spectris (SXS) has upgraded its full-year guidance after achieving excellent revenue growth and a “record” adjusted operating profit of £102mn in the first half of 2023. The precision measurement solutions company now expects organic sales growth to be ahead of previous guidance of 6-7 per cent, but did not provide a new estimate.
Sales jumped by 23 per cent to £703mn between January and June, while the group’s operating margin widened from 12.7 per cent to 14.5 per cent. Cash conversion was also high at 117 per cent. JS
Read more: Spectris raises guidance
Profits soar at GlobalData
GlobalData (DATA) increased its adjusted Ebitda by 37 per cent to £53.5mn in the first half of 2023, as operational gearing continues to turbocharge growth. The intelligence group is on track to grow profits by 30 per cent across the whole year. JS
Senior's revenue rises as plane production takes off
Senior (SNR) lifted its revenue by a fifth in its half-year results, propelled by “green shoots” in plane production following a drop due to Covid. Pre-tax profit was up 14.9 per cent while earnings per share rose 15.2 per cent.
"As is well documented, volatility in the Aerospace supply chain continues," the company said. "While we are starting to see the first green shoots of improvement, we continue to believe that it will be well into 2024 before we see normalisation in the supply chain." Shares were down 2 per cent this morning. ML
Read more: Senior's revenue rises as plane production takes off
