Abrdn (ABDN), On the Beach (OTB), Shein, Brickability (BRCK) and McBride (MCB)
There was evidence in Abrdn’s (ABDN) results that, while the fund manager may lack vowels in key places, the process of turning around a struggling giant had made modest progress. A higher-than-expected level of savings of £102mn, compared with the £75mn that management had forecast, plus a £15mn benefit from a revised Sipp distribution agreement with Phoenix (PHNX), meant the company achieved near-break-even point on reported total operating income of £1.4bn.
In contrast to the company's recent operational performance, this was heady stuff and the shares were marked marginally higher on results day.
The good news is that the battle to stem the company’s perennial outflows seems to be on the verge of an armistice. While headline outflows were an uncomfortable-looking £13.9bn, these reflected £6.9bn of transfers related to Abrdn’s sale of its discretionary fund management business and its US private markets arm, plus £2.9bn of net inflows for Interactive Investor its expensively acquired share platform. In total, that meant overall assets under management were down a modest 1 per cent to £495bn. JH
On the Beach and Ryanair make up with “transformational” agreement
On the Beach (OTB) shares soared by 10 per cent in early trading after the online holiday retailer announced a long-term distribution agreement with Ryanair (IE:RYA) that will let its customers access the airline’s flights “with full price transparency” when booking holiday packages. Chief executive Shaun Morton said the deal “enables both parties to move on from outstanding litigation”, which has cost On the Beach around £2mn a year and has been an issue since 2010. The company is one of several online travel agents that sued Ryanair, the biggest single low-cost carrier it uses, as it tried to block the retailer from booking and selling its flights. CA
Read more: FTSE 350 Review: Airline stocks are cheap – but avoid these value traps
Brickability hit by crumbling demand
Brickability (BRCK) blamed a “challenging” backdrop as it warned that profits for its financial year ending in March would be towards the lower end of expectations.
The volume of bricks sold in the UK dropped by 30 per cent last year, but brick imports dropped by 42 per cent. Brickability is a distributor rather than a manufacturer, and so has been harder hit. Decent performances in other parts of its business offset some of this decline, though.
The current market consensus is for the company to deliver an operating profit of £40.4mn and earnings per share of 9p. Broker Peel Hunt cut its earnings per share forecast by 8 per cent to 8.4p, and Brickability’s shares slid by 12 per cent. MF
