Join our community of smart investors

CYBG, WPP and Carr's

A brief round-up of the latest updates from the IC Companies writers
April 19, 2018

In this week’s Sector Focus, Julia Faurschou has been looking at continued digitalisation in the UK gambling industry – a trend that will likely split opinion between investors and social campaigners. Julia highlights the divergence in performance between physical locations and online”, and looks at the trend towards digitalisation set against “a perfect storm of regulation and changing consumer habits”. Click here to find out if Julia thinks it’s worth doubling down in the sector.

Julia’s bovine sensibilities have also been brought to bear on half-year figures for Carr’s Group (CARR), which represent a reversal of fortune after full-year profits were wiped out “thanks to lower US cattle prices and a delayed contract in its engineering business”. Click here to find out how the agri-business pushed up operating profits up by nearly a third.

Good bye Sir Martin Sorrell and hello Megan Boxall. The departure of the founder of the world's biggest ad agency group has sent ructions through an industry already in the grip of structural changes beyond its control. Who better to make sense of an industry in flux – not to mention prospects for WPP (WPP) – than the IC’s Megan Boxall? Click here to get Megan’s thoughts on what a Sorrell-less WPP might look like.

After a pretty strong run, the challenger banks aren’t having it all their own way. CYBG (CYBG), for instance, has been forced to increase its provisions for past PPI costs by £350m as at March 2018. There’s a knock-on effect for the banking group’s common tier-one capital (CET1) ratio, so what could this mean for its aspiration to be a dividend-paying stock? Click here to get Emma Powell’s thoughts on the subject.

Alex Newman has been busy editing our AIM 100 rundown (check out this week’s C&M podcast), but he has taken time to review the latest RNS releases from Eland Oil & Gas (ELA) and from Sirius Minerals (SXX).