There's news from the high street and the booze business coming next week.
Some big-name retailers will release figures this week, starting with an interim management statement from Home Retail Group (LSE: HOME) on Tuesday. Home Retail, which owns the well-known Argos and Homebase outlets, released a pretty dreadful set of full-year results last month, and canceled its final dividend.
To add to trading woes, the company's managers decided to spend lots of cash on a share buyback in the hope of boosting the share price, but the timing proved disastrous as the price carried on sliding. The slump has seen the shares fall from a 2009 peak of 329p to just 72p today. Recovery investors will be looking for signs that the bottom might have been reached.
High-street electricals
Kesa Electricals (LSE: KESA) will follow up with full-year results on Friday. Kesa is of less interest to shoppers in Britain these days since it sold off the UK's Comet chain in February, and now operates only in continental Europe through its flagship Darty chain in France, and several other outlets.
But it's a useful indicator of how things are going in Europe, and if 2013 expectations are anything to go by then the shares might even be a bargain now. There's an upturn in profits forecast, and current dividend forecasts from the City vary between 6 to 10%. But bear in mind the shares have lost 70% of their value since the end of 2010, and now stand on a lowly 50p.
The last of the trio is Dixons Retail (LSE: DXNS), which will release preliminary results on Thursday. Dixons operates the high-street chains Currys, PC World and Currys.digital (you know, the shops that used to be called Dixons). Like the other two, Dixons shares have seen a slump as well, losing half their value since early 2010.
Is there a recovery on the cards? Well, analysts aren't expecting much this year, and there isn't going to be a return to dividends until 2013 at the earliest. The current price of 12p puts the shares on a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 11 based on this year's forecasts, falling to 8 for next year.
Business to business
I think telecoms is a much under-appreciated sector these days, with even the smaller companies becoming increasingly focused on strong cash flow and dividends. And we have an interesting set of full-year results coming our way next Tuesday, from Daisy Group (LSE: DAY).
Daisy offers business-to-business telecoms services and, as such, is in many ways a commodity supplier in a market that all offer the same thing. But with an independent IP core network of its own, Daisy does seem to be attracting the customers. The firm has been in the business since 2001, and is forecast to turn in its first pre-tax profit this year -- and that's pretty much assured, after April's pre-close update told us that things were in line with expectations. Daisy will definitely be worth a look.
Thursday will bring us annual results from Ashtead Group (LSE: AHT). What does Ashtead do? According to the company's site, it provides "equipment that lifts, powers, generates, moves, digs, supports, scrubs, pumps, directs, ventilates, whatever the job needs". Despite a dip in earnings over the past couple of years, the share price has climbed from around 30p in 2009 to the 230p mark today.
Forecasts put the shares on a P/E for the year of nearly 15, falling to 12.5 for next year, but only a modest 1.5% dividend is expected.
A drop of the fine stuff
Majestic Wine (LSE: MJW) will be providing us with its full-year results on Monday, and we should be expecting a further improvement on 2011 figures. There's likely to be a dividend of around 3.5% from the 416p shares, which is not the best around. But then, despite having been effectively flat over the past 12 months, the shares have actually almost four-bagged from the 110p level at the start of 2009.
"10 Steps To Making A Million In The Market" is the very latest Motley Fool guide to help Britain invest. Better. We urge you to read the free report today -- it may transform your wealth.
Notable announcements next week:
Monday: City of London Investment Group, F&C Global Smaller Companies, Majestic Wine
Tuesday: Chemring Group, Daisy Group, Home Retail Group, Imagination Technologies Group, Trifast
Wednesday: Kesa Electricals
Thursday: Ashtead Group, Dixons Retail, Go-Ahead Group, Micro Focus International, Norcros
Friday: No major announcements
Fool comment on this week's news:
> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article. The Motley Fool owns shares in City of London Investment and Imagination Technologies.
