3 FTSE Shares For The Week Ahead

Published in Investing on 21 February 2013

British American Tobacco plc (LON: BATS), Reed Elsevier plc (LON: REL) and Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (LON: RBS) are all set to deliver results next week.

We took a look yesterday at three FTSE 100 companies releasing full-year results next week. There are plenty more as we are firmly into reporting season for firms with years ending December 2012, so here are three more due to bring us final figures:

British American Tobacco

British American Tobacco (LSE: BATS) (NYSE: BTI.US) will release results on Thursday, and judging by the share price rise of 139p (4.2%) to 3,474p so far this week, investors are expecting something good. Current expectations suggest a 6% rise in earnings per share (EPS), putting the shares on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 17. That might sound a little high, but there's a likely dividend yield of 4% on offer.

At the time of the firm's third-quarter interim update, we were told of a 4% growth in revenue at constant exchange rates for the nine months to September, though global volumes were down after a low third quarter.

Reed Elsevier

The same day will bring us full-year figures from Reed Elsevier (LSE: REL). The shares have gained almost 30% over the past 12 months to 718p, after half-time results in June 2012 showed a 7% rise in operating profit with adjusted EPS up 11%. The interim dividend was lifted by 6%.

Analysts are expecting the full year to bring in a 7% rise in EPS and a dividend yield of 3.3%, putting the shares on a FTSE-average P/E of 14, and forecasts for the next two years suggest modestly rising earnings and dividends. Unless anything has changed since the company's third-quarter update in November, which told us that the nine months were in line with expectations and that the full-year outlook was reaffirmed, we can probably be confident in those 2012 predictions.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Our last of the three for today is Royal Bank of Scotland Group (LSE: RBS) (NYSE: RBS.US), also delivering results on the same busy Thursday. Bank share prices have been storming back, with RBS now up 75% since their 52-week low in July to 345p. After years of credit crunch losses, RBS should be turning in a profit of about £1 billion for 2012, and that's set to recover further over the next two years.

And at the interim stage, the bank reported net assets per share of 476p, which is quite a bit higher than the current share price, so there may still be more to come for shareholders.

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> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article.

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