Friday preview: Italy set to drag down Vodafone

Friday's big corporate announcement is from Vodafone, which will give an update covering the first quarter of its financial year.

Broker Nomura is expecting organic growth of 0.7%, down from year-on-year growth of 2.3% in the preceding quarter. Stripping out the impact of an additional day in the reporting period because it is a leap year, the underlying decline is around 0.6%.

"In Europe, we expect growth of -1.7% (Q4 -0.2%, Q3 -1.7%) while in AMAP [Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific], we forecast 6.0% vs 7.6% in Q4," Nomura says.

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Italy is under the most pressure in Vodafone's mainland European operations, Nomura reckons. Revenues were down 4.1% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis in the final quarter of the previous financial year, and this could worsen to a decline of 7.1% in the first quarter, the Japanese broker predicts, "with the slowdown caused by both the economic environment and increased competition."

Financial stocks will also be in focus with specialist insurer Beazley set to publish interim results and merchant banking group Close Brothers scheduled to give a trading statement.

Peel Hunt thinks Beazley's gross written premiums will be around 8% higher year-on-year at $991m, and predicts the combined ratio - which measures how well the insurer has taken on risk - will improve to 91% from 108% in the first half of last year.

The broker's forecast is for earnings per share of 10.3p versus an interim loss per share last year of 1.7p.

"Of main interest will be the rating outlook, particularly for Beazley's greater proportion of casualty business as we hear that rate increases seem to be lessening as we await the peak hurricane season," Peel Hunt said.

As for Close Brothers, Peel Hunt anticipates that the group's banking division will have continued to enjoy the favourable market conditions it was enjoying back in May, when it gave its last update.

"We were forecasting a loan book of c£4bn but it looks likely that this will be exceeded," the broker reckons.

Things may be less rosy at Winterflood, the equity broker business. "Customer activity has generally slowed and the market has lacked direction. This could put some downside pressure on consensus estimates, although the net impact is relatively small in the context of the group," Peel Hunt said.

INTERIMS

Beazley

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

RWS Holdings

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Personal Assets Trust

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Producer Price Index (GER) (07:00)

GMS

Red Leopard Holdings

IMSS

Cable & Wireless Communications, Vodafone Group

SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

NetDimensions Holding Ltd. (DI)

AGMS

Cable & Wireless Communications, DCC, Edinburgh Inv Trust, EPE Special Opportunities, Homeserve, Mulberry Group, Origo Partners , Printing.com, Walker Crips Group

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Close Brothers Group

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Public Sector Finances (09:30)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

3i Group, Aurora Investment Trust, Big Yellow Group, Booker Group, Electrocomponents, ICAP, Maven Income & Growth VCT, Melrose Resources, NetDimensions Holding Ltd. (DI), Northern 2 VCT, Telford Homes, Tex Holdings, Value and Income Trust, Vislink

JH