Sector movers: Divi hopes boost Invensys
Engineer Invensys leads the Electronic & Electrical Equipment sector higher this morning after accompanying third quarter results with a bullish outlook.
The company paid off a large chunk of its debt as it achieved "a much improved operating cash conversion" in the last quarter of 2007 and said that it is working on getting into a position where it can start paying dividends.
Third quarter pre-tax profit, covering the last 3 months of 2007, was down to £33m from £38m in the final quarter of 2006, on revenue that grew from £521m to £545. Earnings per share before exceptional finance costs and foreign exchange effects rose, however, to 4.2p from 3.8p.
For the 9 month period pre-tax profit more than doubled to £93m from £42m, on revenue that was up at £1,585m, from £1,516m the previous year.
Operating profit before exceptional items rose to £67m in the third quarter from £53m, while over the nine month period it rose to £176m from £147m.
The company continues to experience hard times in its Controls division, which has seen softening of demand in the US, but Process Systems and the Rail Group both produced strong quarters, the company said.
Telecoms giant BT reported third quarter revenue that was slightly below market expectations, but said it expects continued growth in the fourth quarter.
Revenue in the last three months of 2007 was up at £5.15bn from £5.13bn a year earlier, buyt below market expectations of £5.25bn. New wave revenue, which is mainly generated from networked IT services and broadband, was 7% higher at just over £2bn.
Pre-tax profit before specific items and leaver costs slipped to £601m from £643m. Earnings per share, however, rose for the twenty-third quarter in succession, hitting 5.9p, compared with 5.8p in the third quarter of the previous year.
After specific items, which include restructuring costs and losses on business disposals, the fall in pre-tax profit was even more pronounced, down to £447m from £639m.
BT added 511,000 wholesale broadband connections in the third quarter, of which 177,000 took BT's retail broadband service, cementing its position as the UK's leading broadband provider. However, the net additions in the third quarter were below some analysts' expectations, suggesting that rival services, such as BSkyB's, are beginning to make inroads into BT's market dominance.
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Media 3,543.30 -2.13%
