Market Commentary - Housing, Infrastructure, Construction and Services 26th April 2017
Forterra announced that the Lonestar shares had been placed a few days ago and today Ibstock has announced that the remaining private equity holdings in its shares have been placed. CRH has updated the market ahead of its AGM today. We are visiting the Stewart Milne modular housing factory this morning.
Read more...Market Commentary - Housing, Infrastructure, Construction and Services 25th April 2017
News from three companies provides interesting read across, Havelock Europa (fit out specialist), Carpetright and Vp, the hire company. Serco was the class act yesterday, up 3.8% to 117.9p. Our view has been consistent; inside the operations there is a great company emerging with the right values and systems in place.
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French Election: Is populism already passé?
Relief rally follows 1st round vote which puts Le Pen against a moderate
If last year was the year investors were caught out by misleading polls, today’s market action suggests that investors are being caught out by mistrusting them. A collapse in near-term euro volatility, sharply higher equity markets and a compression in the spread between French and German government bonds emphasises the relief that Le Pen was not in a run-off with a far left-wing candidate.
Read more...Market Commentary - Housing, Infrastructure, Construction and Services 24th April 2017
Bovis, Interserve, Civitas and Mortice have all released small items of news today that are relevant to them and have read across. The sector performed relatively well last week, down just 1.0% against the market down by 2.6%. The strength of Sterling versus the US $ caused some changes in views on earning which were purely technical, FX related, rather than a comment on business performance.
Read more...Digital assistants -Bursting bandwagon
Digital assistant bandwagon bursting at the seams.
Read more...The MOD is open for business again
‘Accelerator’ project intended to encourage innovation but may also encourage acquisitions
Historically, defence technologies used to lead development of civilian technologies. However, military research and development (R&D) budgets have been constrained over the past five years so we have seen civilian technologies leading the way, particularly in the communications sphere. I was therefore encouraged to read about the UK MOD’s new ‘Accelerator’ programme, which funds novel, high-risk and high-potential benefit research to develop new capabilities for UK defence and security.
Read more...Market Commentary - Housing, Infrastructure, Construction and Services 21st April 2017
The main (and only substantial) item this morning is that the Atkins board has agreed to accept 2080p a share and is recommending it to shareholders, the T&Cs having been settled. The week has been quiet for most companies and sector observers and there are few planned announcement for next week. Rentokil did announce today that it has won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade in its Pest Control division but we figured that would not move the dial much on the share price; there is much other good stuff in the company that will, as we have stated.
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