Lowland to issue £30m of long-term loan notes
New facility will add flexibility and enable repayment of some shorter-term debt
Lowland Investment Company (LWI) has announced it is to issue £30m in sterling-denominated loan notes. The senior unsecured private placement notes will mature in January 2037 and will carry a fixed-rate annualised coupon of 3.15%, paid in two instalments in July and January.
Who’s the daddy?
Airbus, Boeing, the WTO or the lawyers
As the latest round of chest beating by Boeing and Airbus dies away until the next round of appeals, I really start to wonder why the finger pointing and name calling persists. It seems to me that only one group of people are directly benefiting from the “discussion”, and I do not mean Joe public.
Read more...Market Commentary - Housing, Infrastructure, Construction and Services - 6th December 2016
Plenty of news this morning from Wosleley (Q1 Update) and Ashtead, Northgate and Fulcrum Utility Services (Interims). Wolseley’s revenue growth of 1.8% overall on a like for like basis in the first three months will be receive a neutral to negative reception ; it includes 4.2% growth in the USA, L4L, after taking into account 2.4% price deflation.Ashtead’s story is not dissimilar from that of Wolseley in terms of trading and net margins. Fulcrum has chosen to mark this set of results with the signal that it has now “come of age” and is out of its recovery phase and has a high level of opportunities ahead
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You can’t be given a bloody nose twice
The vote ‘no’ to Italian constitutional reform in this Sunday’s referendum has cost the Italian prime minister Renzi his job and perhaps thrown the Italian government into turmoil. Markets are however not in turmoil. The euro is close to unchanged, having fallen modestly after the referendum result. European equity markets are sharply higher this morning. While Italian 10y government bond yields have breached 2%, this increase in yields is notably less sharp than at the time of Trump’s election. Investors who panic sold after Trump and Brexit have been reconditioned (correctly in our view) to not immediately re-price risk on the back of specific political events.
Read more...Lenovo – All mod cons
Motorola is the only one with a chance of succeeding with modularity.
Read more...Market Commentary - Housing, Infrastructure, Construction and Services - 5th December 2016
The news today for the sector may be overshadowed by macro factors as Sterling is trading as we write at above £1=€1.2 for the first time since late June.
The HICS sector stocks moved in a narrow band on Friday last with more fallers than risers; no surprise on a day when the market fell 0.3%. There were only three risers in the sector last week in our universe as the market fell 1.5% and the sector by a similar margin
Amazon AWS – Brain game
Amazon is stepping up its efforts in the coming battle of the brains.
Read more...Market Commentary - Housing, Infrastructure, Construction and Services - 2nd December 2016
The main item this morning is the half year results from Berkeley Holdings. They are important as a candid view on the UK Housing market from Tony Pidgeley is a valuable guide to what is really happening on the ground. The Serco CMD yesterday was a very good opportunity to get to know better the range of the operations and the top team below Rupert and Angus that make things happen. What is increasingly clear from the data provided and discussed is that while Serco operates with five Divisions each with five strands of activity (Defence, Justice and Immigration, Transport, Health and Citizen Services) it is in fact a collection of around 600 contracts each of which has its own risk and reward characteristics. The glue that binds the business is a shared set of values and organising principles that indicate how it will deliver services on behalf of public sector entities.
Read more...F-35 funding in chaos
DoD and Lockheed Martin still struggling to agree contract terms
Earlier in the year I highlighted that there were serious problems with F-35 contract negotiations (Lockheed Martin names and shames the US DoD). Last week’s announcement that Lockheed is to receive $1.3bn of ‘stop gap’ funding to continue production of LRIP 10 whilst negotiations drag on, together with the unexpected and unilateral contract announcement for LRIP 9 earlier in November, indicate that the situation has got worse not better in the past four months. So what does the future hold for the programme, particularly under Donald Trump as President?
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