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PREVIEW - Berkeley Group, Eckoh, Abzena ..

Last updated: 06:02 13 Jun 2016 BST, First published: 09:02 12 Jun 2016 BST

The sign outside the LSE building

House builder results continue next week with finals from Berkeley Group Holdings PLC (LON:BKG) and interims from Crest Nicholson Holdings  (LON:CRT).

City broker Numis is bullish on both stocks, recommending investors 'add' them to the portfolio.

The sector, like others, has attracted commentary recently, not least due to the impending EU referendum and the uncertainty about the potential result leading to some concerns.

In a March update, Berkeley pointed to the current year's results being at the top-end of expectations and Numis upgraded its 2016 pre-tax profit estimate by 3% to £475mln.

"We expect Berkeley to end the year with c.£4bn of total forward sales, against which over £1bn of deposits have already been secured – suggesting the order book is well insulated against cancellations," it said.

"In our view Berkeley continues to have considerable flexibility in its model with most of the high priced output forward sold and also growing exposure to the low end of the London market and the Home Counties, where conditions remain more favourable."

Numis expects strong update from Crest

Meanwhile, the City firm also expects a strong update from Crest, which, it says, was well flagged at the pre close update in mid-May.

Numis reckons the focus of the results will be on current trading – particularly in London -  in light of the uncertainty created by the forthcoming EU referendum.

"We forecast revenue for the full year of £987m and given the company has reiterated its target of £1bn revenue in 2016, we think there is some upside risk to our estimates."

The pre-close update pointed to a 7% volume growth and a big jump in the private average sales price (+24% to £387k on reservations) as the group improves mix and benefits from underlying price inflation, the broker added.

Eckoh reports final results

Elsewhere, in small cap world,  secure payments firm Eckoh PLC (LON:ECK) reports final numb bers for the year to end March on June 14 and its current year has already got off to a cracking start.

At the beginning of this month, house broker N+1 Singer noted it had announced two significant US contract wins worth an estimated $7mln over three years.

"One of the contracts (worth a minimum of $2m) was secured through West, the group’s US reseller partner, while the other (worth up to $5m+) was secured directly via recently acquired Product Support Solutions Inc (“PSS”)," says analyst Tintin Stormont.

"The group has also announced an updated distributor agreement with West Corporation which will see West continue to focus on delivering additional enterprise deals over the next three years on a non-exclusive basis.

"The updated agreement will allow Eckoh to expand its US presence with other US distributor partners, with the focus likely to be on the US midmarket.

The broker made no changes to its forecasts at this early stage  but said it saw the new contracts as strong underpinning its full year numbers and see scope for further success in the US in future

For  the 2016 year, the broker estimates adjusted pre-tax profit of £4mln and revenue of £21.7mln.

Also with finals on June 14 is biopharma services specialist Abzena plc (LON:ABZA) and investors will be keen to see how it is progressing after the tie up in January with an unnamed major US biotech worth up US$150mln.

The AIM firm agreed a licence deal for its ThioBridge antibody drug conjugate (ADC) linker, which means the US group pays every time it passes a significant developmental milestone.

In March this year, Abzena said both its recent US acquisitions had bedded down well.

The group acquired PacificGMP, a contract manufacturing business, in September and contract chemist TCRS in December.

Bookings through both have been strong and have benefited from access to Abzena's immunogenicity assessment, antibody engineering and manufacturing technologies. Traders will be keen to see of the momentum is continuing.

It also teed up a marketing alliance with antibody discovery services company, FairJourney Biologics (Portugal) to offer antibody discovery services  and with FairJourney Biologics to offer immunogenicity assessment and analytics.

Abzena also has interests in eleven drugs currently under development, two of which are in phase II trials.

Significant announcements expected  -

Tuesday, June 14

Firstgroup PLC (LON:FGP),

Crest Nicholson Holdings PLC (LON:CREST)                 

Ted Baker PLC (LON:TED)

Wednesday, June 15

Berkeley Group Holdings PLC (LON:BKG)

Thursday, June 16

N Brown Group plc (LON:BWNG)

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