Capita PLC shareholders will be hoping for an increase in the pace of new contract award at the outsourcing specialist's annual general meeting (AGM).
Near the end of February, the company announced it had made a “solid start” with £251mln of contracts secured in the year to date, but that was well below the £1.1bn secured in the first two months of 2015.
Management is targeting at least 4% organic revenue growth (net of attrition) for 2016, Peel Hunt noted.
“As at the 2015 finals in February, Capita had visibility for 2016 of only 2.5% net revenue growth, comprising c1% organic growth (c5% gross net of an abnormally high attrition of c4%) and c1.5% acquired; however, the higher weighting (56%) of the (shorter lead time) private sector and the 40% in transactional areas (some of which, such as software solutions, are growing strongly) within the £4.7bn pipeline, suggests that a further c3% is possible (assuming a 50% win rate and an average mid-year start date),” the broker said.
Summertime ... and the comparatives are not easy
Half-year results from low-cost airline easyJet PLC will include the period in which terrorist attacks in Egypt and Paris made many people nervous about travelling by airplane.
Exchange rate fluctuations during the reporting period also did not help the company, as sterling yielded ground to other currencies as uncertainty mounts ahead of the EU referendum result.
In what is traditionally the less busy half of the financial year, the company is expected to slide back into the red, or in easyJet's case maybe that should be burnt orange.
The trading outlook for the summer remains key, though, suggested Numis Securities.
Comparatives are tough, given the poor UK summer weather in 2015 and the strength of sterling which helped to boost demand for beach routes last year, but Numis reckons the outlook for summer 16 is encouraging.
“Sterling has strengthened recently and vacation demand appears to be focused on destinations such as Spain, the Balearics, the Canaries and Portugal, which are strong network points for easyJet. We also believe that the capacity outlook for the summer is relatively benign,” Numis said.
“We remain positive on the structural growth opportunities for easyJet and expect that the interim results will be accompanied by the conclusions of CFO Andrew Findlay's review of costs and easyJet's 'funding and balance sheet metrics'. In our view the latter will provide scope for a special dividend and/or an increase in the pay-out ratio,” ventured Numis analyst Wyn Ellis.
Summit reaches for the top
Drugs developer Summit Therapeutics has put out so many updates this year, it is hard to know what else it could include that is new in Tuesday's results.
As a pre-revenue company, the figures will be largely irrelevant, though of course the cash burn will be of interest, as it is with all early stage biopharmaceuticals companies.
What investors will really want to see are signs of how quickly the company is progressing towards the “inflection point” chief executive officer Glyn Edwards was talking about last November.
The company has two main programmes on the go: one for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a fatal muscle wasting disease that mainly affects boys; and the other is an antibiotic to combat hospital superbug C.Diff.
News flow on both programmes has been nothing but positive this year.
Last month, the C.Diff candidate (ridinilazole) got a boost as the US patent and trademark office granted a "composition of matter" patent. It gives a period of exclusivity for in the United States until at least December 1, 2029, with the possibility of it being extended.
A few days before that announcement, the company revealed the US Food and Drug Administration had allowed the company to broaden the scope of its phase II clinical trial of its drug ezutromid to trial sites in the US.
Sector peer MaxCyte Inc (LON:MXCT) is another company to look out for on Tuesday as it only listed at the end of March.
Unusually for a US-based biotech, it opted to list in London when the trend has usually been the other way, with UK biotechs looking for a higher earnings rating in the US, where they are a bit more attuned to the development cycles of drug discovery companies.
MaxCyte, however, has a hybrid model that seems to resonate more with UK investors. It sells and licenses its cell engineering technology to some of the world’s largest pharma and biotechnology companies, and it is also using said technology to develop treatments for cancer that incite the body’s own immune system to tackle the killer disease.
Significant announcements expected
Finals: MaxCyte Inc (LON:MXCT), Quantum Pharma PLC (LON:QP.), Summit Therapeutics PLC (LON:SUMM)
Interims: Cambria Automobiles PLC (LON:CAMB), easyJet PLC (LON:EZJ)
Trading statements: The Capita Group PLC (LON:CPI), Hiscox Ltd (LON:HSX)