It is time for Reckitt Benckiser PLC to step into the limelight on Thursday, with price inflation likely front and centre for the consumer staples firm.
Full-year turnover is tipped to slide 6.1% to £13.1bn and EBITDA to dive 7.3% to £3.4bn; however, good old pre-tax profit is seen recovering to £2.7bn from £1.87bn in 2020.
Group like-for-like net revenue growth of 3.3% from the year before in the third quarter was balanced between volume and price/mix and an “encouraging start to the cold and flu season” (encouraging for whom?).
“Despite significant cost pressures, the benefits of our pricing actions, mix and productivity programme, mean our margin guidance is unchanged, and we remain confident in our medium-term outlook,” said Laxman Narasimhan, the chief executive officer.
It will be interesting to see whether he is singing the same song after Unilever warned it was having trouble passing all of its cost increases on to customers.
Standard Chartered kicks off bank season
Thursday will also see Standard Chartered as the first of the FTSE 100 banks to release fourth-quarter earnings, with analysts expecting the company to beat expectations on the back of lower bad debts.
The bank posted pre-tax profits of US$1.075bn in the last quarter, above analyst expectations of $1.07bn on the back of robust levels of export growth across many of its South-East Asian markets
UBS anticipates profits before taxation of US$388mln, up 300% year-on-year, with non-interest income expected to be up 17% as the company’s net interest margin falls by 0.08 percentage points.
The bank’s CET1 - a measure of the strength of the Asia-focused bank’s balance sheet strength – is expected to contract from 14.5% in Q1 2020 to 14.0% in this quarter.
The brokers said lower expected loan losses will contribute to costs being 7% lower than in Q4 2020, which should help continue a trend of bad debt write-off, which fell to US$107mln in the last quarter.
Thursday 17 February
Trading announcements: Aveva Group (LSE:AVV) (Aveva Group (LSE:AVV)) PLC, Safestore Holdings (LSE:SAFE) (Safestore Holdings (LSE:SAFE)),
Interims: MJ Gleeson (LSE:GLE) (MJ Gleeson (LSE:GLE)) PLC
Finals: Standard Chartered PLC (LSE:STAN) (Standard Chartered PLC (LSE:STAN)), Harbourvest Global Private Equity, Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC (LSE:RKT, ETR:3RB) (Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC (LSE:RKT, ETR:3RB), Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC (LSE:RKT, ETR:3RB)), Moneysupermarket.com (LSE:MONY) (Moneysupermarket.com (LSE:MONY)) Group PLC
AGMs: Virgin Money UK PLC (LSE:VMUK) (Virgin Money UK PLC (LSE:VMUK)), Watkin Jones PLC (AIM:WJG) (Watkin Jones PLC (AIM:WJG)), Highway Capital, Chrysalis Investments Ltd
Economic Announcements: Initial Jobless Claims (US), Building Permits (US)