RELX [LSE: REL]
RELX, the company formerly known as Reed Elsevier which provides business information and hosts trade shows, has published full year results this morning. Looking at the headline figures, all seems well with solid growth across key metrics, a promised £700m share buyback scheme for the year ahead and a 10% increase in dividends. However the full results do flag an ongoing issue over the sustainability of subscriptions attached to the company’s publications, which account for 33% of group revenues. This has been noted by analysts previously so any impact on the share price ought to be muted, but strategically, as such a large part of the business, the company needs to keep it under review.
Avon Rubber [LSE: AVON]
Avon Rubber is a company that unsurprisingly focuses on manufacturing rubber products ranging from parts for machines that milk cows to military grade gas-masks. They have issued a statement this morning, announcing that the company is to supply the Ministry of Defence with respirators for the next five years. That arguably gives a lot of kudos when it comes to selling to others, but revenues from the deal are set to be a mere £16 million and there’s a £3 million up-front cost to prepare for production, too.
Standard Life Aberdeen [LSE: SLA]
A fairly rambling announcement from fund manager Standard Life Aberdeen this morning, but some legacy divisions of the company had been undertaking a number of long term asset management tasks for parts of Lloyds Banking Group. Following the merger of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management last summer, these arrangements were put under review and are now set to come to an end. Although the impact is set to be less than 5% of group revenues, investors could well be expected to raise an eyebrow to the news.
