Speedy Hire [LSE: SDY]
With a long bank holiday weekend looming, corporate news will likely be a little thinner on the ground this week, but we can open with a brief trading update from Speedy Hire. It’s the UK’s leading tools and equipment hire company and we’ll have to wait until mid-May to get the full year picture, but the key metrics look impressive. Return on capital employed is expected to be around 11%, up from 7.7% a year earlier and the company also notes that despite the collapse of Carillion – it will have credit lines out to many suppliers of the failed outsourcer – full year revenues are expected to be up 6% on a year earlier.
GKN [LSE GKN]
The ongoing battle by Melrose to buy GKN continues and a deadline has been set for 1pm on Thursday for shareholders to accept the deal. It’s a highly contested spat and GKN has been forced to issue a retraction this morning following two papers which appeared in the media yesterday. Directors at GKN alluded to there being shareholder support to maintain the status quo but as these claims weren’t verified with the investor audience, the stringent takeover rules mean the claims have now been retracted.
YouGov [LSE: YOU]
Half year results from polling company YouGov are out this morning too, and at first glance the numbers look impressive. As a relatively small company, it’s not well covered by analysts but earnings per share at the six month mark have trounced expectations, coming in almost 50% higher. What the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica situation means for pollsters remains to be seen, but any fall out here will take some time to materialise.
