Three things you need to know in the financial markets this morning from investment writer, Tony Cross.
Unilever
A Q2 update has been published by Unilever LON:ULVR this morning, showing a resilient performance for the company. That is testament to its diversification and arguably the defensive channels it operates in, but underlying sales growth for the period was reported as being just 0.3% lower. Growth in home care products proved to be the stand out winner in the period, with sales growth of 4% reported. Quarterly shareholder dividends will be maintained. The company has a series of blunt objectives for the remainder of the financial year in as much as it is looking for volume led competitive growth, absolute profit and cash delivery.
Sage
There’s a Q3 update out from the IT company Sage LON:SGE today, with revenue over the last nine months up by 4.1% from the previous year. North America and Northern Europe performed especially well, with double digit revenue growth for both territories. There has been an interesting impact of COVID on the business, with smaller clients showing less propensity to churn and the company notes that by working with customers, it expects full year revenue growth to be in the region of 7-8% with an operating margin of around 22%.
Tate & Lyle
Tate & Lyle LON:TATE has published a trading statement for the three months to June 30th. The company notes that whilst demand for the restaurant trade fell, that was outweighed by strong demand for packaged and shelf stable foods for consumption at home. Other divisions were less impressive, again with the closure of venues being a key driver here, so for the group to emerge with revenues down by just 5% is arguably a cause for cheer. The company notes it is trading on solid fundamentals and adds that new product revenue grew by 9% over the quarter.
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