Interim results from the operator of Premier Inn left shareholders with cause for cheer this morning thanks to excellent progress being made in Germany, a modest uptick on the dividend and the launch of a new £100m share buyback scheme. Further optimism was afforded through the longer term aspirations of the business which are set to boost profits by £300m over the next five years and free up a further £2bn for shareholder returns over the period. The Whitbread share price was just over 4% higher an hour into Wednesday’s trade.
A trading update from the financial services company was published today, ahead of the interim release later next month. Strong trading has been reported with revenues up 23% and management noting that this sets the company on solid footing for its full year performance. Critically, regulatory change is seen as supporting client demand following the new funding regime for defined benefit schemes which came into force last month. The XPS share price is up more than 9% in early trade.
A year end trading update was published by Cloudcoco this morning but that also included news of a planned disposal its IT services business to Aspire Technology Solutions, resulting in a cash consideration worth £7.85m. Most of that would be used to clear debt, but around £1m would be conserved for working capital purposes. The Cloudcoco share price surged by more than 200% as a result.
Headlines we expect tomorrow
Rentokil Initial Q3 trading update
This time last year Revenue up 53.3%
Ibstock Trading update
