The consumer goods company Unilever yesterday completed the demerger of its ice cream business and this morning undertook a planned share consolidation. That’s to enable better historical comparatives between the old and new companies, but has had the impact of pushing the headline price higher. Because the number of securities in issue is reduced by just over 11%, this explains away the majority of the upside. The Unilever share price was up 12.5% in early trade.
A half year report from the gifts and personalised greetings card company Moonpig was released today. This showed revenues up 6.7% and gross profits 3.7% higher. There has been some margin erosion but with strong profit figures and continued growth in customer numbers, there’s plenty to cheer here. The outlook also remains positive with good momentum being reported and the full year outlook remains unchanged. The Moonpig share price was up 5% shortly after the open.
The business data company issued a trading update covering the first 11 months of the year this morning noting that the full year profit outlook is for continuing operations to come in ahead of current market consensus. The group separately announced the disposal of commercial removals operators Harrow Green for up to £5.5m following the business becoming non-core, whilst the market seems happy that the company can absorb the estimated £1m pa costs off the back of the latest budget. The Restore share price was 7% higher by 8.30am.
Most read news on Investegate this morning
Trading update - - Restore (RST)
Audited Preliminary Results - - Oxford Metrics (OMG)
Acquisition of Swindon Designer Outlet - - Frasers Group (FRAS)
