Thank goodness! It took me a long time to get used to working with
Thank goodness! It took me a long time to get used to working with boys at art school.I failed the 11-plus but I never regarded it as a failure; I had a very, very bright mother who was encouraging – and I had another chance. Teachers always got cross with me when they were reading the register at the beginning of the year. I would say, “It’s Zandra with a Z,” and they would have to cross out “Sandra” and write my name again, as there was no Tipp-Ex then.
I loved school My first was Byron Road Primary in Gillingham, Kent. Its high operational gearing means Numis Securities is expecting pre-tax profits to drop to £1.1m this year from £2.4m, recovering to just £1.3m next year.But Whittard of Chelsea needs a 2 per cent sales improvement to achieve this, which is far from in the (tea) bag At 74.5p yesterday, down 2p, Whittard is a sell.. And if you want a new teapot, then try a department store.The group has not had a good year, with two profits warnings since January, and a 3.9 per cent drop in underlying sales in the 20 weeks to 16 October. In the biggest pensions shake-up for almost 20 years (since Margaret Thatcher introduced personal pensions in 1988), “A-Day” on 6 April will see the present eight sets of pension rules scrapped and replaced by a single set covering every pension plan in Britain.
People will be able to invest in a wider range of assets, including property and exotic investments such as wine and racehorses – although the chief executive of St James’s, Mark Lund. cautioned yesterday most people would be better off sticking with a balanced portfolio.
St James’s, which is 60 per cent owned by the banking group HBOS, is prospering as people live longer and are increasingly spurred into action by alarming reports that they are not saving enough for retirement. Yes, we are all drinking more fancy teas these days; yes, the health benefits of a different coloured tea are vaunted each day in the newspaper; but why, when the supermarkets do such a good job of selling more than just PG Tips, would shoppers need to stray into a Whittard’s?If you do want something out of the ordinary, like Yerba Mate (it’s the latest thing from South America), far better to seek it out at a health food store and pick up some other culinary must-haves at the same time. At 239.25p, it’s a hold.OPT can lead a new wave of energyWe know that we must turn increasingly to renewable energy, which does not produce harmful greenhouse gases.Wind power is now a small but growing part of the energy mix. But wave power (not to be confused with tidal power) is so far untapped. The company has prepared an individual pensions audit for clients to protect them from new, high tax rates after A-Day.St James’s, whose 450,000 clients are mainly wealthy private investors, operates as a life insurer that outsources its fund management business and distributes products such as life insurance, pensions and unit trust through a partnership of financial advisers.The stock has been one of the better life performers recently, leaving it trading on 1.57 times embedded value against 1.36 times for its peers.
The company unveiled a 29 per cent jump yesterday in new business to £52.2m in the third quarter, beating analysts’ expe-ctations. Buoyant stock markets helped propel investment sales, though growth of the pensions business declined from the record second quarter. The group maintains its target of growing new business by 15 to 20 per cent a year.Gone are the dark days when clients shunned financial advisers like used car salesmen, after the big pension scandals of the 1990s. Mr Lund predicts A-Day will bring the individual pensions advice market back to life. Bowleven raised £53m at 650p a share through the broker Noble & Co just four weeks ago to fund drilling in Cameroon, but its first well turned out to be dry, sending the stock down 38 per cent to 395p..
Word is that one supermarket client in particular is putting pressure on McBride to cut its prices or face the loss of a big contract. Meanwhile, Signet, the owner of the Ernest Jones jewellery chains in the UK, was off 5.25p at 93.25p on suggestions of poor trading at its Kay Jewelers business in the US.News from Bowleven put oil sector traders in mind of Regal Petroleum, whose share price collapsed shortly after a big fundraising this year (it was off 7.5p at 112p yesterday). Britain’s worsening pensions crisis has turned out to be a blessing for St James’s Place Capital, the upmarket wealth management group. It can look with confidence to the future as pensions business is surging ahead of government reforms next year.
Richard Ratner, the veteran retail sector analyst at Seymour Pierce, told clients yesterday the core chain could be put into administration in the new year if orders do not improve significantly. He has long advocated selling the shares, and pushed his target price down from 75p to just 50p.There were new bearish rumours, too. McBride, which makes supermarket own-brand detergents, was off 3.75p at 149.25p. The furniture retailer is in effect at the mercy of its banks because, although it insists it has not breached any debt covenants at this stage, trading has been deteriorating.
