Premarket London: Centrica Says It's on Track; Countryside Roars Ahead

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Investing.com -- Here is a summary of regulatory news releases from the London Stock Exchange on Thursday, 21st November.

Home builder Countryside Properties (LON:CSPC) raised its dividend by 51% to 16.3 pence a share after reporting a 14% rise in full-year net profit to 170.4 million pounds on the back of a 33% rise in completions. It also said CEO Ian Sutcliffe would step down at the end of March and be succeeded by Iain MacPherson, who currently heads the company's Partnerships South business.

Sutcliffe said the new financial year had also started well, with net reservation rates for the first seven weeks ahead of the same period last year.

“With new site openings in the first half, we expect delivery to be weighted to the second half,” Sutcliffe said. “Potential economic and political uncertainty aside, we remain confident of delivering further earnings growth in 2020.”

The company said its forward order book had risen 30% year-on-year to stand at 1.17 billion pounds.

Metals group Johnson Matthey (LON:JMAT) said it’s on track to hit market expectations for profit in the year ending next March, after posting a 3% rise in underlying revenue to 2.12 billion pounds in the first six months.

However, underlying operating profit fell 5% to 265 million pounds and underlying earnings per share fell 12% to 95.8 pence. Net debt was higher than expected and cash flow slightly weaker than expected as surging prices for precious metals such as palladium saddled it with higher working capital requirements.

CEO Robert MacLeod said the group expects a stronger second half, free of one-off effects and is sticking by its medium-term target of “mid- to high single-digit growth” in annual earnings per share.

• Water utility Severn Trent (LON:SVT) said underlying pretax profit fell 4.3% to 286.3 million as a result of increase investment, partly offset by a 20 basis point drop in its borrowing costs to 3.7%.

Bookmaker William Hill (LON:WMH) said it’s on track to meet its targets for the year, with revenue growth of 4% in the 17 weeks through the end of October. Growth in its online business and expansion in the U.S. offset the decline of its chain of U.K. betting shops.

Retail sales fell 16% since its half-year update reflecting the impact of the introduction of a maximum 2 pound stake on fixed-odds betting terminals.

The budding U.S. business, by contrast, “has gone from strength to strength. We have excellent market access, a valuable partnership with Eldorado and we are excited about the potential that is presented by the combination with Caesars,” the company said.

U.S. net revenue rose 60% after the company launched services in Indiana and Iowa.

We expect our International Online business to benefit from a number of important product improvements that will be delivered over the coming quarters.” CEO Ulrik Bengtsson said, noting that the U.K. online business had stabilized its market share on the back of similar improvements.