By Sarah Turner
Pub operators gained in the British stock market on Thursday,
with Enterprise Inns soaring after the firm highlighted an improved
trading trend.
Enterprise Inns shares jumped 12% outside the top FTSE 100
index, while rival Punch Taverns rose 6.3%, also outside the top
index.
Enterprise Inns said that a drop in average net income per pub
eased to around 4% in the 16 weeks to Jan. 16, down from a drop of
8% over the firm's last financial year. The result was helped in
part by selling underperforming pubs, the firm said.
"While extreme weather, particularly during the first two weeks
of January, kept many customers at home and disadvantaged some
pubs, it brought extra custom to others," the firm said.
The firm called the environment for the U.K. pub industry
"testing" and said that rental income is likely to remain under
pressure through the coming year.
Enterprise Inns is part of the "tied" pub system in the U.K,
where pub landlords rent their pub from the parent company and also
buy all their beer from it.
"Enterprise's interim management statement showed that its
estate reshaping strategy is working and that's good news for all
the tenanted operators," said analysts at Evolution Securities.
Turning to the top index, the U.K. FTSE 100 index edged up 0.1%
to 5,248.66. Other European shares were also mildly higher, while
U.S. stock futures were mildly lower.
Stocks around the globe were hit on Wednesday as speculation
that China may rein in bank lending prompted a sell off in mining
stocks.
However, pharmaceutical stocks are having a better week as
worries that U.S. healthcare reforms will lead to a drop in prices
lifted after Republican Scott Brown won the U.S. Senate election in
Massachusetts on Tuesday night. Brown has promised to help block
the Obama administration's health-care-reform efforts.
AstraZeneca (AZN) shares were up 2.2% on Thursday after Morgan
Stanley lifted the firm to overweight from equalweight.
"Worsening generic pressure and R&D management changes lead
us to expect material cuts to internal small research spend in
2010/11, after a decade of dismal internal R&D returns. We
expect AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis to be among the leaders in
externalizing research, and this is a key driver of our upgrade of
AstraZeneca," the broker said.
Other top index gainers included water company United Utilities
, up 4.4% after it said trading from Oct. 1 to Jan 20 met
expectations.
Shares of supermarket group William Morrison fell 1.2%. In the 6
weeks to Jan. 3, comparable sales rose 6.5%, although the firm said
it expects the market to remain challenging.
Back outside the top index, shares of low cost airline easyJet
jumped 4.4% after sales in the three months to Dec. 31 rose 10.5%
to 607.5 million pounds.
EasyJet said the underlying performance of its business in the
first quarter has been encouraging and it remains on track to
deliver substantial profit improvement during 2010.
Shares of Russian gold miner Petropavlovsk climbed 4.5% after it
said fourth-quarter attributable production rose to 133,500 ounces
from 126,800, bringing full-year total production to 486,800
ounces.
Its original 2009 goal was 460,000 to 510,000 ounces. Production
for 2010 is currently expected to be between 670,000 and 760,000
ounces, it said. It's also going to resume dividend payments.