Updates

New Look - Cost cutting cushions downgrades

May 2003

Investing in shares may lose you all or some of your money. Past performance is no indication of future performance. Some of the shares recommended here may be small company shares, which can be relatively illiquid and hard to trade and this makes such shares more risky than other investments.

Although the clothing retail sector has witnessed some patchy trading statements, New Look reassured investors when reporting on the last ten weeks of its financial year to end March. Both key indicators of like-for-like sales and gross margins performed creditably against tough year-on-year comparatives, with a 1.5% rise and 0.4% decline respectively, against improvements of +7.7% and +9% last time. Unlike many rivals, which need special reviews to implement cost cutting measures, New Look focuses on costs on an ongoing basis, which is expected to push up operating margins from 10.9% to 12.9%. This has cushioned the pretax profit downgrade tojust 5% to Â£91.2m and earnings of 28.5p. ...

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Landround - New earnings upgrade

Alexon - Strong recovery from Dolcis

New Look (March 2004)

New Look - Founder eyes MBO (September 2003)

New Look - Strong like-for-like sales growth (February 2003)

New Look (January 2003)

New Look (November 2002)

New Look - Further broker upgrades expected (October 2002)

With small companies there is an above average degree of risk compared to buying blue chips. Please be aware that we have not assessed the suitability of any of these investments for you. The newsletter simply states a personal view and diarises the editor’s investment decisions. Please speak to your stockbroker or other qualified individual to ascertain whether any of these companies mentioned would form useful additions to your own portfolios. Past performance is no indication of future success.

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