Wednesday preview: M&S, Barratt Devs., JD Wetherspoon

13th Jul 2010 16:17

After the sparky proceedings at the British Airways annual general meeting (AGM), Wednesday's AGM of Marks & Spencer's shareholders may seem like a model of decorum but it is not expected to pass without incident. Director remuneration is likely to prove the hot issue. The new chief executive, Marc Bolland, was lured at great expense from supermarket chain Morrisons and he did not make a good first impression on the City at his first results presentation on 7 July with his downbeat demeanour.The City scribblers are anxious for Bolland to reveal his plans for the High Street icon but he won't be rushed, promising that a strategic review will be unveiled in November of this year. Marks & Spencer has had several clashes with investors over corporate governance in recent years, including disagreements over Bolland's predecessor, Sir Stuart Rose, combining the chief executive officer role with that of chairman. Last year more than a fifth of M&S shareholders failed to support Rose's re-election to the board at the AGM in protest at Rose combining the top two roles at the company, in contravention of best practice guidelines laid down by the Cadbury report on corporate governance. Institutional investors have been getting more bolshie about executive pay of late, as evidenced by this month's AGM for supermarket giant Tesco, where almost a third of shareholders voted against the executive remuneration package and another 15% abstained. A similar result is not out of the question at Marks & Spencer but, as with Tesco, the board is likely to plough on regardless with its plans which include a first year pay package for Bolland that could reach £15m while Rose, now only a part time chairman, is set to rake in £875,000, making him the highest paid chairman of a FTSE 100 company.Fellow retailer J. Sainsbury also has an AGM on Wednesday. The bush telegraph is not reporting any indications of a shareholder revolt over the supermarket chain's lavishly rewarded chief executive Justin King, though it will not have gone unnoticed that last week King netted himself just over £1.5m selling Sainsbury shares.King sold part of his existing shareholding as well as exercising and immediately selling shares under the company's long-term incentive plan. On the trading statements front it looks like a reasonably busy day with updates expected from pubs group JD Wetherspoon, bourses operator London Stock Exchange, online fashion retailer ASOS, housebuilder Barratt Developments and miner Rio Tinto, with the last mentioned company's update coming at the group's AGM.Recent updates from pub operators such as Greene King and Punch Taverns have been reasonably encouraging, with the pub trade benefiting from the good weather and the chance to go down the pub and be depressed by England's performance in the World Cup.In JD Wetherspoon's case, trading may have been additionally boosted by extended breakfast trading hours. Panmure Gordon is expecting a positive trading update from the company but is also anticipating an element of caution for fiscal 2011 "resulting from the annualised effect of tax and duty increases and higher interest charges, combined with the risk of uncertainty over consumer expenditure."Numis Securities expects Barratt Developments to issue a "reassuring update" with the company expected to say sales have been in line with expectations, while prices have stabilised. The broker thinks the heavily indebted housebuilder may have cut debts more than the market had been expecting.Fears that growth stock ASOS was losing some of its pizzazz were partially dispelled by its full year profits which showed a 44% increase in pre-tax profit. More encouragingly, its chairman, Lord Waheed Alli, said: "The widely predicted slowdown in consumer spending, specifically amongst the younger customer groups did not materialise and the Internet continued its strong growth as a retail channel."Group retail sales for the 9 weeks to 6 June 2010 rose 58% with the UK up 36% and international soaring 118%, and Panmure Gordon expects these trends to have persisted. It expects the company to report sales growth in its first quarter of 55-60%. "Met Office weather statistics bode well for ASOS. Every week in June was above average in temperature and sunshine and below average in rainfall, across all parts of Great Britain, according to the Met Office website," the broker notes.Unemployment data for June is expected to show that claimant count unemployment fell by around 20,000 in June after declining 30,900 in May. The claimant count unemployment rate is tipped to hold steady at 4.6%.The number of jobless on the International Labour Organization (ILO) measure is forecast to have fallen by 30,000 in the three months to May to stand at 2.47m, wih the ILO unemployment rate stabilising at 7.9%.INTERIMS1st Dental LaboratoriesINTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATEAsset Man Inv Trust, Chemring Group, Dewhurst, Domino Printing, HolidaybreakQUARTERLY PAYMENT DATEYamana Gold IncQUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATEHenderson Global Property Companies Ltd., Investors Capital Trust 'A' SharesINTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSBusiness Inventories (US) (13:30)Consumer Price Index (EU) (10:00)Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30)FOMC Interest Rate Minutes (US) (19:00)Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (EU) (10:00)Import and Export Price Indexes (US) (13:30)Industrial Production (EU) (10:00)MBA Mortgage Applications (US) (12:00)Retail Sales (US) (13:45)Retail Sales Inventories (US) (15:15)Bank of Japan MPC Meeting (JPN)GMSCity of London Investment GroupFINALSInternational Greetings, MDM Engineering Group, O Twelve Estates, Sovereign ReversionsIMSSJD Wetherspoon, London Stock Exchange GroupEGMSACP Mezzanine Ltd.AGMSBlueCrest AllBlue Fund GBP Shares, Cyprotex, Foresight 4 VCT, ICAP, London Stock Exchange Group, Marks & Spencer Group, Mitie Group, Octopus Protected VCT 1, Sainsbury (J), Sutton Harbour, Telecom Plus, Volex, Wynnstay PropertiesTRADING ANNOUNCEMENTSAshmore Group, ASOS, Barratt Developments, EMIS, Rio Tinto, ThorntonsUK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSClaimant Count Rate (09:30)Unemployment Rate (09:30)Average Weekly Earnings (09:30)FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATEAutoclenz, Big Yellow Group, WhitbreadFINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATEAmati VCT , Empresaria Group, Establishment Inv Trust, FirstGroup, GB Group, Hornby, IBIS Media VCT, Intermediate Capital Group, Invesco Asia Trust, Majestic Wine, Mountview Estate, Schroder UK Growth Fund, Sepura, Telecom Plus, TP70 2008 (I) VCT, TP70 2008 (II) VCT