RBS and Lloyds results look set to show losses
STATE-BACKED banks Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group are both expected to announce full-year results this week, with analysts forecasting both lenders will remain loss-making.
Investec believes RBS, which will deliver its 2012 figures on Thursday, will announce an attributable loss of £2.2bn for the final quarter – or a £5.6bn loss for the entire year.
Similarly, the firm expects Lloyds – often seen as a bellwether of the economy – to announce an underlying pre-tax profit of £2.4bn on Friday, which translates into a huge £1.8bn loss when one-off such as PPI are included.
In economic news, the Office for National Statistics is expected on Wednesday to publish its second estimate of growth for the last three months of 2012. It is not expected to change its previous estimate that the UK economy had contracted by 0.3 per cent.
Housing data is expected to come from the Bank of England and Nationwide, while mortgage approval rates for January are set to be announced today.
Wednesday will see a slew of data on fourth quarter investment and public spending.
On Thursday the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) will give a better picture of how the UK economy is performing. Analysts expect slight growth in production.
On the corporate calendar, the busy week begins with full year reports from Bovis Homes Group, Domino’s Pizza Group, Hiscox, Microgen, Pearson, Persimmon, Senior, Staffline Group and Bunzl while Petra Diamonds and Thorntons are due to give interim reports.
Tomorrow, final reports are expected from Devro, GKN, Goals Soccer Centres, Provident Financial, Robert Walters, Croda International and Elementis. Craneware, RSM Tenon Group and Whitbread will also be updating the market.
Wednesday’s news will come from Barratt Developments, Carillion, Centrica, Chemring Group, Henderson Group, Interserve, ITV, Petrofac, Promethean World, Segro, Synectics and Weir Group.
On Thursday British American Tobacco, Capita, Capital & Counties Properties, Derwent London, Direct Line Insurance, Kazakhmys, Howden Joinery Group, International Consolidated Airlines Group, National Express Group, Reed Elsevier, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Safestore Holdings, St James’s Place and Xchanging will all report.
Finally on Friday, BBA Aviation, Berendsen, Hammerson, Laird, Lloyds Banking Group, Old Mutual, Rightmove, Taylor Wimpey, UBM, William Hill, WPP and Stagecoach will all update the market.