Airbus Orders Surpass Boeing, Sainsbury Cheers Christmas Sales

Sarla Buch
11 Jan, 2017
New York City

Airbus total deliveries in the year jumped 8% to 688 planes. Cobham tumbled after engineering group said profit in the year declined. Foxtons forecasted revenues to drop 11%. Sainsbury said Christmas sales jumped more than

[R]4:00 PM Frankfurt – Airbus total deliveries in the year jumped 8% to 688 planes. Cobham tumbled after engineering group said profit in the year declined. Foxtons forecasted revenues to drop 11%. Sainsbury said Christmas sales jumped more than £1 billion. Pagegroup said gross profit soared 20%.[/R]

In London trading, FTSE 100 index increased 22.25 or 0.3% to 7,297.66 and in Frankfurt the DAX index rose 22.05 or 0.2% to 11,605.25.

In Paris, CAC 40 index edged down 1.13 to 4,887.19.

Airbus Group SE fell 0.3% to €65.02 after the Netherlands-based aerospace and defense contractor secured net orders for 731 aircraft in 2016 while deliveries jumped 8% to 688 planes delivered to 82 customers.

Airbus booked 731 net orders last year, compared with 668 orders booked by Boeing and shipped 111 planes in December. Boeing booked net orders for 668 aircraft and delivered 728 aircrafts.

Airbus said book-to-bill ratio above one and “healthy” backlog of 6,874 aircrafts that are valued at list prices of $1,018 billion.

Separately, the Airbus secured an order from the U.S. leasing firm Aviation Capital Group for 35 A320-series jets, with its first delivery in 2017.

Cobham Plc tumbled 16.3% to 137.80 pence after the U.K.-based engineering group said profit in the year ending in December declined to £245 million compared to the earlier estimated range between £255 million to £275 million.

Foxtons Group Plc dropped 3.8% to 95.21 pence after the U.K.-based residential property agent forecasted 2016 operating profit between £25 million from £46 million and estimated revenues to drop 11% to £133 million from £150 million in a year ago.

“We expect trading conditions remain challenging” and “it is likely that 2017 volumes will be below those in 2016,” chief executive officer Nic Budden said.

J Sainsbury Plc jumped 3.8% to 268.70 pence after the U.K.-based banking, supermarkets and convenience stores operator reported record Christmas sales of more than £1 billion across the group and comparable sales rose 0.1% in the fifteen weeks to January 7.

The retailer said sales were ""incredibly encouraging"" with over 30 million customer transactions that achieved ""most successful festive trading period ever,"" as “our groceries online and convenience channels performed well,” and total online group sales in the quarter surged 18%.

Total sales in Argos jumped 4.1% in Christmas and Black Friday and comparable sales soared 4% after the Sainsbury rolled out Argos outlets in supermarkets.

Pagegroup Plc advanced 4.5% to 410.80 pence after the U.K.-based recruitment and ancillary services provider said gross profit in the fourth-quarter ending in December soared 20.3% from a year ago to £163.4 million.

The recruiter said permanent recruitment in quarter jumped 21.8% to £122.4 million and temporary recruitment surged 16% to £41 million.

Taylor Wimpey Plc fell 1.4% to 172.52 pence after the U.K.-based homebuilder forecasted operating profit in the year ending in December between £706.4 million and £755 million but order book declined to £1.68 billion from £1.78 billion a year earlier.

The homebuilder remains confident for paying significant dividends and targeted to pay out total cash dividends of £1.3 billion in the periods of 2016 to 2018.