CropEnergies Reaffirms Outlook, Sainsbury's Lifts Profit Forecast

Sarla Buch
10 Jan, 2018
New York City

Big Yellow Group revenues jumped 7%. CropEnergies reaffirmed fiscal 2018 revenue forecast. Continental estimated offered cautious outlook for 2018 sales. PageGroup beats profit estimates. Sainsbury lifted profit estimate after holiday sales.

[R]4:00 PM Frankfurt – Big Yellow Group revenues jumped 7%. CropEnergies reaffirmed fiscal 2018 revenue forecast. Continental estimated offered cautious outlook for 2018 sales. PageGroup beats profit estimates. Sainsbury lifted profit estimate after holiday sales.[/R]

In London trading, FTSE 100 index decreased 23.91 or 0.3% to 7,700.75 and in Frankfurt the DAX index advanced 53.92 or 0.4% to 13,376.87.

In Paris, CAC 40 index increased 19.91 or 0.4% to 5,490.54.

Big Yellow Group Plc rose 0.3% to 847.50 pence after the U.K.-based self-storage services provider said revenues in the year ending in December jumped 6.7% from a year ago to £87.7 million and net rent per square feet grew 2.1% to £26.89 from a year ago period.

CropEnergies AG slumped 2.6% to €7.14 after Germany-based bio-ethanol producer said revenues in the nine-month period ending in November surged 20% to €679 million and operating profit rose 1.1% to €88 million.

CropEnergies said ethanol production in the period jumped 15.2% to 847,000 cubic meters from 735,000 in the same period a year ago.

The bio-ethanol producer reaffirmed fiscal 2018 revenue forecast in the range of €880 million to €920 million and operating profit between €65 million and €85 million.

Continental AG declined 3.5% to €242.60 after Germany-based automobile parts supplier said sales in the year jumped 8% from a year ago to €44 billion and operating margin soared 10.8% and incoming orders increased to more than €39 billion.

The automobile parts supplier forecasted fiscal 2018 sales of about €47 billion and operating margin of around 10.5%.

Continental estimated a slight increase in the global production of cars and light commercial vehicles of more than 1% to around 97 million vehicles.

“As expected, the fourth quarter of the past fiscal year saw solid sales and earnings,” said chief financial officer Wolfgang Schaefer.

PageGroup Plc surged 9.8% to 517 pence after the U.K.-based recruitment services provider said gross profit in the fourth-quarter soared 13.8% from a year ago to £182.4 million mainly driven by permanent recruitment surged 11.1% and gross profit from temporary recruitment advanced 13.6%.

In the year gross profit jumped 9.9% from a year ago to £711.6 million.

J Sainsbury Plc jumped 2% to 253.40 pence after the U.K.-based supermarkets and convenience stores and retail banking services provider total retail sales in the period ending on January 6 increased 1.2% and comparable sales rose 1.1%.

The supermarket operator estimated full-year profits to be “moderately ahead” of consensus of £559 million.