Retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone (MCS) has taken the axe to jobs in a cost-cutting shake-up welcomed by investors. Releasing its ‘business transformation strategy’, McCarthy said it would slash costs by £40million per year by 2021. A ‘reorganisation of the sales team’ would be key to this, it added, while it would also simplify its building designs and contract work out where cheaper. The company has not yet decided how many jobs will be cut or where.
Low & Bonar (LWB) tumbled as it issued a profit warning. Though it sold as much as it was expecting to, the firm said prices of key raw materials had continued to rise. Meanwhile stiff competition from rivals meant it hadn’t dared to push up prices for its customers. Profitability for the full year would be ‘significantly lower than previously anticipated’, the company confirmed. To add to its woes, Low’s chief financial officer Simon Webb announced he was jumping ship ‘for personal reasons’.
Airlines weighed heavily on the market after being hit with a double dose of bad news. While the price of oil climbed, spelling increased costs for the sector, global airline industry body IATA warned that the Government’s papers on a no-deal Brexit exposed ‘the extreme seriousness of what is at stake’. IATA’s boss Alexandre de Juniac said a ‘huge amount of work would be required to maintain vital air links’. BA’s owner International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) fell 27.2p, to 659.4p, while easyJet (EZJ) slipped 47.5p, to 1333.5p.
Keystone Law Group (KEYS) impressed shareholders as sales shot up 29.9% to £19.9million in the first half of the year. The firm, which has represented TV presenter Noel Edmonds in his fight against Lloyds Bank, also hired 31 lawyers in the six months to June. Its flexible working model, which lets lawyers work from wherever they want, has proved popular. Keystone said they received 132 applications for a job.
A contract win with a ‘global’ car and truck manufacturer was not enough to drive software company WANdisco (WAND) out of the doldrums. The group said it had been building its relationship with cloud computing giants, but its revenue for the first half of the year was still down from £7.4million to £5million. It also swung from a £0.2million profit to a £4.5million loss, though it said the £152,000 contract should grow to be in the ‘multi-millions’.
Estate agent Purplebricks Group (PURP) is pushing ahead with a division in Florida. It started working in the US in September and sells homes in San Diego and Las Vegas.
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