The idea of owning a portfolio of companies that have gone off track may not appeal to every investor. There are high risks because the underlying companies need to be fixed before they can grow. Yet the rewards could be equally high if this repair and revive strategy works, and that’s where Castelnau (CGL) sits in the investment trust universe. It’s more of a corporation than a traditional ...

- Fierce competition smashes profits - Talk of ‘new strategy’ fails to convince investors - Seeking long-term solution on capital structure and funding First quarter sales and earnings slumped at Dignity (DTY) as the funeral services provider was hurt by a drop in the number of deaths as well as the need to combat increased competition through price cuts. Shares in the Sutton ...

Shares in Dignity (DTY) were marked down 15.4% to 450p as the funeral services provider warned its new strategy is ‘likely to lead to lower profits’ in the short term as the business sees a full year effect from reduced funeral prices under its new strategy. Dignity also flagged the risk that the excess death rates seen over the past two years may start to normalise and warned that it will ...

Over the last decade UK shares have lagged their global counterparts, in part thanks to the disruption from Brexit, and that is reflected in the performance of the UK All Companies funds sector. A recent shift in the market towards value suggests it could be time for this space to play catch up. Funds in the category have a pretty broad remit, beyond having 80% of their assets in UK stocks and ...

UK stocks continued their positive progress on Monday with technology and energy stocks lending support to the main index. US markets pushed to new highs on Friday after a strong October payrolls report and news that drugmaker Pfizer had developed a new Covid-19 pill. Brent crude future firmed 0.8% to $83.60 per barrel after OPEC rejected US calls for it to step up production, while sterling ...

Phoenix Asset Management’s new investment trust Castelnau is targeting a minimum 20% annual return by helping to modernise a group of old-fashioned businesses. Direct Line (DLG) and Esure founder Peter Wood will be a cornerstone investor and will work with Castelnau to jointly invest in new opportunities. Joining the stock market on 18 October, Castelnau’s initial portfolio will include ...

UK stocks rallied at the open on Tuesday, reversing much of Monday's losses, thanks to positive corporate news. At 8.45am the FTSE 100 index was up 58 points or 0.8% to 6,961 points, led by energy, mining and industrial stocks, while the FTSE 250 mid-cap index gained 159 points to 23,561. Overnight US stocks fell heavily with the S&P 500 index falling 1.7% and the Nasdaq 100 falling ...

Pull up a one year chart of funeral services provider Dignity (DTY) and you’ll be kicking yourself if you didn’t invest 12 months ago to generate a spectacular 200% gain. But draw a long-run chart and you’ll see the shares remain more than 70% below 2016’s £28-a-share peak, as the funeral director has endured a turbulent period in a history it can trace back to 1812. Now under new ...

Funeral services operator Dignity’s (DTY) underlying pre-tax profits fell 19% in 2020 despite the tragic Covid pandemic pushing the UK's death toll to its highest level in over a century. Yet shares in the funerals-to-cremations provider rose 7.1% to 650p on Wednesday as investors welcomed last year’s improved underlying cash generation and assessed the potential for a significant strategic ...

Shares in Dignity (DTY) rose 5p to 560p on Monday on news the funeral services specialist carried out a greater number of burials and cremations in the first nine months of 2020 due to the tragic Covid-19 pandemic. Dignity is unable to provide any guidance on the rest of 2020 and beyond given the uncertainty around funeral restrictions and the potential changes to the funeral industry that ...

Shares in Dignity (DTY) rallied 4.9% to 245.5p on Monday after the troubled funeral services provider assured it has healthy cash balances to cope with the COVID crisis, the means to improve headroom against its banking covenants and that ‘liquidity remains robust for the time being’. This enabled investors to look past a year-on-year drop in first quarter average income per funeral and a ...

A busy week for economic data gets off to a positive start in the UK with markets on the front foot as investors embraced the government’s first moves to ease pandemic lockdown measures. Both the benchmark FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 mid cap indexes made early gains on Monday despite the absence of major corporate news, rising around 1% apiece to 5,994.32 and 16,414.81, outstripping gains on major ...

At the worst point on Monday 9 March, the FTSE 100 traded 8.4% lower, recording its fourth biggest one-day drop on record. Only two days during the 1987 crash (12.2% and 10.8%) and in the 2008 global financial crisis (8.8%) were worse. The oil sector bore the brunt of the latest sell-off with an estimated £61.5bn wiped off UK oil stocks, with Premier Oil (PMO) and Tullow Oil (TLW) seeing the ...

Having seen bouts of ghoulish interest in recent weeks amid the spread of the coronavirus, shares in Dignity (DTY) dropped 19% to 405p on Wednesday after the embattled funeral services firm warned average income per funeral and cremation are likely to reduce further due to increased competition. Temporarily suspending the dividend with annual results showing profits and cash generation ...

UK stocks started the week lower after Asian markets sank as protests in Hong Kong and ongoing uncertainty over a US-China trade deal cast a shadow over trading. China’s Shanghai Composite index fell 0.5% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.6%. At 8.30am the FTSE 100 was down by 0.5% to 7,319 with banks, industrials, metals, mining and oil equipment holding the index back while the ...

UK stocks got off to a strong start on Friday as lingering fears of a no-deal Brexit kept the pound under pressure, assisting exporters. The pound slumped by around half a US cent after Bank of England policy committee member Michael Saunders indicated that UK interest rates may be cut due to Brexit uncertainty. At 8:48am, the benchmark FTSE 100 index was up 66.62 points, or 0.9%, at ...

London’s FTSE 100 weakens a further 73 points to 7,089 on Monday as the exchange of trade threats between Washington and Beijing stirs fears of a recession and German chipmaker Infineon’s deal to buy US peer Cypress Semiconductors weighs on the technology sector. Construction and infrastructure firm Kier (KIE) crumbles 29.4% to 196.4p on a warning full year 2019 underlying operating profit ...

Funeral services provider Dignity (DTY) is marked down 6.3% to 633.25p after warning full year profits could materially undershoot expectations. This blow follows a disappointing first quarter caused by a ‘significantly lower than expected number of deaths’. Sutton Coldfield-headquartered Dignity doesn’t expect the recent proportional death rate decrease to continue throughout the rest of ...

Led by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), anti-trust regulators around the world are having a bigger say than ever in corporate affairs. While this is good news for consumers, for investors the regulators represent another level of risk and complexity. There are many current examples involving UK-quoted shares such as news last week that the CMA was opening a full investigation ...

Our annual portfolio of share picks has outperformed the market yet again, although we didn’t deliver a positive return. The average share price return from our portfolio of 10 stocks was a 6.4% loss versus a 10.2% decline from the FTSE All-Share. It was a very difficult year for all investors, including fund managers, and anyone who managed to deliver positive returns deserves ...