Financial Report

Carrefour with a sharp drop in revenues from the major European markets

Zoritza Petrova — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:07:08 +0000

The European largest chain retailer Carrefour awaken the fears of investors with declining revenues. In the fourth quarter they decreased by 0.8% to 24.15 million EUR, announced today the company itself. The analysts surveyed by Reuters had expected revenue to amount to about 24.32 billion EUR. The strong decreases in revenue are recorded on a native French market as well as in Italy and Spain, while in Latin America revenues increased for the fourth consecutive quarter. Because of the debt crisis in Europe and the related reluctance to shop rival Metro expects that over the past year will perform in the best case scenario of their pessimistic expectations. In October, the second concern in the industry after the U.S. chain Wal-Mart forecast a decline in operating profit between 15 and 20%. The Frenchmen said that because of strong competition in Europe will reconsider carefully planned by-country opening of large stores. Carrefour has more than 9500 stores in 32 countries and in Bulgaria, the chain has six sites. The bad news for the company that is likely to increase pressure on Chief Executive Lars Olofson. And now he was seen as temporary chairman of the supervisory board.
Under his management the company made six profit warnings. The shareholders are unhappy because this government has not managed to present a clear strategy for the future. More recently, local competitor Casino profits surged by 14% thanks to acquisitions. Recently Carrefour sell portfolio of 97 retail outlets in France for a total of 365 million EUR. The deal was designed to optimize the capital structure of the company, the proceeds from the sale will be reinvested in new projects has been clarified then. For Carrefour is not unusual to sell some of the shops, which until recently was managing. In our company launched a project to build a metropolitan shopping center The Mall, which was later sold to investment company Assos Capital for over 200 million EUR.

Morgan Stanley with smaller loses than expected

Zoritza Petrova — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:02:15 +0000

Morgan Stanley, the owner of the largest brokerage in the world, announced lower than expected losses due to revenue growth of trade in shares. The net loss of investment bank for the fourth quarter of 2011 were $ 250 million, or 15 cents a share, compared to a profit of 836 million dollars, or 41 cents per share for the same period last year. the losses without emergency operations reached 14 cents a share, while the average expectations of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a loss of 57 cents per share. Of the 5 major banks on Wall Street in 2011, only Morgan Stanley reported revenue growth of trading shares without accounting gains, which came to bet the bank's CEO James Gorman to increase market share. However, the bank reported losses in two of the last three quarters, as penalties paid to eliminate swap contracts purchased by MBIA Inc., And to give preference shares of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. in common.
"The bar is too low", said Ralph Cole, vice president of Ferguson Wellman Inc. in Portland, Oregon, which manages 2.8 billion dollars. "This means in part that is most important how they look compared to others. If you can show a little weakness of its competitors, it will seem like a force". In the fourth quarter of last year, shares of Morgan Stanley rose 12%, which slightly dropped from 44% for the year as a whole - the strongest decrease since 2008. Yesterday, shares of Morgan Stanley rose 6.8 percent to 17.35 dollars, expanding profit from early 2012 to 15%.
The Morgan Stanley's revenue fell year on year by 26% to 5.71 billion dollars. The carrying value of the shares of the bank rose to 31.42 dollars per share of 31, $ 29 per share in late September.

Bank of America returned on profit

Zoritza Petrova — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:03:27 +0000

Bank of America Corp. announced earnings for the fourth quarter, supported by a single income and expenses outside its core business and lower costs to cover bad loans. During the same period a year ago, the bank registered a loss. The second bank assets in the U.S. announced that net profit, relevant to holders of ordinary shares is 1.58 billion, or 15 cents a share, a loss of 1.6 billion USD, or 16 cents a share prior year. Like other large U.S. banks, credit institutions reported a decline in investment banking and sales and trading revenue. Exposed to pressure to ensure balance, the bank sold assets and made the swap of shares, thanks to increase its capital. It benefits from profit before tax amounting to 5.3 billion dollars from sale of shares in China Construction Bank Corp., Profit by exchanging preferred shares and the sale of debt securities. The costs of litigation and claims accounting profit reduced by 3.7 billion dollars. The Bank has set aside 2.9 billion USD in the fourth quarter to cover bad loans, which is about one third less than the earmarked 5.1 billion USD a year ago. The credit institution working for the release of risky assets and announced that loans fell to 926 billion USD at 932 billion USD in the third quarter. In the investment banking division of loans and leases grew 29% yoy in the fourth quarter to 107.5 billion dollars by holding commercial loans have increased both the U.S. and abroad.
And sales revenue by market units and retail banking rose to 1.9 billion USD on 1.1 billion USD in the third quarter but a decline yoy to 2.4 billion USD. Fees from investment banking remain unchanged at $ 1 billion from the third quarter but the annual decrease of 1.6 billion USD. In December, the CEO of Bank of America Brian Moynihan said it expects better results in the fourth quarter after a weak third. For 2012 the credit institution is considering the issuance of 1 billion ordinary shares as a premium for their employees at year-end cash bonuses instead of the standard. This will further increase the capital, but to the detriment of existing shareholders and is expected to cause resentment on the part of bankers.
Moynihan act to show that Bank of America, burdened with losses due to the acquisition of Countrywide Financial in 2008, have enough capital to absorb losses related to mortgages and to meet new international standards on capital adequacy.
"It seems Bank of America made good progress on the capital increase", said Derek Pileki from Gator Capital Management in Tampa, Florida. "This is an evolving process with continuous cost reduction", he added. In 2011, the credit institution's shares lost 58 percent of its value, partly because of concerns among investors about its capital adequacy. Since the beginning of the year, they have risen by 22%.

IKEA reported strong profit increase

Zoritza Petrova — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:56:29 +0000

The Swedish company IKEA, which is the largest retailer of furniture in the world, today announced record profit for the financial year 2010-2011, based on sales growth and greater share of almost all markets. The net profit grew by 10.3 percent to 2.97 billion for the fiscal year ended in late August 2011 revenues were up 6.9 percent to 25.17 billion.
"We have won market share in greater or lesser extent in all markets", said the CEO of IKEA Mikael Olsson. "Despite the price increases for many materials, lowered prices for our customers by 2.6%, although the quality of our products are improved", he added. The vice President of the company's Soren Hansen did announced that sales have increased in almost all countries, growth was highest in Russia, China and Poland. In fiscal 2009-2010, the net profit was increased by 6% to 2.69 billion euros, while revenue had increased by 8% to a record 23.5 billion. This year IKEA plans to invest 3 billion euros in their shops, factories and centers for retail, as well as transducers of energy from wind and sun. In the last financial year it opened seven stores in 12 countries in 2009-2010. At the end of August 2011 the company has 287 stores in 26 countries and 131,000 employees. The chain is represented in Bulgaria through the open shop in December in Sofia.
The retailers of furniture were among the worst affected after the curled-income consumers forced them to limit the costs of goods from the most necessary. The disposable income in most European countries and the U.S. were bent by rising prices, weak wage growth and government austerity measures. From IKEA announced that it has remained relatively unaffected by this development, since their products have attracted most of the well designed heavy purchases in this period.

General Electric reported 18% profit decrease in Q4 2011

Zoritza Petrova — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:54:07 +0000

The American corporation General Electric announced a significant drop in profits last quarter of last year. This was not accepted by optimistic investors and the company's shares fell sharply before the start of today's session. The General Electric's profit for the fourth quarter of 2011 amounted to 3.73 billion, or 35 cents a share. This is a drop of 18% achieved against the same period in 2010 4.54 billion, or 42 cents a share.
The revenues also show a decrease - 7.9 percent yoy to 37.97 dollars per share. This is not entirely indicative of the performance of the company since last year's results fall in revenue from the sale of NBC Universal. Without taking into account their income grow by 3.6 per cent on annual base. For the entire 2011 revenue of General Electric are 147.3 billion USD.
Before the start of the official trading session on Wall Street shares of General Electric dropped 2.1 percent to 18.75 dollars per share.

Pros And Cons Of Debt Management Programs

Zoritza Petrova — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:55:39 +0000

Debt management programs can appear very lucrative. Some of them can make tall claims about making more than half of your debts go away, which may or may not be true. However, it is not to say that no good comes from such debt management programs.
debt management programs can help you by negotiating with your creditors, asking them for extension, different rates of interest, helping you through debt consolidation by taking payment from you and using it to pay your creditors, and lastly, by asking them to waive some of your late fees. These are primarily the main advantages of going into a debt management program. It may even help you settle your debt. In some cases, debt management programs can ask your creditor to settle for a lower amount on the principal to pay off your debt quick, though again, this is rare.
Now, the problem arises when you start looking for a debt management company to help you with your debt problems. This is so because a lot of the companies out there are fraudulent. And even if the company is legitimate, it is completely up to your creditors to agree to the terms presented by your debt management company. In such a scenario, while the negotiations are going on, you should always pay your monthly payments, or else your creditor may charge you extra. Many debt management companies may charge hidden fees, and you should always ask for their fees and get a written contract before you make any payments.
Lastly, it would be best to remember that if you go under any debt management program, it will show on your credit score, and it may become difficult to find a loan after that.

Intel reported high revenue increase in 2011

Zoritza Petrova — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:59:56 +0000

The largest chipmaker in the world - the U.S. company Intel, announced 6% profit growth in the fourth quarter of 2011. The results of the company surpassed analysts' expectations despite the difficult challenges that floods in Thailand set to produce computers. For the fourth quarter 2011 profit of Intel amounted to 3.36 billion USD, or 64 cents a share. A year earlier, the positive result was 3.18 billion USD, or 56 cents a share. With the exclusion of certain one-off effects related to acquisitions, the profits of Intel e 68 cents, well above analysts' expectations for 61 cents a share.
The revenues of the giant rose 21 percent annually over the period to 13.9 billion USD, as expectations were for 13.7 billion USD. For all of 2011 Intel achieved revenue growth of 24% annually, for the first time in history the company has crossed the 50 billion USD. For the exclusion of results from the acquisition of McAfee and division of Infineon for the production of chips for mobile phones Intel revenue would increase by 15% over 2010. The estimates for the first quarter of 2012 are that it will achieve revenue of between 12.3 and 13.3 billion USD.

Fast loans industry with high increase

Zoritza Petrova — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:12:48 +0000

The financial institutions of fast loans and payday loans really have high increase of their market stake. The companies provided more than 75% more credits in 2011 in comparison with the previous year. The fast loans industry is gaining speed because of the main advantages of fast approval, easier application and low APR. The cash advance online is popular is many customers, who are in need of small amount of money for their daily expenses. The application for such loans is easier and really can be done during all the day via internet or via phone, so you do not need to leave work for a few hours for application, meetings and to provide a lot of documents for your wage and real estates. Such conditions are highly attractive for the customers, who are getting more and more loans from the companies. The industry reported highly increase of the loans applications during the Christmas Holidays, which were the basic way to financing the expenses around the holidays. The average increase of the loan amount is about 72%, which the increase the the applications forms number is about 65% in comparison with the same period previous year. Definitely the fast loans and payday loans industry is increasing the getting more and more popularity among the customers, who are slowly giving up from the standard bank loans and operations, which cost a lot of time and nervous.

Samsung surprised with strong profit increase

Zoritza Petrova — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:39:08 +0000

The electronics giant Samsung cemented its position as market leader in smartphones with unexpectedly good financial results. On Friday, the Korean company said its outlook for the fourth quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations in terms of profit, and with regard to sales revenue. The leading driver of profit growth in the amount of 73% over the previous year were a record high sales of mobile phones, as concern has sold 35 million devices. So in this segment significantly ahead of Samsung American rival Apple and remains the largest technology concern in the world with regard to income. Between October and December Samsung expects operating profit of 5.2 billion won (about 3.5 billion), while analysts polled by Reuters had expected 4.7 billion won. This may be the highest profit in the history of the concern. Revenues are expected to be around 31 billion euros and thus also significantly surpassed expectations. In late January, Samsung will present its detailed financial data. The experts had expected really strong performance. In fact, Samsung is struggling with weak market for memory chips, where the company is also a world leader. But customers were convinced of smartphones Koreans. Here, competitors such as HTC, Nokia and Research in Motion has not fared with their latest devices.
Samsung surprised the markets with unexpected good data for the third quarter. Then the Koreans have surpassed Apple in terms of smartphones. Samsung makes good business and computer chips for mobile use and high performance OLED displays. And Apple is an important customer of Samsung - Californians embedded chips from Samsung in the iPhone and the iPad. However two concerns proceedings before numerous courts for various patents, Samsung can not sell the affected devices in some countries, including Germany.

HTC reported 26% profit decrease

Zoritza Petrova — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:36:56 +0000

The Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC reported on the first drop in profit in two years. Between October and December 2011 the company reported a decrease in financial results by 26% to 364 million dollars in a decrease of 2.5% in revenue to 3.35 billion dollars. The negative results were expected and already in November 2011 HTC said it would cut its forecast for earnings of 23% to 3.4 billion dollars. In November Taiwanese reported 20% drop in revenue over the same month of 2010. The reason for the reduced expectations Wall Street Journal named the increasing competition in the smartphone and the uncertain future of the global economy. HTC itself has not commented on the data. It turns out that the adjustment was justified, and the proceeds are slightly less than forecast - 3.35 billion dollars.
"HTC does not have the same brilliance behind the design and marketing from Samsung, but meanwhile, refuses to offer low-end phones that are popular in China," said an analyst at Yuanta Securities Co. However, the company is confident that the situation is not so "serious" and hopes that its new proposals in 2012 will return to consumer confidence. In February, HTC will introduce smartphones and tablets with quad processors and next week is likely to have other interesting devices at CES in Las Vegas.
HTC is the world's number four among smartphone manufacturer after Samsung, Apple and Nokia. Earlier today, Samsung announced that it expects its operating profit in the fourth quarter to jump by 73% thanks to record sales of smartphones.