FTSE 250 FALLERS
struts its stuff on Thursday as the luxury fashion brand limbers up for its first-half trading update amid a slowdown in China – a huge market for Burberry. Analysts at Barclays predict like-for-like sales will rise just 4 per cent in a “tough environment” – a far cry from the 8 per cent gain Burberry saw in the first quarter before China’s slowdown gripped global markets. Tomorrow, recruiter
(now known as PageGroup) is set to bring out a thirdquarter trading update. JPMorgan has concerns about the FTSE 250 firm’s international growth and increasing competition from online business networking site LinkedIn.
Wednesday sees firsthalf results from clothing retailer N Brown and posh wallpaper firm Walker Greenbank.
Domino’s Pizza is due to deliver a third-quarter update on Wednesday, while fund supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown also updates on trading.
On Thursday, annual results are out from WH Smith and Booker Group, with third-quarter results scheduled for consumer goods giant Unilever and a third-quarter statement from hedge fund Man Group.
The US earnings season into gets into full swing with big banks including Goldman Sachs reporting third-quarter results. One of the key figures in Ireland’s banking crisis was arrested in Boston, Massachusetts, on Saturday on an extradition warrant.
David Drumm, the former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank, will remain in custody until a court hearing in Boston tomorrow. The US has a public holiday today.
Mr Drumm, who ran the bank from 2005 until December 2008, a month before it was nationalised, is being pursued by Irish prosecutors over the bank’s collapse at the height of the financial crisis.
Anglo Irish, known as “the bank that broke Ireland”, was bailed out to the tune of €30bn (£22bn) in 2009 before being wound up. It ultimately led to Ireland’s €67bn international bailout in 2010.
Reports earlier this year said Ireland had sent an extradition order to the US authorities, with as many as 30 different alleged offences lined up against Mr Drumm.
In July, an Irish court sentenced three former Anglo Irish employees, including its chief operations officer, to prison for conspiring to hide loans linked to former chairman Sean FitzPatrick from the tax authorities. They were the first bankers to be jailed since the crisis hit.
Since moving to the US after quitting the bank in 2008, Mr Drumm has been embroiled in a controversial bankruptcy process, owing Anglo Irish more than $11m from loans he had been given. His bankruptcy bid was rejected by a Boston court as being “not remotely credible”. It was alleged Mr Drumm transferred money to his wife during the proceedings to protect it from being seized.