Nike reports profit increase of 24%
Sports retailer Nike reported a 24% increase in profit, fuelled by sales of high end shoes and clothing.
The company said net income rose to by $267m, from $698m a year earlier to $865m at the end of May this year.
Their high tech running shoes, including the Lunar and Free models, led sales, as well as an increased popularity of basketball shoes in the US market. The company’s largest market, North America, saw sales rise by 13% in the quarter.
President and chief executive Mark Parker described the past year overall as “outstanding”.
The company’s shares were up 2.3% at $107.63 last night on the NYSE.
Zanaga Iron Ore Co Ltd posts audited results
Zanaga Iron Ore Co is one of the biggest fallers on the AIM this morning, dropping 23.64 percent after have publishing their audited results for the year ending 31st December 2014. They disclosed a cash balance of $12.5 million at the end of 2014 and and $10.4 million at the end of May 2015.
The company has just completed a feasibility study and received its mining license. However, Clifford Elphick, Non-Executive Chairman of Zanaga Iron Ore Company Limited, commented: “these positive developments have been discounted to some extent by a number of significant changes in the global iron ore industry. A major negative impact has been the substantial fall in iron ore prices due to the slow down in the Chinese economy reducing demand, as well as significant supply increases from the major diversified mining companies”, suggesting that the company many be in for a hard time.
9 reasons to invest in property in Whitechapel, east London
Famous for being in the brown section of the monopoly board, Whitechapel is not the dreary investment opportunity it once was. Here’s why:
1. Although Whitechapel Station is just inside Zone 2, much of Whitechapel is in Zone 1.
2. Whitechapel is well connected. From Whitechapel Station you are able catch the Hammersmith and City, District and Overground lines. A short walk up to Bethnal Green will get you on the Central Line.
3. A Crossrail Station is being built in Whitechapel, properties within a short walk of these stations are enjoying value increases that exceed the average. JLL has produced a tool that ranks Whitechapel as the area with the most potential for property price increases. You can use the tool here.
4. It has one of the largest supermarkets in central London. The Whitechapel Sainsbury’s is also set to be redeveloped, adding to the floor space in the already large store.
5. Sundays are host to Brick Lane’s market, where you can try a wide variety of global cuisines from the ranks of street food vendors.
6. At Whitechapel Street Market, just outside the station, you will find everything from fruit juice to frying pans and mattresses to marshmallows.
7. Tayyabs curry house on Fieldgate Street is arguably one of the best in London. Lahore just down the road is just as good.
8. The Royal London Hospital on Whitechapel Road has one of the best trauma centres in the country, just in case you run into trouble.
9. You are a short walk from many of east London’s popular attractions; Victoria Park, Columbia Road Flower Market, Broadway Market, London Fields, Tobacco Docks, Shoreditch High Street……
Chinese stocks suffer biggest drop in five months
China’s $8.8 trillion stock market has dropped to become the worse performer globally. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 7.4 percent to 4,192.87 at the close, bringing its drop from this year’s high to 19 percent.
This comes after Morgan Stanley joined the growing group of analysts not to buy shares listed on Chinese stock exchange. “This is probably not a dip to buy,” wrote Jonathan Garner, the head of Asia and emerging-market strategy at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. “In fact, we think the balance of probabilities is that the top for the cycle on Shanghai, Shenzhen and the ChiNext has now taken place.”
Technology and smaller companies led the fall, with China’s smaller exchange in Shenzhen sinking 20 percent from this year’s peak.
Morgan Stanley said their reasoning was based on increased equity supply, weak earnings growth, high valuations and the surge in margin debt, saying the Shanghai Composite may fall as much as 30 percent through mid-2016.
Aberdeen Japan Investment Trust performing well
Aberdeen Asset Management’s Japan Investment Trust appears to be one to watch, boasting a solid performance; share prices have risen 5.7% over the past 3 months and are up 41.14% on the year.
Their biggest holdings include Japan Tobacco (4.9%), Shin-Etsu Chemical (4.6%) FANUC (4.5%), with 28% of the fund in the consumer goods sector, 21.3% in industrials and 12.6% consumer Services.
The fund’s aim is to “achieve long-term capital growth principally through investment in listed Japanese companies”. In October 2013, the company moved from an All Asia to a Japan only mandate; however, this doesn’t appear to have affected performance
The fund manager reports that Japanese equities had a positive month, rising in May and buoyed by stronger US economic data, as well as China’s decision to cut interest rates and liberalise its capital markets further. The yen’s continuing depreciation against the US dollar also enticed foreign buyers who felt that a more competitive exchange rate would favour exporters and flatter earnings because of a positive translation effect. Economic news was somewhat upbeat and the labour market remained tight, with the jobless rate falling to an 18-month low.
Japanese car giant Toyota announced plans to buy back shares for the first time in five years, repurchasing a stake of 350 billion yen; their operating profits continued to grow despite a decline in sales, signalling positivity for the Japanese economy.
However, Looking ahead, the fund’s report suggests that Japan’s economic growth is likely to slow: although first-quarter GDP growth was underpinned in part by business spending, it was also flattered by a substantial build-up in inventory. However, if the fund’s past performance is anything to go by, it may still be an opportunity worth investigating.
Tesco shows early signs of recovery
Britain’s biggest supermarket chain, Tesco PLC (TSCO.L) delivered stronger sales figures than were expected in its first quarter, suggesting that it might be on the road to recovery.
The company reported this morning that same store sales had dropped 1.3% for the first quarter compared to last year, nearly half the 2.3% drop predicted by analysts at Barclays.
Shares in Tesco, down 21 percent over the last year, were up 3.4 percent this morning, their highest price in more than a month.
Tesco has followed the trend of most British supermarkets and had a slow 18 months, with slumping sales and declining profits. In April, Tesco reported the steepest ever full-year loss for a British retailer, arguably the worst year in its 96 year history.
“Our first quarter results represent another step in the right direction,” Tesco’s new Chief Executive Dave Lewis told reporters. “Clearly customers are noticing that we’re investing in the offer.”
Looking forward, Mr. Lewis said he expects to see deflation for the foreseeable future and warned that there is “still an awful lot of volatility out there as we change quite a lot in our business”
Collar Club crowdfunding finance for exclusive shirt company
For those that find popping to the dry cleaners too much of a hassle – let alone actually ironing – look no further than Collar Club, the latest company to launch a campaign on Crowdcube.
In their own words, the rather nattily named Collar Club “exists to free men from the pain of buying, washing, drying and ironing a shirt ever again”. Sounds pretty good so far.
Collar Club have undertaken some revolutionary research and found that most people hate laundry and ironing – but, perhaps unsurprisingly, men hate it more. And from that simple fact, the business was born.
The idea is simple; following a free trial fit, customers can order up to eleven shirts on a monthly subscription basis, which can be replaced every 12 month. The old shirts are then either kept by the customer, or donated to charity. If you’re lucky enough to be living in London, for an additional fee you can arrange to have five shirts a week taken away for laundering, and replaced with a fresh sheet of workday shirts – you can even choose whether you’d prefer them delivered folded or hung.
Aiming for an exclusive market, their target customer is a man earning £75,000 or more, working long hours, travelling frequently who has limited downtime. Obviously, men like these don’t wish to be stuck inside completing domestic tasks such as ironing in their rare moments to themselves – fortunately, the Collar Club’s service is here to help.
Their milestones are clear: they raised £298K seed funding between in August & December 2014 and completed the development of the product, branding and design work. Their logo, a wolf in a suit and tie, has a rather Christian Grey-esque feel – which probably depicts the company’s brand rather well.
They are aiming to raise £150,000 via crowdcube, in return for 6.98% equity. They are currently on £76,210, with 35 people investing. Collar Club will use the funding raised to invest in marketing and advertising, working capital and staffing costs.
Confusion over Sony’s involvement in Kickstarter project
Since the launch of the crowdfunding campaign, there has been significant confusion over Sony’s role in the development of much anticipated video game Shenmue 3.
At a press conference, Sony PlayStation’s director of third party production and developer relations Gio Corsi confirmed: “PlayStation is definitely a partner in this game. It’s going be run through third-party production, but we’re going to help YsNet get the game done. We’re going to be partners on it the whole way.”
However, its creator Yu Suzuki said: “Sony and Shibuya Productions are not seeing a cent of your Kickstarter dollars.” He maintains that Sony’s involvement is limited to “publishing support”. The $2 million fundraising target was meant to be to gauge public interest, with Suzuki admitting the amount needed to produce the game would be more like $10 million.
The lack of transparency had justifiably led to confusion: if Sony aren’t involved – why the announcement at their event? If they are backing, why the need to use Kickstarter when Sony is a multi million pound company? Suzuki has confirmed that the project is bolstering the campaign with “other funding sources already secured”, although whether this source is Sony cannot be confirmed due to contractual obligations.
Suzuki attempted to clarify the details in an update on the Kickstarter post, claiming Sony wasn’t involved and that the extra dollars raised through crowdfunding would be for “extra quests, events, and new gameplay systems.” If the crowdfunding continues on this level, at the $5 million mark he promised there would be an “all new gameplay feature,” while $10 million would secure “a much larger, completely open world” to explore.
However, Suzuki’s post still fails to answer some fundamental questions about how the game is being made and it it might be better to hold off investing until these details have been clarified.
When the project opened in the wake of the E3 announcement, the interest was so huge that users were hit by errors showing that the site was having trouble loading, and it set a Guinness World Record to become the fastest video game to raise $1 million on a crowdfunding site. In the popular game, players take control of Ryo Hazuki, a troubled 18-year-old keen to avenge the mysterious death of his father. It mixes action, role-playing, life simulation and adventure.
Backers receive a range of rewards for investing in the project — from getting to participate in surveys and polls to decide the direction of the game, for $5, all the way up to a $10,000 reward that allows backers to go to dinner with the developers.
Crowd2Fund launches UK’s first “revenue loan”
Online crowdfunding platform Crowd2Fund have recently launched the “Revenue Loan”, a completely unique type of lending tailored for early stage or seasonal businesses.
Revenue-based funding is a model whereby businesses repay the loan as a percentage of company revenue, meaning that they are not tied to fixed monthly repayments; giving them the agility to grow quicker due to more manageable cash flow. They are ideal for start-up businesses who are not eligible for a bank loan, but do not want to part with company equity; whilst revenue loans are more expensive than bank loans, they are less expensive than equity and are much easier to obtain.
Revenue-based financing isn’t a new idea – it was very popular in the early-to-mid 1900s, especially in the American oil and gas industries – however, Crowd2Fund are the first platform to bring revenue loans to the UK.
From an investor’s point of view, revenue lending is particularly attractive because of their high returns; the normal interest rate is around 10%. With revenue-based financing, investors don’t own shares or sit on the board of the company they invest in; revenue-based financing is similar to equity in that it’s in the investor’s best interest for the business to grow quickly and successfully. Companies usually pledge 2 percent to 8 percent of their revenue until the amount repaid reaches a certain threshold, usually two to three times the amount borrowed. Loan terms are typically structured so that repayment takes two to three years, but the duration really depends on the borrower’s financial performance.
Crowd2Fund completed the UK’s first ever revenue loan for the Glen Rothay Hotel, established in 1624 and based in the Lake District.The Glen Rothay Hotel was unable to get a bank loan due to a technicality, even though they are clearly a credit worthy business. Due to the seasonal nature of the business, the revenue loan was perfect for them as it allowed them to undergo refurbishment works during low season. Six investors funded the £40k loan via Crowd2Fund with Glen Rothay expecting to repay the loan early as revenue has been higher than anticipated following the upgrade.
Beef Digital were the UK’s second ever revenue loan, which recently closed successfully after raising £50k to fund the expansion of their digital agency. Matt, the founder of the agency said: “Traditional bank funding was not able to provide us with the support that we need. As well as allowing us access to finance, Crowd2Fund have provided us with marketing and business development resources which have allowed us to raise more awareness of who Beef Digital are and what we are doing.”
Interest in Crowd2Fund’s revenue loan seems to be high , and they have started to attract more mainstream brands who are applying for this type of flexible finance. Crowd2Fund are a platform that aim to create fast, fair and flexible finance to meet today’s demands. They are the only FCA regulated crowdfunding platform to offer 5 models of finance, across debt and equity investments.
Sage Group biggest riser on the FTSE100
Sage Group (LON:SGE) is up 3.10% today after a report revealed that it’s had its “buy” rating kept by analysts at Citigroup.
Sage Group’s stock is up 41.46% over the past 200 days, outperforming the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, which has risen 5.35% over the same time period.
Sage Group has had a net rise of 38.69% over the past year and is currently trading at 532.2p per share.