Wickes has said that its full-year profits will be above analyst expectations of £67-£75m.

The home improvement group said that full-year profits are expected to be up to £83m thanks to its agile business model and strong demand for services over the lockdown.

“This has been a period of further progress for Wickes, where our focus on value, stock availability and exceptional service have underpinned our customer offer,” said David Wood, the chief executive of Wickes.

“Clearly, this remains a time of uncertainty, however our differentiated business model leaves us well-placed to continue to outperform within a large and growing home improvement market.”

Sales in the third quarter were up over 16% of pre-pandemic levels.

“You have to doff your cap to home improvement retailer Wickes. To achieve a better-than-expected margin performance during a period of sharply rising input costs is no mean feat,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“It is testament to Wickes’ strong supplier relationships and the efficiency of its background processes and digital capability that it has been able to do this without making customers pay through the nose.”

“All three of its markets, encompassing local trade, do-it-for-me and DIY, are served by the same product range which makes this task a bit easier.”

Halfords have announced a £64m capital raise to fund the acquisition of Axle Group Holdings for £62m and is subject to adjustment for normalised working capital.

Axle is a well-established business in the tyre and automotive servicing, maintenance and repair sector. The motivation behind the acquisition is cost saving efficiencies, which are expected to total £18m by year 5.

Halfords have been enjoying strong growth in their automotive services and the acquisition will highlight where Halfords see future growth.

“The purchase of Axle Group Holdings (National), for £63.4m, continues the groups trend of acquisitions in recent years. Halfords’ more recent acquisitions have been successful, so the market’s optimism will have something to do with expectations of a repeat performance. While the efficiencies should add to group profit pretty quickly, the bigger story is that the move helps accelerate Halfords’ plan to weight operations toward motoring services,” said Matt Britzman, Equity Analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“Given the majority was issued via a placing, it’s not only a large deal, but also dilutive for most retail investors. That said, the group performed very well during the pandemic and using that momentum to push toward their long term goals is a positive step.”

Saxo Bank have released their yearly instalment of Outrageous Predictions. Saxo’s predictions include unlikely, but not impossible, scenarios for the year ahead focusing on a theme of revolution and disruption.

Saxo’s Steen Jakobsen called them exciting calls and ‘not all ones you will like’.

1. The plan to end fossil fuels gets a rain check
2. Facebook faceplants on youth exodus
3. The US mid-term election brings constitutional crisis
4. US inflation reaches above 15% on wage-price spiral
5. EU Superfund for climate, energy and defence announced, to be funded by private pensions
6. Women’s Reddit Army takes on the corporate patriarchy
7. India joins the Gulf Cooperation Council as a non-voting member
8. Spotify disrupted due to NFT-based digital rights platform
9. New hypersonic tech drives space race and new cold war
10. Medical breakthrough extends average life expectancy 25 years

Watch Jakobsen discuss his calls for 2021 and judge for your self how accurate, or ‘outrageous’, they were.

Saxo Bank’s theme for 2021 was ‘the future is now’ which focused on how the pandemic was impacting social stability. This year’s prediction takes things a step forward with calls for broader revolution.

Crypto fans will be happy to see NFT disruption included in the calls whilst those seeking longevity will welcome medical breakthroughs providing longer life spans.

Auction Technology Group has posted a 34% rise in revenues to £70.1m.

However, the online auctioneer saw losses grow 44% to £27.3m, which was due to costs around its IPO earlier this year.

CEO John-Paul Savant said: “We delivered revenue growth of 34 per cent and were excited to welcome Auction Mobility and, following our financial year end, LiveAuctioneers, to the Group.”

“These are both examples of highly attractive opportunities aligned with our desire to add value to our offering for auctioneers and bidders and to enable an ambitious growth strategy which provides additional value to all our stakeholders.

“We are ideally placed to lead and benefit from the auction industry’s ongoing structural shift to online and increased consumer demand for auctions, and we are focused on unlocking the value of the curated secondary goods market,” he added.

New data has found that Black Friday failed to get UK shoppers out to high streets.

The latest data from Springboard found that this year’s footfall was down 14.5% on 2019 levels.

“Despite the tube strike, footfall rose in Central London by +13.3% from the week before [on Black Friday],” said Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard.

“The draw of large city centres is clear, as footfall in regional cities outside of the capital rose by +6.5% whereas in market towns footfall dropped by -5.2% from last Friday and only rose by +1.8% in outer London high streets.”

“Despite the increase in footfall, it remains -24.2% below the 2019 level across all UK retail destinations.”

High streets remain quieter despite the lack of Covid restrictions, as 53% of employees are still working for home at least part time.