Because, dear reader, results season is finally upon us! The chaps and the chapettes in the City may not be looking to squeeze and wrap themselves around each other in the style of the siblings Pointer, but they too are seemingly licking their lips in anticipation at the avalanche of figures that are about to befall them.
This is my explanation for the 9.9% rise in Galliford Try last week.
It made no announcements of substance, but it seems that market sentiment is with the company ahead of what are likely to be vastly improved results next Thursday. By close of play Friday, the price was 52.5p, a high for the year.
One suspects that Galliford Try's chief executive, David Calverley, was wearing a smile almost as wide Mrs Broker after watching a Johnny Depp film – that price is 1.5p a share more than the £113m offer the board received from ROK last September.
At the time, Galliford Try insisted that the offer was somewhat derisory, and that Rok boss Garvis Snook was being a little opportunistic. The board and the analysts believed that 70p a share was a fairer price, and so dismissed the offer. It seems they were right. Naughty Garv, trying to pull a fast one …
But being a cheeky chappie has done Mr Snook no harm at all – Rok was up 7.6% last week to 345.5p.
I’ve been saying it for a while and I’ll say it again – Laing will hit the two-quid mark some time soon
Hunch of the week
Another entertaining character, Tony Pidgley, has also done okay for himself. Berkeley reached £9 last week, after investors pushed the share price up 3.7%.
So, this begs the question: does Pidgley really want to take the company private? Word has reached me that the old warhorse is keen on such a move, thereby strengthening his grip on the company he founded.
Pidgley has denied similar rumours in the past, but could it be that he wants to live a quieter life out of the public arena? Obviously, that's a rhetorical question, because I haven't got the faintest idea.
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