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Thursday's agenda: WPP expected to comment on Publicis/Omnicom merger

Published: 13:30 28 Aug 2013 EDT

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Serco, an international service provider, announces half-year results on Thursday.

"An update on UK government outsourcing contracts would be welcome, but the share price suggests little new information will be forthcoming," says Charles Stanley.

Peel Hunt is predicting 7% organic growth in revenue, "driven in part by 2012 contract wins, together with additional revenues from certain volume/project related work."

"In our opinion the pressure on forecasts is on the upside, given the expected strength of H1 and the continuing contract momentum (e.g. £75mln US health contract win)," the broker said.

Russian gold miner Petropavlovsk has had to make some tough decisions regards costs since the gold price collapsed.

Nonetheless, Numis Securities thinks the interims will see year-on-year increases, excluding exceptional items, "on the back of higher production, offset by lower gold prices and higher costs".

As usual, results will be skewed to the second half, Numis notes. It forecasts half-year earnings per share of 10 cents and underlying earnings (EBITDA) of US$175mln.

"We look for a jump in cash costs at US$1,041/oz ... due to cost inflation, lower grade ore and increased stripping activities," Numis said.

WPP is still being billed as the world's largest communications services company by Charles Stanley, but that title is in danger because of the proposed merger of Publicis and Omnicom.

The broker thinks attention in the interims will focus on outlook comments for the remainder of 2013 and 2014.

Investec says WPP arguably needs some good news following continued share price strength, and says it would like to hear more on threats and opportunities post the Publicis/Omnicom proposed merger.

Significant announcements expected

Companies: Finals: Hays (LON:HAS). Interims: Admiral Group (LON:ADM), Aseana Properties (LON:ASPL), Camellia (LON:CAM), Churchill China (LON:CHH), Cape (LON:CIU), Co-operative Bank (LON:CPBB), Eurasia Drilling Company (LON:EDCL), Evraz (LON:EVR), Hardy Oil & Gas (LON:HDY), H R Owen (LON:HRO), Hansteen Holdings (LON:HSTN), Hunting (LON:HTG), HellermannTyton Group (LON:HTY), IFG Group (LON:IFP), International Public Partnership (LON:INPP), Lombard Medical Technologies (LON:LMT), Macfarlane Group (LON:MACF), Molins (LON:MLIN), Melrose (LON:MRO), office2office (LON:OFF), Oxford Biomedica (LON:OXB), Petropavlovsk (LON:POG), Playtech (LON:PTEC), SOCO International (LON:SIA), Salamander Energy (LON:SMDR), Serco Group (LON:SRP), UNITE Group (LON:UTG), Vislink (LON:VLK), WPP group (LON:WPP), Xaar (LON:XAR).

Macroeconomic: EU: German Unemployment Change. US: Prelim GDP, Unemployment Claims, Prelim GDP Price Index.

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