Results round-up

Subscription broadcaster Sky posted results for the year to 30 June on Thursday morning, reporting a 7% increase in revenue to £11.965bn, with adjusted operating profit up 12% to £1.558bn.

The FTSE 100 firm said adjusted earnings per share rose 13% during the period to 63.1p, and declared its 12th consecutive year of dividend growth to 33.5p.

During the year, Sky gained 808,000 customers and sold 3.3 million new products.

On a statutory basis, revenue rose 20%, operating profit improved 1% to £977m and earnings per share were 39p.

“With revenue up 7% and profits up 12%, it's been another excellent year for Sky,” said group chief executive Jeremy Darroch.

“We have broadened our business and expanded into new consumer segments, applying our proven strategy across the group.”

Darroch said the group is leveraging the many opportunities of scale; sharing resources, insights, expertise and innovation.

Royal Dutch Shell’s second quarter profits dropped 72% due to lower oil prices and narrower refining margins, while earnings were down a stonking 94%.

Failing to match the strong performance of rival BP, Shell posted earnings attributable to shareholders of just $0.2bn compared to the $3.4bn for the same quarter a year ago.

Shell said while earnings benefited from increased production volumes from BG assets, the figure was so much lower due to the impact of the slump of crude, gas and LNG prices, the step-up in depreciation resulting from the acquisition of BG, weaker refining industry conditions and increased taxation.

Profit adjusted for one-time items and inventory changes sank 72% percent from a year earlier to $1.05bn, missing consensus forecats by around $1bn.

“Downstream and Integrated Gas businesses contributed strongly to the results, alongside Shell’s self-help programme,” said chief executive Ben van Beurden. “However, lower oil prices continue to be a significant challenge across the business, particularly in the Upstream.”

Lloyds Banking Group generated a bigger pre-tax profit in the first half of the year that was expected and has begun the process of cutting 3,000 jobs, closing 200 branches and selling almost third of other properties to cut costs.

Reaffirming its full year guidance for net interest margin and cost:income ratio, the bank posted an underlying pretax profit £4.2bn in the half year to end-June, down 5% on last year's or 2% if excluding TSB but ahead of consensus estimates of £4.06bn.

Statutory profits were more than doubled to £2.45bn, largely thanks to making no further PPI provisions and total 'conduct provisions' falling to £460m from £1.8bn.

Earnings per share were down to 3.9p from 4.6p but the board declared an interim dividend of 0.85p per share, up 13%.

Profits were hit by total revenues falling 1% to £8.87bn and higher loan impairments which proved more than enough to outweigh a 3% reduction in operating costs from chief executive António Horta-Osório's simplification programme.

Having already slashed £0.6bn of the £1bn of targeted annual costs in response to the lower interest rate environment, the Spaniard unveiled the new round of cuts that would help trammel costs towards a new target of £1.6bn.