Omicron Covid variant changes tone in coming week for easyJet PLC,

Companies such as Future, Wise, Pennon Group, easyJet and AJ Bell and their investors may or may not have been looking forward to the coming week’s round of results and updates, but the tone for many of them is likely to be somewhat different to before worries about the emergence of a new Covid-19 variant sent markets plummeting at the end of the past week.

Still, it is very early and the potential fall-out of the ‘omicron’ (B.1.1.529) variant, is a big unknown to add to how company’s are going to approach and prepare for the coming months.

The start of the new month of December means there will be the next round of economic data, in particular PMI surveys and Friday’s US non-farm payrolls.       

Future dealmaking in focus

Future PLC (LSE:FUTR) reports its full-year results on Tuesday but it sounds like analysts are more excited about any possible new acquisitions the media group will announce.

“Every year is a transformational year for Future. The company will report on a year that started with the purchase of Cinemablend, then GoCo, Marie Claire, and finally Dennis. If that was not enough, the company is still digesting and renovating TI Media,” observed Peel Hunt.

“Underlying all this M&A activity is a playbook that delivers strong organic growth – the company’s comments on black Friday should be very telling this year – but for once we believe it is the M&A progress that will be of particular note,” the broker added.

Analysts are expecting underlying earnings (EBITDA) of £206mln on turnover of £601mln. A full-year dividend of 2.34p is in prospect.

Easy does it

Who’d be the owner of an airline in the current environment?

But as the popular saying has it, “it is what it is” and easyJet PLC at least has the £1.2bn in its back-pocket that it raised in September.

The company has already revealed the headline loss before tax for the year to the end of September is expected to be between £1.135bn and £1.175bn in Tuesday’s results.

At the time it issued that guidance, the consensus forecast was for losses of £1,175mln; that has subsided to £1,153mln.

Cash burn on a fixed costs plus capital expenditure basis for the final quarter of the financial year – the third of the calendar year – was around £36mln a year, which was below the company’s guidance of £40mln.

Analysts will be interested in the company’s views of the likelihood of further travel restrictions being introduced in the wake of the discovery of a new strain of the coronavirus.

Polluter Pennon

Following water company peers in the past week, it will be Pennon Group PLC (LSE:PNN, OTC:PEGRY) taking its turn this Tuesday.

The company’s South West Water arm was this summer cited by the UK Environmental Agency for being one of the worst polluters performers in the sector, allowing raw…