LONDON -- We're heading into a period rich with results from FTSE 100 companies over the next few weeks, with March marking the year-end for many of them -- and there are some first-quarter and first-half updates heading our way, too. Here are three due to being us news next week:
British Land
On Tuesday we'll have full-year results from British Land Company (BLND 2.82%), the FTSE 100 real-estate investment trust (REIT). Since the start of April, the British Land share price has spiked up 16% to 618 pence, along with a similar rise for fellow REIT Land Securities Group.
While earnings slumped in 2010, they've been picking up since, with the year to March 2012 bringing in a small rise in earnings per share (EPS) to 29.7 pence -- and that was mostly paid out to provide a 5.4% dividend yield. For this year, the City is expecting and EPS rise of just 2% with a dividend yield of around 4.4%, and that level of forecast puts the shares on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of over 20.
So there's some growth built into the current share price, presumably based on longer term expectations of real estate valuations. I wouldn't bet against it.
easyJet
easyJet (EZJ 2.28%) shareholders have enjoyed a great year, seeing their shares gain more than 120% over the past 12 months to 1,150 pence. The budget airline is scheduled to deliver first-half figures on Wednesday, and we already have a fair idea of what to expect.
In its pre-close update on 5 April, EasyJet told us that it was expecting to deliver a 3.3% growth in capacity for the six months to 31 March, with a rise in revenue per seat of about 8.5%. There should be a first-half loss, for the slow half of the year, of £60-65 million.
Full-year forecasts currently suggest EPS growth of around 25% to 80 pence per share, with a 25% rise in the dividend to approximately 27 pence per share -- though with the past year's share price rise, that would provide a dividend yield of only 2.3%.
National Grid
Thursday will bring us full-year results from one of the FTSE's most solid dividend payers,National Grid (NG 1.68%) (NGG 1.32%), and there really shouldn't be any surprises. Last year, the oil and gas supplier provided shareholders with a dividend yield of 6.2%, which was one of the best on offer.
This year, however, with the share price having risen 22% over the past 12 months to 818 pence, the yield is likely to drop to 5%, even with the dividend itself expected to be up 4.5%. But that's still a very nice dividend, and one of the most reliable around, with the company having announced in March that it intends to grow its dividend by at least the rate of Retail Price Index inflation for the foreseeable future.
At the same time, we also heard that the year is finishing well, with performance expected to be "modestly ahead" of previous expectations.
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