NEXT is a UK based retailer offering exciting, beautifully designed, excellent quality

fashion and accessories for men, women and children together with a full range of

homewares# NEXT distributes through three main channels:


■NEXT Retail, a chain of more than 500 stores in the UK and Eire;
■NEXT Directory, a home shopping catalogue and website with around 3 million active customers and international websites serving approximately 50 countries; and
■NEXT International, with almost 200 mainly franchised stores around the world#
Other businesses in the NEXT group include:■NEXT Sourcing, which designs, sources and buys NEXT branded products;
■Lipsy, which designs and sells its own branded younger women's fashion products through retail, internet and wholesale channels; and
The parent company, NEXT plc, is listed on the London Stock Exchange #LSE: NXT#L# and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index# Total revenues for the year ended January 2012 were £3#5 billion with underlying pre-tax profits of £570 million# NEXT's head office is located in Enderby on the outskirts of Leicester, England

http://www.next.co.uk/

:-))

Without wishing to be pedantic, the new high was actually 4097.

No thats not being pedantic, your numbers are even better. lol

in 4 years from 800 to 4100 is awesome , big boys undoubtly love one..

I see IC has Next as a hold. The share price has been rising steadily since 1990 when it was valued at just 10p. Thats a far cry from todays 4,098p and a whopping 400-fold increase over two decades. Perhaps thats why non-executive director and seasoned acccountant Steve barber cashed in half his 10,000 shares. At 4,024p apiece, that leaves Mr Barber with a tidy windfall of £201,200. Next shares are now rated on 15 times earnings, which isn't cheap, while its dividend yield is close to historic lows.

No stopping this one at the moment ?

Up £4.50 since the start of the year.Amazing what the small rises each day add up to.

Next: HSBC increases target price from 4100p to 4965p upgrading to overweight.

Should I Buy Marks & Spencer or Next?
By Roland Head | Fool.co.uk – 9 hours ago.. .


High street (BSE: HIGHSTREE.BO - news) retailers Next (Other OTC: NXGPF - news) and Marks & Spencer (Other OTC: MAKSY - news) need no introduction, but as investments, they present very different pictures.

The big winner of the last decade has been Next. The fashion retailer's share price has risen by 418% over the last ten years, while Marks & Spencer has only managed a 22% gain.

It's true that Marks & Spencer was much bigger to begin with, but as Warren Buffett once said, "the investor of today does not benefit from yesterday's growth". Given this, which company looks like the better investment for the next ten years?

Marks & Spencer vs. Next

I'm going to start with a look at a few key statistics that can be used to provide a quick comparison of these two companies, based on their last published results:



Marks & Spencer Next



Market cap

£6.2bn

£6.9bn



Turnover

£9,954m

£3,516m



Operating margin

7.5%

17.7%



Dividend yield

4.4%

2.2%


The big difference between these two companies is their profitability and turnover.

Marks & Spencer turned over nearly £10bn last year, but only 7.5% of this was operating profit. Next's more modest turnover of £3.5bn provided an operating margin of 17.7% -- 2.4 times that of M&S.

Marks & Spencer's main attraction is its dividend yield, which at 4.4%, is well above the FTSE 100 (FTSE: ^FTSE - news) average of 3.1%.

However, even this isn't as good as it looks. Since 2008, M&S' dividend payout has fallen from 22.5p per share to 17p per share. Over the same period, Next has increased its dividend from 55p per share to 93.5p per share. Next has a far stronger record of dividend growth -- a key consideration for income investors.

What's next?

Are the trends we identified above about to change, or should we expect more of the same?

Analysts' forecasts are notoriously unreliable, but FTSE 100 companies generally get the benefit of the most comprehensive analysis, and tend to deliver fewer surprises than smaller companies.

With that in mind, let's take a look at some forward-looking numbers for Marks & Spencer and Next. These apply to the companies' current financial years:



Marks & Spencer Next



Forecast P/E ratio

11.1

13.5



Forecast dividend yield

4.6%

2.7%



Forecast dividend growth

0%

8.4%



Forecast earnings growth

5.6%

10.5%


These figures, which are based on the companies' guidance figures and analysts' forecasts, strongly suggest that nothing much is likely to change this year. Next will outgrow M&S, and M&S will continue to provide an attractive income.

Which share should I buy?

There's no doubt that for growth and long-term income, Next continues to look more attractive than Marks & Spencer.

However, Next's dividend will have to do a lot of growing before it provides the same yield as Marks & Spencer. If, like me, you like the idea of getting an above-average income immediately, then Marks & Spencer may be worth a closer look.

Next: Nomura increases target price from 3900p to 4450p keeping its buy recommendation

Next: Cantor Fitzgerald raises target price from 3500p to 4000p and keeps its hold recommendation. Deutsche Bank moves target price from 4200p to 4600p maintaining a buy rating.

to my mind this is NOW a far far better company that ASC .... just wish it was not quite so heavyweight

Be bold, be fast,” says Panmure Gordon’s veteran stores analyst Philip Dorgan in a note to clients on the sector’s war over the internet.

“We expect online to continue to grab market share in retailing and this has significant consequences for traditional retailers,” the adds.

In the note he upgrades stalwarts Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) and Next (LON:NXT) to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ and identifies his list of losers in this virtual battle for customers.


http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/54566/marks-spencer-next-upgraded-as-panmure-guru-lists-retail-winners-and-losers--54566.html

Our next scheduled publication will be: 21 March 2013 - Preliminary full year results

3 More FTSE Shares For The Week Ahead: NEXT plc, United Utilities Group PLC And Premier Oil PLC
By Alan Oscroft | Fool.co.uk – Fri, Mar 15, 2013 10:42 GMT..

We've already taken a look at three companies that are due to bring us updates, and there's not a lot of the December 2012 reporting season left now. But we do have a few more important firms in the news next week.

Here are three you might want to look out for:

NEXT

Widely considered one of the UK's strongest retailers, Next is due to release full-year results on Thursday. While some retailers have sadly gone to the wall during the recession, all Next suffered was earnings per share falling 8% in 2009, and since then earnings and dividends have continued to grow.

Forecasts suggest a further 12% earnings per share rise for the year ending January 2013, which put the shares on a P/E of 14.7 based on the current price of 4,150p. That P/E is slightly above the FTSE 100 (FTSE: ^FTSE - news) average, but not by much. There's also a 13% hike to the annual dividend expected, for a yield of 2.5%.

In January, Next issued full-year guidance and estimated pre-tax profit would be in the range of £611-625 million, with earnings per share growth of between 14% and 17%. The company expects to have spent £245 million buying back shares during the year.

Fashion retailer Next is expected to post a slight increase in annual sales from £3.44bn to £3.58bn in its annual results this week, with pre-tax profits up 7pc to £618.4m. Lord Wolfson, chief executive, is also likely to comment on the state of the economy and update on trading in the last few weeks, when retailers have been impacted by snow across the UK.

Analysts at UBS (Berlin: UBRA.BE - news) said they would be looking out for comment from management on share buybacks, with about £250m forecast in 2013-14., as well as news on supply chain inflation due to higher cotton prices and the company’s growth online.

As of Mar 15, 2013, the consensus forecast amongst 27 polled investment analysts covering NEXT plc advises investors to hold their position in the company. This has been the consensus forecast since the sentiment of investment analysts deteriorated on Aug 09, 2012. The previous consensus forecast advised that NEXT plc would outperform the market.



They added that January’s snowfall may have had a “modest impact” on the retailer.

NEXT PLC - RESULTS FOR YEAR ENDING JANUARY 2013

CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT

The year to January 2013 was another good year for NEXT. Underlying earnings per share before exceptional gains grew by 16.6% to 297.7p and we propose to increase our full year dividend to 105p.

This is the fourth consecutive year that our earnings per share and dividend have grown by over 15%, at a time when the UK economy has continued to struggle for growth.

NEXT Directory, our online and catalogue business, continued to grow, and its sales increased by 9.5%. The growth differential between NEXT Directory and NEXT Retail, where sales were level, narrowed. The two businesses continue to work well together and support each other in many ways. For example, over 20% of Directory sales are delivered through our stores and over 60% of the returns come back that way. Both businesses increased their operating margins during the year and the Group's underlying profit before tax rose by 9.0% to £622 million.

Cash flow was particularly strong, helped by the timing of capital expenditure and stock intake at the year end. We continued with share buybacks, buying 7.5 million shares at an average price of £32.13. During the year we returned £390 million to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends.

Our share price again performed well during 2012, in both absolute and relative terms. Over the last two financial years the share price has risen by over 100%.

As ever, our success is built on the stability and effectiveness of our management across the Group. They performed well in challenging economic conditions. I would like to thank them and all the NEXT employees for their outstanding contribution during the year.

We anticipate another challenging year ahead, with little if any growth in the UK retail economy. In these circumstances we again aim to achieve growth by investing in the Brand, improving our products, controlling costs and returning cash to our shareholders.

John Barton
Chairman

140 points range so far this morning.

Next: Bank of America increases target price from 4300p to 4600p maintaining a neutral rating.Next PLC (NXT:LSE) set a new 52-week high during today's trading session when it reached 4,373. Over this period, the share price is up 46.00%.




The upbeat numbers boosted Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) shares by 1.3%, with Next (LON:NXT) up 0.7% after yesterday’s bonanza sales numbers.

But JPMorgan Cazenove is still inclined to avoid over-optimism.

It said: “Despite the positive sales figures so far this year, we would be cautious as to the extent that this can be read as a sign of things to come, particularly in the context of consumer headwinds such as rising energy costs.”

The broker added that the dismal weather in March will affect sales at clothing retailers, while investors in retailers with stores in southern Europe may want to look elsewhere as JPMorgan suggests conditions on the continent are not getting any better.

Dividend Declaration
RNS
RNS Number : 7151A
Next PLC
22 March 2013



Next plc

Dividend Declaration



Final dividend for the year ended 26 January 2013



Further to the announcement of its final results for the year ended 26 January 2013, the Company confirms that, subject to its approval by shareholders at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting, the final dividend of 74p per share will be paid on 1 August 2013 to those members on the Company's register at the close of business on 28 June 2013.



Mr A J R McKinlay

Company Secretary

Next plc