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/

Clothing giant Next poised to report fall in full-year profits for first time since 2009
By City & Finance Reporter for the Daily Mail
Published: 21:50, 19 March 2017 | Updated: 21:50, 19 March 2017


Next is poised to report a fall in full-year profits for the first time since 2009.
It is expected to post a 4 per cent slump in profit on Thursday to £792m in the year to January 31, down from £821.3m last year.
It follows a ‘disastrous’ trading update at the start of the year in which chief executive Lord Wolfson pointed towards a slowdown on spending on clothes as shoppers chose to eat out and go to the cinema.

 Lord Wolfson has warned that 2018’s profits could tumble to between £680m and £780m
He warned that 2017 would be even tougher, with 2018’s profits likely to tumble to between £680m and £780m.
This sent shares tumbling more than 14 per cent, wiping £948m off the firm’s value.
Shares were trading even lower at 3,877p at end of play on Friday – marking a 41 per cent drop since this time last year.

Wolfson, 49, who has been at the helm for 15 years, warned prices would rise by as much as 5 per cent to compensate for the increase in imports due to the fall in the pound.
The pro-Brexit boss said fears over the country’s negotiations to leave the EU would put pressure on the retail sector. 
Next has been battling to keep up with online rivals such as Missguided, Boohoo and Asos, which can respond to trends more quickly and have fewer overheads

Results for the year ending January 2017

CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT

As anticipated, the year to January 2017 was a challenging year for NEXT, despite this Earnings per share1 declined by only ‑0.3% to 441.3p. We propose to maintain our total full year ordinary dividend flat at 158p.

Whilst total sales2 for NEXT Retail declined by -2.9%, sales for NEXT Directory increased by +4.2%. Total Group sales were broadly flat at £4.1bn for the year.

Cash flow remained strong and we returned £502m to shareholders through a combination of ordinary dividends (£226m), special dividends (£88m) and share buybacks (£188m).

We have continued to invest in the business, spending £161m on new stores, warehousing and systems. Net debt increased to £861m, well within our bond and bank facilities of £1.4bn.

It has already been announced that I will retire from the Board on 1 August 2017. I have been at NEXT for fifteen years and have immensely enjoyed the experience. NEXT is an excellent company and working with the Board and executive team has been extremely stimulating and enjoyable.

I will be succeeded as Chairman by Michael Roney. The Board appointed Michael as a non-executive director, Deputy Chairman and Chairman Designate in February this year. Michael has extensive business experience and has had a long and distinguished career, including as Chief Executive of Bunzl plc. He also has all the qualities that are necessary in a good chairman and I am very confident that he will make an excellent transition into the role.

I am also pleased that Jonathan Bewes has joined us as a non-executive director during the year. Jonathan has a great deal of experience in investment banking, is a Chartered Accountant and is a very good addition to the Board.

Steve Barber, non-executive director and Chair of the Audit Committee, will step down from the Board at the 2017 AGM in May. Steve has made a much valued and active contribution to the Board and I would like to thank him for his service over the last ten years. Jonathan Bewes will take over from Steve as Chairman of the Audit Committee after the AGM.

The strength of the Group is built on the hard work and dedication of all the people who work for NEXT. I would like to thank them all for their contribution throughout the year. I have been Chairman of NEXT since May 2006. In 2008 our profits fell and our share price halved; by the following year our profits had started to grow again and our share price recovered strongly in the following years. Trading conditions in the year ahead will continue to be tough, however I believe that by focusing on our core strengths, as we did during 2008, we will see NEXT emerge from this period stronger than before.


John Barton
Chairman

more.....

23 Mar
Peel Hunt
4,200.00
Hold
23 Mar
Shore Capital
N/A
Sell
23 Mar
Cantor...
4,600.00
Hold
22 Mar
HSBC
3,530.00
Reduce

Proactive investor -Next was a small-cap once

13:58 24 Mar 2017

Investors have done very nicely out of the retailer, whose shares were 10p in the 1990s

This week on TipTV I interviewed a former broker friend of mine who I have known since the mid 1990s. I was reminded of two things. The first is why I am not a broker anymore. This is because my plaintiff advice to many a client just after the stock market opened would on many occasions be, “Don't do anything today, you might lose money.” This was of course very FCA-compliant, years before the rules tightened up on financial advice. But it was no way to earn commissions.
The other perhaps more salient point as far as this week's newsflow is that my old friend reminded me of how, while people were deciding on whether to buy the dip in shares of fashion retailer Next Plc (LON:NXT) at £40 a share (down from an £80 peak), the shares were freely available in the mid-1990's at 10p. Indeed, I have met more than a couple of people who confess to have bought the shares all those years ago at near to those levels.
While they may not have kept them all the way up to their peak of £80 a couple of years ago, they did very nicely thank you. For those involved in the shares now the conundrum has been whether to buy the stock just below £40 in the wake of the announcement of the first annual loss at the company since 2009. In fact, from a technical analysis perspective it did appear the aftermath of the results was the time to go long as quite an extended base towards £38 did look robust. It was also an example of investors having factored in the worst from this former stock market darling, and there was a decent near 10% rebound.
Further down the market cap scale and we go from a £6bn market cap company in the form of Next, down to a more niche player, Ted Baker (LON:TED). This has been one of the High Street's more successful stories of recent years, all the more impressive to have achieved its £1bn market cap in an era of decline for many leading players. But even though the group was able to boast full-year profits growth and sales, it was the outlook for the designer brand group was rather more clouded, and guarded. The shares are also well off their 2015 peak, but let us assume for now the uptrend is still intact.
Finishing off the trio of High Street picks in retail at the moment is my token small cap, Hotel Chocolat (LON:HOTC). Here the shares in the £3.85 chocolate bar retailer have not surprisingly doubled since their post IPO floor at 150p. They are perhaps the only retailer of the three picked out here which I actually shop at – once every couple of months, given the prices of course.
The market cap is £300m and while the group may not get to the dizzy heights of a Next or a Ted Baker, the premise is that a player which has managed to achieve pricing power in the present cut throat environment looks to be the horse to back in a sector where visibility on future winners is foggy to say the least.
Perhaps the only negative for Hotel Chocolat, apart from having to pay nearly 4 quid for one's cocoa bean fix is that one a p/e ratio of over 60, it really is not cheap. But then again at £2.88 a share, the shares are cheaper than the chocolate bar, for now.

30 Mar
Barclays...
3,900.00
Underweight
28 Mar
Cantor...
4,425.00
Hold
27 Mar
JP Morgan...
4,580.00
Neutral
24 Mar
Goldman Sachs
4,400.00
Neutral
24 Mar
JP Morgan...
4,580.00
Neutral
24 Mar
HSBC
3,530.00
Reduce
24 Mar
Deutsche Bank
4,750.00
Hold
23 Mar
Peel Hunt
4,200.00
Hold
23 Mar
Shore Capital
N/A
Sell
23 Mar
Cantor...
4,600.00
Hold

looks to be worth buying at 3800 or even a bit above that but at <4000

Yeah until the next profit warning and board coming out with the usual strategic review statement.

I still reckon it's too risky cynic but I'm often wrong except about Brexit :-)

NXT are historically very good with their announcements and are usually very conservative
however, i don't have much love for high street stocks in general

Broker Forecast - Credit Suisse issues a broker note on Next PLC
BFN
Credit Suisse today reaffirms its neutral investment rating on Next PLC (LON:NXT) and raised its price target to 4250p (from 4100p).

(ShareCast News) - Analysts at Credit Suisse sounded a very cautious note on Next's trading over the medium-term, flagging to clients the rapid decline seen in the retailer's core profitability even as the outlook for its non-core units worsened.
Even with a £49m increase in profits before tax at its Credit, Label and International segments, the company still reported a full-year drop in earnings of £31m, as the core Next UK Brand saw a 12% fall as margins were eroded by 180 basis points.

Yet even that positive contribution would decline to £11m this year and was expected to negative in 2018, as credit income "rolled over", analysts Simon Irwin and Pradeep Pratti said in a research note sent to clients.

Account growth at credit was at multi-year lows and Core Directory margins (ex Credit, Label, International) had been declining for six years.

"And we see little change in the proposition which would alter that," they said.

"It is becoming increasingly hard to defend high market shares in a fragmenting apparel market, and we regard the decision to increase prices in a deflationary market as risk."

So while the broker increased its estimates for the company's earnings per share in future years by 2% it did not expect the bottom line to recover in later years, with further reductions in margins and cash conversion "inevitable".

Despite that, the change in the broker's numbers worked out to an improved target price of 4,250p, up from 4,100p previously. The recommendation on the shares was kept at 'Neutral'.

2 May
JP Morgan...
4,580.00
Neutral

Trading Statement

Shore Capital Sell 4,188.50 - - Reiterates

Cantor Fitzgerald Hold 4,188.50 4,425.00 4,425.00 Retains

A bit like HSBA - shore capital always seem to have a sell rating.

Thanks skinny, all I got was nulls at 7.10am.

Another company of the likes of Tesco/supermarkets that have sat and watched their heart being ripped out, by the likes of Asos and boohoo.

Don't diss boohoo. It's just business and there's always someone to take your place at the top ...... including you DC...... 😉

Watch it. :-))

Market buzz -

Next got a boost on Wednesday as Investec upped its stance on the retailer to 'buy' from 'hold' and lifted the price target to 4,750p from 3,900p.

It said that unlike peers, Next has been actively managing its portfolio over the last 10 years, something that is being overlooked by investors preoccupied by short-term trading.

"Next's estate is well-invested, and in our view margins appear sustainable, even if retail like-for-like sales continue to fall. Post FY18, profits should stabilise even if consumer demand remains weak, with some self-help. In our view, valuation doesn't reflect Next's qualities as a well-invested business with strong and sustainable cash flows."

The brokerage highlighted the fact that Next's store portfolio has undergone more than just a refit. 53% of Retail's square footage didn't exist 10 years ago, even though store numbers have risen by just 12% since the start of full-year 2008.

In addition, Investec said new space is highly profitable and reflect an active property strategy, with new stores contributing around 40% more than company average. "Profitable new space continues to generate a profit buffer each year versus negative LFLs," it said.

Investec also said cash generation remains robust, with surplus returns looking secure.

15 May
Shore Capital
N/A
Sell

Proactive investor -


Next walloped by Credit Suisse downgrade
Share
12:48 15 Jun 2017
“With earnings, margins and cash conversion continuing to fall we regard Next as a value trap.”

Credit Suisse's target price has been cut to 3,956p from 4,250p.
Credit Suisse downgraded Next Plc (LON:NXT) to ‘underperform’ as prices remain  soft across Europe despite it being almost a year since the pound dropped post Brexit and two years since the main falls in the Euro/US$.
“The price survey would seem to suggest that Next has cut entry level pricing during Sping and Summer, possibly in response to the very poor 1Q sales (Retail - 8.1%, Directory +3.3%).

“We continue to believe that its strategy of expanding UK space is incorrect for a mature retailer and that self-help from Credit, International and Label will diminish, and potentially reverse, over the next two years.
“With earnings, margins and cash conversion continuing to fall we regard Next as a value trap.”
Credit Suisse's target price has been cut to 3,956p from 4,250p. Shares fell 5.4% to 4,068p
Marks & Spencer PLC meanwhile (LON:MKS) has seen stable premium prices  month on month but have still fallen by almost 40% over the past year.
“This confirms the price realignment that has been ongoing for the past year, but may suggest that it is now complete, said the Swiss broker. Neutral is its view on M&S with a 370p target.
Marks & Spencer shares fell by 3.6% to 355p.

18 Jul
Deutsche Bank
4,250.00
Hold