Robert Sutherland Smith is again proving that he is still alive with another guest post. Robert started his City career the year before I was born and is, I think, 157 years old. Fear not. He is very much alive and kicking. He and I have worked together for almost eight years at t1ps.com . He is my friend and he is a very funny and intelligent chap. He is now branching out to celebrate his 158th by doing some freelance writing over at various places ( including Shareprophets.com naturally) on FTSE 350 Income stocks. Robert is a speaker at the UKInvestor Show on April 5th 2014. He is a great one for focussing on yield. RSS today looks at J Sainsbury. RSS writes:
Another year, another buck! Sainsbury’s year to the 16th of March was helpful and modest. Sales revenue grew by 4.6% to the £25,632 million of turnover which makes it the UK’s third largest retailer. Reported pre-tax profits fell by 1.4% to £788 million; a result which is perhaps on the verge of the “highly commendable” when you gloomily contemplate what was happening to the British consumer’s spending power and the state of economic activity generally. Basic reported earnings per share rose by 1.9% to 32.6p. However, the estimated underlying earnings (the version used by institutional analysts to enable them to compare one year with another on a consistent basis when reporting to financial institutions) actually increased by 9.3% although the consistent figure was lower at 30.7p. The dividend was raised by an above inflation 3.7% to 16.7p. In everyday stock market terms, that means that Sainsbury shares at a share price of 380p (last seen) are valued on a just reported historic price to underlying earnings ratio of 12.3 times and a dividend yield of 4.4% with a respectable dividend earnings cover of 1.8 times.
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