Next week the City will want to know BT’s plans for its newly-acquired telecoms rival EE, while investors will look for further details on how oil giant Royal Dutch Shell will make its BG Group mega-merger pay
The City will want to hear more of BT’s plans now that it has completed its £12.5 billion merger with telecoms rival EE when it reports third quarter results on Monday.
BT’s buyout of mobile phone firm EE was completed on Friday after regulators gave their blessing to the deal earlier in the month, which will create a combination of around 35 million mobile, broadband and TV customers.
Analysts expect BT to step up its financial performance, as it enjoys its first full quarter since securing the broadcasting rights to Champions League football.
The telecoms giant expects a pre-tax profit of £840 million, up 3% from £814 million in the third quarter to the end of December 2014.
Investors will press for further details of Royal Dutch Shell’s 49 billion US dollar (£34 billion) takeover of gas firm BG Group when the oil major posts its full-year results on Thursday.
London-listed Shell revealed the impact of the tumbling cost of crude earlier in January when it warned earnings are expected to more than halve for 2015.
The group said it expects full-year underlying earnings to tumble to between 10.4 billion US dollars (£7.3 billion) and 10.7 billion US dollars (£7.6 billion).
This is slightly below expectations in the City and marks a sharp fall on the 22.56 billion dollars (£15.9 billion) reported for 2014.
Rival BP responded to the falling price of oil by announcing earlier this month it would cut 4,000 production jobs worldwide, including 600 in the North Sea, over the next two years.
The City expects BP to post full-year results of 6.4 billion US dollars (£4.5 billion) on Tuesday, almost half of the 12.1 billion US dollars (£8.4 billion) it reported last year as oil prices have slumped.
BP chief executive Bob Dudley has said he expects the first half of this year to remain difficult, adding he hopes that supply might come more into line with demand in the second half of the year.
This month industry hopes were raised after Russia, Saudi Arabia and other Opec nations were understood to be close to beginning talks about cutting production to stem oversupply.
BG Group will also report its full-year results on Friday, and analysts at UBS expect net earnings to tumble by more than half to 10.8 billion US dollars (£7.5 billion) in this low commodity environment.
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