Tesco is set to announce a bumper profits haul next week, while the supermarket's staff brace for thousands of job cuts.
City analysts forecast the grocery giant will post a 22 per cent surge in bottom line full year pre-tax profits to £1.6 billion when it reports figures on Wednesday, with sales tipped to jump 12% to £64.5bn.
Fourth quarter like-for-like sales are also expected to rise by up to 2.2% in the UK, the 13th consecutive period of positive figures.
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Strong annual figures follow a stellar December when Tesco emerged as a festive winner, unveiling its best set of Christmas trading figures in nearly a decade.
However, January also saw Tesco announce that up jobs are at risk across its head office and stores as part of a major cost-cutting drive.
Shares in Purplebricks nosedived on Friday after analysts downgraded the online estate agent and said it would have to raise fresh cash.
Berenberg warned in a research note that the group should either give up on its international expansion plans or raise more funding as it slashed its rating from buy to sell.
It cited a slowdown in Purplebricks' core UK market, as well as tough conditions in Australia and the US.
Shares were down more than seven per cent at 127p.
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"Without a significant change in the current strategy, we expect losses and cash burn to accelerate this year and in 2020, when we believe the group will face the choice of either raising fresh equity, or debt, or retrenching to the UK," the investment bank said.
British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines has reported an increase in traffic and passenger numbers for March.
Traffic - measured in revenue passenger kilometres - rose 5.1 per cent to 22.3 million from 21.2m a year prior.
In the year-to-date, the figure rose 6.4%. Reported passenger numbers in March were up 5.7% year-on-year to 9.2m from 8.7m in the same month a year ago.
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