Week ahead: Alton Towers accident still to weigh on Merlin


(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors)Alton Towers and Legoland owner Merlin Entertainments provides its full year trading update on Tuesday. The announcement as with its September nine month update is likely to see its June Alton Towers accident continuing to overshadow.  'Reduced visitation across its Resort Theme Parks division primarily at the Alton Towers Resort compounded by poor August weather offset a strong performance by its Legoland Parks business' Keith Bowman at Hargreaves Lansdown said. Euro weakness also continued to hit visit numbers to its London attractions he added. He reckons the best investors can hope for is any reiteration of prior management guidance for group underlying pre-tax profit to be broadly in line with last year. Elsewhere Topps Tiles will report on Tuesday and investors will be keen to see if the company has managed its target of achieving one third of the market share by the end of the year. Broker Liberum Capital said: 'On going space closure by B&Q and Homebase is likely to have been helpful recently but importantly Topps was taking share before this began demonstrating the strength of its proposition.' The broker is expecting full-year sales of around £213mln with like-for-like sales roughly 5% ahead of the previous year. 'We approach Topps' full year results on 1 December with confidence following a strong pre-close update on 30 September' Liberum said.     Significant announcements expected: Final: Topps Tiles (LON:TPT) Character Group (LON:CCT) Interim: Collagen Solutions (LON:COL) OPG Power Ventures (LON:OPG) Park Group (LON:PKG) Northgate (LON:NTG) TCS Group Holding (LON:TCSA) GB Group (LON:GBG) Trading statement: Merlin Entertainments (LON:MERL) Economic: UK – PMI manufacturing; Eurozone – PMI manufacturing unemployment rate; US = ISM manufacturing unemployment rate


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