LONDON (ShareCast) - Aviva has come a long way and yesterday´s dividend cut does not negate all that has been achieved since Mark Wilson took over at the helm last May. The company needed to decrease its pay-out to reduce the strain from interest payments on profits. The real challenge, however, will be to increase the businesses´ growth profile. Last year even the highest growth segments of its life assurance business failed to perform, says the FT´s Lex column.

Shares of IMI are changing hands at 15 times this year´s earnings, after having risen by 70 per cent since August. However, alongside yesterday´s ‘in-line’ full year results the company explained to shareholders how it is simultaneously embarking on divesting non-core assets, looking for acquisitions and employing excess cash-flow to fund 175m pounds in share buy backs. The latter is a result of the firm´s desire to maintain an ‘efficient’ level of ‘gearing’ or debt, from the shareholders´ point of view. Furthermore, the second half of this year is expected to be strong and there are new products in the pipeline. The shares should have further to go long-term, The Times´s Tempus writes.

Pawnbroker H&T Group, one of two quoted UK pawnbrokers, is having to rethink its expansion strategy, due to the rapid proliferation of such outlets on the high streets as bank financing dried up. Another factor to be had in account is the small likelihood of a return to a gold bubble. Over the last few years that had seen people try to cash in on the rising price of the yellow metal. The shares are selling on less than ten times´earnings but due to the above “further progress could be pedestrian,” Tempus says.

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