LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Buy Majestic Wine shares, recommended the Sunday Times' Inside the City column, after their halving over the last two years. New chief executive Rowan Gormley took over with a turnaround objective after a series of profit warnings, the latest in September. He has set a target of driving sales around £100m higher to above £500m in three years' time, with a return to dividends in 2017.
Announcing half-year numbers in the coming week will give the South African the change to give some encouraging news on the early stages of his strategy, which has included a shift in investment from openings to incentivising and training staff. The long-held six-bottle minimum has been shelved too. While the lack of a profit target creates some doubt, this is a turnaround that could bear fruit.

Hold onto shares in Vodafone and TalkTalk said Questor in the Sunday Telegraph after both have lost ground in recent months. TalkTalk has lost more than a quarter of their value since hitting a year's high in April and almost 50% since last year's all-time peak. It is positioned to customers as a value player in the telecoms market but as the recent simplification of its offer leads to revenues being boosted, it is facing likely cost pressures from the need to invest in high-speed broadband infrastructure. Although in the long term this should be good news, the dividend could be hit by a fifth in the next financial year.

Vodafone has begun to offer customer discounts is it uses its wide fixed-line coverage to try and grow market share outside its historic mobile core business. Tuesday's interim numbers are expected to show sales growth down below 2%, with competitive pressure in India a factor.

Shares in newly listed Van Elle were tipped as worth buying by Midas in the Mail on Sunday. The ground engineering services provider, which floated last month, has a strong record of profitable growth in the three decades as a private company, culminating in £10.7m pre-tax made from £84m sales this year. Building on its roots as a residential foundations specialist, Van Elle has developed a number of innovative products to help it complete jobs more efficiently.

Founder and now chairman Mike Ellis holds a 20% stake and chief executive Jon Fenton retained 7% after the float, which the company maintained despite several others being pulled amid the political and economic uncertainty of recent months. With the UK government's commitment to housebuilding and infrastructure, Van Elle's customer base that includes Network Rail, housebuilders Bovis and Bellway and construction groups like Balfour Beatty and Morgan Sindall, should see plenty of work. A dividend is on the cards too.



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