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Q3 - InterContinental Hotels Signet

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Q3 - InterContinental Hotels; Signet.WEDNESDAY: Results: Full year - Paragon. Interims - Johnson Matthey; Land of Leather; Speedy Hire; Synergy Healthcare; Radstone Technology. Interims - SSL International; Viridian Group; ICAP; Great Portland Estates. Last month, SSL said sales were 7 per cent ahead of last year at around £220m.Results: Full year - Anglo Irish Bank; Enodis; easyJet; Enterprise Inns; Greencore; Innovation Group.

Early signs are encouraging, the broker said.SSL International is likely to unveil pre-tax interim profits of about £22m, £5m higher than in 2004, on the back of healthy sales of Durex in America and Eastern Europe and of its Scholl Party Feet across Europe. Williams de Bro?xpects the Belfast-based company to notch up pre-tax profits of £57m, £1.2m better than last time.Power transmission and distribution price controls coming into force in April 2007 are seen as key to Viridian's future success. Interims - Thus; Workspace.TOMORROW: EasyJet shares flew to their highest for 18 months in the summer after the owner of Icelandair took a chunky stake, fuelling speculation that a takeover approach could be on the runway.That distracted from solid trading in the year to the end of September, when the low-cost airline inflated its network to 187 routes out of 57 airports and shunned the levy of a fuel surcharge on flyers.ABN Amro expects Stelios Haji-Ioannou's orange airline to post annual pre-tax profits of £66.7m, up from £62.2m a year ago.The electricity distributor Viridian Group should unveil slightly better profits for the first half of its year too. Enterprise will also have a platform to have its say on longer pub opening hours, which come into force this week.TODAY: Results: Full year - Care UK; RM.

That's slightly slower than at the half-way stage of the year, but analysts at UBS still expect 2005 profits of £301m, £73m better than last time.Investors will be looking for any signal that the consumer slowdown or rising energy costs may hurt future profits. Instead, shareholders can expect to find as much as £300m a year back in their pockets, probably in the form of higher dividends and share buy-backs.In September, the Solihull-based group indicated that thirsty Britons had driven operating profits at least 8 per cent higher in its pubs over the past 12 months. In the past, the Enterprise chief executive Ted Tuppen has spent the huge amount of cash the business generates on buying groups of pubs, snapping up 4,000 outlets from Unique last year. The trouble is, there are now few good pubs left to buy. Enterprise Inns shareholders should be raising a glass to the country's biggest pubs chain tomorrow when it is likely to unveil plans to return at least £200m to them. With the link between action and objective increasingly opaque, it will become increasingly difficult for central banks to explain why they ever bother to change interest rates.Stephen King is managing director of economics at HSBCstephen.king hsbcib .

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