In November 1999, a month after the end of its financial year, Country Bumpkin announces its preliminary results to the Stock Exchange, and they are reported in the press the next day.
The "prelims", as they are sometimes called, summarise the company's performance over the previous year, with details of turnover, profits, taxation and dividends. Even though they are not full results, they can have an impact on the stock price as they are the first concrete evidence of trading performance for the whole year.
The City analysts who follow the stock are expecting a post-tax profit of £3.2m. In fact, CB exceeds the forecasts, with net earnings of £3.5m, equivalent to 21.8p per share. It pays a gross dividend of 8.6p per share which, on the pre-results share price of 300p, is equivalent to a dividend yield of 2.9%.
The company could have paid a higher dividend, but it is going for growth and investors understand that it wants to retain cash resources to pay for expansion.
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