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Your Money > Investing Comment Articles > There to be...
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By Richard J Hunter, Hargreaves Lansdown
It is currently high season for "bank bashing" with regard to overdraft charges, but in terms of PR there are a number of companies who have recently committed some PR howlers. Of course, all great companies realise that the customer is king. The importance of keeping customers happy - and therefore keeping customers - is pivotal to ongoing success. Where the customers are easily identifiable, as in the examples above, customer care takes on a life of its own and it is a very fine line between service as usual and upsetting the PR apple cart. For British Airways, these are difficult times. Ongoing threats of strike action both from ground staff and pilots, the introduction of an additional "tax" for long haul passengers, the pensions deficit, the possible introduction of the "Open Skies" agreement and the ever-present threat of terrorism are just some of the issues it faces. Some of these were preventable, others not. The general feel in public terms is that BA cannot do much right. This is not necessarily the case in investment terms - global passenger numbers are predicted to double by 2020 and BA's strategy of attracting "premium cabin" (and high profit margin) passengers is beginning to bear fruit. For Tesco, the story is one of marginalising the corner shops, snapping up property, even squeezing online retailers and of late providing faulty petrol have all given the detractors something to aim at. The fact remains, however, that Tesco has handled each of these delicate situations and at the strategy level, continues to power ahead globally by diversifying abroad, let alone growing market share at what seems an inexorable rate. For the banks, the recent banking reporting season was almost overshadowed by the current repayment of overdraft charges. Again this is something which threatens to take managements' eye off the ball - at the risk of sticking his head above the parapet, Sir Fred Goodwin of the Royal Bank of Scotland made the point that only £1 in every £33 profit emanated from the UK retail bank. There is a great deal more to how the banks make their money, from geographical diversification through to corporate and investment banking and most of the banks did indeed report new record profit figures - but not necessarily from the sources that the campaign is suggesting. For the energy suppliers, the charge has been one of being late in refunding the savings being made by the reduction in energy prices. Again, from an investment perspective, the utilities need to purchase energy ahead and in much the same way that an interest rate rise does not take proper hold in the economy for anything up to six months, so there is a lag in benefiting from energy price reductions. Of course, in terms of share price performance the utilities have, over the last year, shed some of the perceptions around their being dull and dour investments as bid speculation and industry consolidation has taken hold. This is in addition to their retaining their defensive merits as a share, and is often accompanied by a high dividend yield to boot. Centrica has been one of the companies in the middle of the debate, and has also seen some speculation fuelling its price. Whether customers of these companies are truly unhappy - and whether their natural inertia will prevent them from voting with their feet - will of course become apparent as time goes on. However, each of the companies above has left one group of people extremely content with their performance - the shareholders. Due to the recent market correction, the FTSE100 has returned 3% over the last year. In that time, these companies have returned 9% (RBS), 21% (Centrica), 25% (Tesco) and 47% (BA). And, for the record, what does the market think? The market consensus for BA is a strong hold, for RBS buy, Tesco buy, and Centrica strong hold. Perhaps these companies are getting something right after all. Useful links: |
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