Woolworths may have gone but Kingfisher’s other stock market spin-off – Kesa Electricals, the owner of Comet and Darty – soldiers on.

But anyone seeking an explanation as to why the retailer’s shares have risen by two thirds in the space of a month will have been hard-pressed to find one in yesterday’s first-half results.

True, Kesa is on a much sounder financial footing than its rival, DSG International, it has modest cash on its balance sheet, €500 million (£449 million) of borrowing facilities, and £300 million of freehold property, but that is about as good as it gets.

Comet swung into an £8 million loss after a 13.3 per cent like-for-like sales decline in the second quarter, trading at Darty has predictably slowed (to 4.3 per cent behind) and the entire £114 million book value of Kesa’s Spanish business – Menaje del Hogar, bought with spectacularly bad timing last autumn – has been written off. That territory is also now loss making. Overall, group first-half profits fell 72 per cent to £10.6 million and the interim dividend has been halved to 1.75p. Consensus pretax profit forecasts for the 12 months to April 30 are expected to fall by about 20 per cent.

That roster shows the extent of the task facing Thierry Falque-Pierrotin, the PPR director, who takes over as chief executive next month. The company is doing a good job of managing Darty’s gross margins, its capital expenditure commitment – largely a store refurbishment programme – is nearing its end, and the skew of sales towards the single currency (in which it books two thirds of turnover) makes Kesa a clear beneficiary of a stronger euro. Further, the drag of start-up losses in the company’s newer territories – Italy, Switzerland and Turkey – should steadily lessen as those businesses gain scale. There is also no sign that Kesa is suffering from the credit insurance problems that plagued Woolworths and are hampering some of its weaker rivals.

But given dire consumer sentiment in the UK and France before its peak trading period, no signs of life in the housing market – to which sales of white goods are partly tied – a reduced payout and the recent rally in shares, which yesterday fell back 13¾p to 88¼p, or nine times downgraded forecasts, there is no obvious reason to buy.

Victrex

Yesterday’s full-year results from Victrex were always in danger of being overshadowed by the profit warning that preceded them – the shock alert of two weeks ago that pulled shares in the mid-cap chemicals group down 28 per cent in a day – and so it proved. Victrex is the world’s biggest producer of Peek, a thermoplastic used to make everything from circuit boards to espresso machines, but dominance has offered little protection against weakness in its three biggest end-markets: automotive, aerospace and electronics. Shipments of Peek collapsed last month, down to 118 tonnes from 218, reflecting the tendency of risk-averse customers to run down their existing stocks. Such a phenomenon is not unknown – it happened in the wake of September 11 – but December is quiet for Victrex, so it will not be until the new year that the company can gauge whether November was a wobble or the start of a trend.

In the interim, Victrex finished its financial year with above-forecast net cash of £24 million, and faces falling capital expenditure after the completion of a second polymer plant. It is also a beneficiary of a weaker pound (it draws less than 3 per cent of its sales from the UK, against 80 per cent from the US and continental Europe), albeit that the full effect is partly offset by hedging.

At 442p, up 10p, the shares have rebounded 20 per cent from their low to sit at 11 times 2009 earnings. Given considerable uncertainty before February’s annual meeting, they have run far enough for now.

Axis-Shield

Axis-Shield has done more than protect. At last night’s close, shares in the developer of medical diagnostic equipment are up 28 per cent since the start of the year, and a solid 16 per cent ahead since Tempus’s buy advice in March.

Yesterday’s disclosure of stronger ties with Abbott, the US healthcare group, only added to that case. The London-listed company is to develop and manufacture a test for vitamin B12 deficiency – a contributor to anaemia and dementia – for the latest generation of Abbott’s large-scale laboratory machines. Axis’s costs will be funded out of current R&D budgets and revenues are unlikely before late 2010 but the agreement provides a clear endorsement of the company’s chemistry.

But it is the roll-out of Afinion, Axis’s desktop diabetes test for doctors’ surgeries, that provides the greater excitement, and should continue to underpin the shares. After a US launch last year, the company has scaled back forecasts of how many machines it expects to have in place by the end of this year to 4,000, but the underlying momentum remains. Afinion is faster than the comparable technology from Siemens, which has 20,000 machines in use. The bigger draw is that Axis’s hardware can conduct multiple tests, including those for reactive proteins (which determine whether a prescription of antibiotics is appropriate), and soon, it is hoped, cholesterol. The benefit is that Axis makes its money from selling test cartridges rather than the machines, which should provide an annuity-like income as Afinion gains wider distribution. A weaker pound is unhelpful (Axis has substantial costs in Norwegian krona) and tougher times might mean doctors defer purchases. But with earnings forecast to treble over the next three years on Brewin Dolphin estimates, at 312p, hold on for more.

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