Updates from Dixons Carphone, Sports Direct and Experian

A tiny 4.4 point lift for the FTSE 100 on Wednesday, still playing it cautious largely on the Greek situation, taking it to 6,753.7. Travis Perkins was the day's biggest riser up 2.7% to 2224p while RSA Insurance Group climbed 1.8% to 425.3p. Mondi climbed 1.6% to 1507p. GKN however fell almost 2.8% to 309.6p on more China contract worries.

The Dow Jones was similarly subdued with a 3.4-point slip to 18,050 as energy and travel stocks - Chevron and Boeing - got hit following pressure on oil prices.

A busy day on the numbers front. We commence with a look at final figures from Dixons Carphone. For the 13 months to 2 May group like-for-like revenues are up 6% (UK & Ireland up 8% and Nordics up 4%). Group profits before tax surge to £38m, up 21%.

There's a final dividend of 6.0p (2013/14: 4.0p) proposed, taking total dividends for the year to 8.5p (2013/14: 6.0p), up 42% year-on-year. The integration between the two operations is "progressing well" and expected to deliver £80m of synergies by 2016/17.

"We have continued," says boss Sebastian James, "to generate strong customer satisfaction numbers, made significant strides in our Connected World Services business including our agreement with Sprint, and launched a brand new mobile network."

We stay on the high street with Sports Direct. Group revenues rise 4.7% to £2,833m. Reported profit before tax is up 30.9% to £313.4m while net debt is substantially down (by more than 71%) to £59.7m.

The Sports Retail gross margin increased by 170 bps to 44.6%, however sales of premium brands look rather weaker for the company. Sports Direct has also responded to criticism of its widescale deployment of zero hours contracts.

"We comply," it said in a statement this morning, "fully with all legal requirements which relate to casual workers, including sick pay, holiday pay, and freedom to gain other employment. Casual workers also participate in general incentive schemes."

Lastly, Experian. For the three months to 30 June 2015 group organic revenue growth was up 3% with claimed good progress in software and analytics, fraud and identity management, plus consumer and business information.

In North America, there was upped strength in Credit Services helped by contributions from healthcare and automotive. Experian claim "considerable progress" in turning around Consumer Services.

"We continue to expect organic revenue growth to progress during the year as we focus on our growth initiatives and as declines moderate in North America Consumer Services in H2."

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