If loads of new cow incinerators have to be built, to burn the mad cows, ETR is quids in If not, it will have to stick to crematoria It already has a quarter of the UK market. Pooh, what a pong. Fledgling Buckingham-based manufacturer Environmental Technology Research is on tenterhooks. Like most people it doesn’t know what the Government’s latest thinking on slaughtering and Mad Cow Disease is. The company’s Steven Feldman says this is important since it makes metering devices for chimneys which measure how much dust and smoke particles are emitted. It operates in 26 countries and will open 50 new stores this year, the same as in 1995.The Rolling Luggage Company, a new format that started trials last year, will be expanded gradually from its current three outlets.

The expansion is backed by net cash of almost pounds 14m.Although steady growth can be expected, analysts were reining back forecasts yesterday.Central costs are set to rise for the second year running as the company adapts its systems to cope with a larger empire.NatWest expects profits of pounds 8.7m this year, which puts the shares on a forward rating of 16 Worth holding.. He hates the term with a vengeance, since it lumps his company with all those former stars of the 1980s such as Sock Shop, many of which have fallen on hard times. His view is that Tie Rack is a cautiously run, well-managed retailer that happens to focus on neckware (ties and scarves to you and me). It is plainly an overreaction, but you can see his point.

While other 1980s “niche retailers” have fallen by the wayside, Tie Rack has been motoring strongly. Its shares, for example, have risen from 22p in 1991 to 165p, even after yesterday’s 5p fall, and have enjoyed a meteoric rise in the past 12 months.
Yesterday saw another solid if unspectacular set of results. Profits of pounds 7.9m were a 7 per cent improvement on last time but hid a range of different performances. In the UK, where Tie Rack has 169 of its 379 stores, profits fell as a result of the hot summer and tough trading conditions Like-for-like sales were flat. But the US business, which now has 63 stores, made its first profits since 1987.As the UK market reaches maturity, Tie Rack sees most of its profit growth coming from overseas, particularly in Europe.

There is nothing Roy Bishko hates more than people describing his beloved Tie Rack as a niche retailer. Profits of more than pounds 7m this year would put the shares on a heady forward multiple of over 30 and with US publisher Carl Fischer in effect sitting on over 50 per cent, they are hard to get hold of A firm hold none the less.. Victory in Boosey’s long-running $200m claim against Walt Disney would transform the group, but the case remains bogged down in the US legal system for now. Concentration on margins and additional funds from the Lottery directed at brass bands in the UK boosted the business, but in the long term the excitement is likely to come from the rapidly growing Far Eastern market and expanding market share in the US. The group managed to squeeze juicy margins of 21 per cent out of the publishing business last year. This year should benefit from further margin expansion, although earnings will be held back by reorganisation at Bote & Bock, the German music publisher acquired earlier this year.Most of the growth last year came from Boosey’s instruments business, which saw underlying profits jump 14 per cent to pounds 4.18m. Since the beginning of 1995, the shares have outperformed the rest of the stock market by 68 per cent, after a further 43p rise yesterday to a new peak of 698p.

The price was spurred last year when the European Union harmonised copyright periods to 70 years. That decision, ratified by Parliament in December, extended copyrights in the UK and some other European countries by 20 years and gave a new lease of life to copyrights controlled by Boosey. Long-dead composers such as Rachmaninoff, Delius and Elgar will come back under the company’s wing.
Boosey can take more than pounds 1,000 a night from a well attended opera at Covent Garden at which one of its pieces is used, quite apart from recording rights and sheet music sales. Though Tesco is an impressive management story, the shares are unlikely to perform any spectacular tricks in the short term Hold.. Despite being one of the best-known names in music publishing, Boosey & Hawkes had been largely neglected by City institutions until quite recently. That has changed as the group’s unblemished profit record has become established. Profits have grown steadily since Richard Holland climbed aboard as chief executive seven years ago, rising from pounds 2.46m in 1989 to pounds 6.17m in 1995 after last year’s 21 per cent increase reported yesterday.