On Thursday after over 50 years, Sir Ken Morrison bows out of the eponymous supermarket chain that he built up from his father’s market stalls after the Second World War.

Analysts are looking for full year pre-tax numbers to come in at about £558m after a confident trading update in January, and it is unlikely that Sir Ken will want to disappoint in his last results presentation. Rumours abound of the commencement of a share buy-back programme, possibly £500m-£1bn over the next couple of years.

At a trading level, recent data shows that Morrison’s has been the best performing of the supermarkets, increasing its market share to 11.6%, with sales growing at almost double that of the grocery market overall. Obviously getting Take That, Alan Hansen and Lulu into your ad campaign is encouraging us to spend loads more-perhaps in the vain hope that once we have they’ll take the ad off!

On Friday the ‘man from the Prudential‘ reports results. Investors will be keen to see that operating profit is moving ahead toward £2.5bn, compared with under £2bn last time. Reassurance about the company’s investment portfolio, given the uncertain nature of markets, (and high bond exposure) will be required. Signs of recovery in the UK business, which was underperforming last year will also be anticipated.

The company also believes it has up to £9bn of surplus capital in its life fund, which it has been trying to access for some time. News on how negotiations are progressing with regulators, policyholders and other stakeholders is anticipated. Pru has a flourishing set of Far Eastern business; investors will be keen to see that these continue to show good growth whilst the more mature markets of the US and UK face a more uncertain period.