THE health of the building society sector will be back in the spotlight this week when the Nationwide posts its annual results.

Nationwide will report fullyear figures tomorrow after a dramatic year for Britain’s biggest building society.

The financial crisis has provided an opportunity for growth at Nationwide, with the group taking over smaller rivals the Derbyshire and Cheshire building societies to create a business with almost 15 million members and about 1,000 retail branches.

But the credit crunch has also taken its toll, knocking pre-tax profits at the half-year stage by 18 per cent to £394m.

Halifax-owner Lloyds Banking Group noted a big rise in borrower arrears and Nationwide’s results will be scrutinised closely for similar trends.

Annual results from Fox’s biscuits and Goodfella’s pizza firm Northern Foods tomorrow come after a difficult year for food groups.

Northern recently revealed it had increased prices by 4.4 per cent over the year to March 31 to help offset cost pressures.

Leeds-based Northern Foods, which provides own label and branded products to major retailers, has been focusing efforts on value products and reducing its reliance on chains such as Marks and Spencer in favour of discounters, including Aldi and Lidl.

Underlying fourth-quarter revenues at the subsidiary grew by 10.4 per cent.

However, analysts are expecting full year pre-profits to have dropped from £50.1m to £46m. Underlying earnings are forecast to have risen from £48.7m to £52m.

United Utilities and Severn Trent will give a review of trading in the water sector over the past year when they report on Thursday and Friday respectively.

Severn Trent has already braced investors for a £25m hit to annual revenues, warning in January that sales were being impacted by a decline in water consumption among metered customers.

Warrington-based United Utilities, which has 3.2 million customers, has also noted reduced water demand.

■ Companies reporting results this week include:

Today

Finals: Aveva.

Interims: Greencore, Holidaybreak.

Tomorrow

Finals: Nationwide, Northern Foods.

Interims: Topps Tiles.

Thursday

Finals: Hogg Robinson, Man, PayPoint, Shanks, Tate & Lyle, United Utilities, Young & Co’s Brewery.

Interims: Minorplanet Systems.

Trading update: Wolseley.

Friday

Finals: Blacks Leisure, Severn Trent.