Canaccord raises target price on Travis Perkins

Analysts at Canaccord Genuity raised their target price on builders' merchant and home improvement retailer Travis Perkins from 1,360.0p to 1,450.0p on Wednesday after tweaking estimates ahead of the group's full-year results in early March.

Canaccord now expects Travis Perkins to deliver "a modestly higher" 2020 second-half underlying profit outcome year-on-year, before paying back government monies received during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Canadian bank, which maintained its 'hold' rating on the stock, said recent sector news-flow suggested that trading continued to be good right to the end of 2020 and that momentum into 2021 also looked "good".

"We expect the group to deliver a good set of 2020 full-year results," said Canaccord.

"Looking into the second half of this year, the group may benefit from a successful rollout of the vaccine allowing life to return to closer to normality, a successful de-merger of Wickes with also the possible sale of P&H allowing it to focus on delivering growth and good returns from its core business."

In such a scenario, Canaccord expects the trade-focussed, reshaped group to see general merchanting outperform the wider market and its Toolstation subsidiary to offer "very strong growth prospects" as a result of store openings, product range extensions and maturity of existing stores.