Goldman starts Ashtead at 'buy', shares rally

Ashtead shares rallied on Thursday as Goldman Sachs initiated coverage of the stock at ‘buy’ with a 5,100p price target, highlighting re-rating potential.

"We think there is room for further re-rating as we believe we are at the beginning of an upgrade cycle supported by improving cyclical trends," GS said.

"Furthermore, we expect a return to double-digit organic revenue trends over the next 12 months driven by cyclical and secular tailwinds of growing rental penetration, along with solid free cash flow generation which we expect will drive further re-rating in the shares."

At 1245 GMT, the shares were up 3% at 3,987p.