Whitbread slumps on Barclays downgrade
Whitbread was under the cosh on Monday as Barclays downgraded its stance on shares of the Premier Inn owner to ‘equalweight’ from ‘overweight’.
FTSE 100
7,877.05
17:14 18/04/24
FTSE 350
4,334.00
17:14 18/04/24
FTSE All-Share
4,290.02
16:54 18/04/24
Travel & Leisure
7,512.73
17:14 18/04/24
Whitbread
3,085.00p
17:04 18/04/24
The bank, which cut its price target on the stock to 4,350p from 4,700p, said: "Weighing up the positives and negatives alongside the utter lack of visibility around Brexit, we cut to EW and see more downside than upside risks currently, especially into H1 results."
Barclays said it sees risks to the shares as it expects consensus earnings per share revisions and sees the implied multiple as far higher than during previous times of macroeconomic weakness.
"On the positive side, we see M&A risk following other bids in the sector for asset-backed businesses and the Brexit outcome will have significant ramifications on the RevPAR/ EPS/share price outlook," it said.
At 1410 BST, the shares were down 4.2% to 4,280p.