Broker tips: Debenhams, Greene King, Glencore

Debenhams shares were under pressure on Thursday after Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock to ‘sell’ from ‘neutral’, pointing to slowing space growth.

“As one of the UK general retailers wrestling with the online channel shift dynamic, and in recent times suffering from store-based sales cannibalisation, while approaching the end of its UK space growth plans, Debenhams’ earnings growth outlook is modest by European retail standards,” it said.

Goldman noted around 2% earnings per share growth over 2016/17 versus around 10% for peers.

It said the group’s Christmas trading statement in mid-January and the interim results in April 2016 should underpin the bank’s earnings forecasts and cautious stance on the shares.

GS has an 83p 12-month price target on Debenhams.

Accounting adjustments and increased synergies will boost Greene King’s profits in the medium-term, but not the company’s cash-flows, Canaccord Genuity said.

That followed the company’s announcement that it would take a £325.6m provision to replace its “onerous” £50m lease provision for the +100 pubs which resulted from the March 2004 sale and leaseback from Texas Pacific.

That led Parson to revise his forecasts for adjusted earnings per share in fiscal years 2016 and 2017 higher by 7.6% an 4.9%, respectively, to reach 69.0p and 75.7p.

He also bumped up his estimate for 2018 adjusted EPS by 3.2% to 80.0p.

However, the lion’s share of the boost to earnings was solely the result of accounting fair value adjustments with no changes to cash-flow, the analyst emphasised.

He left his ‘buy’ recommendation on the shares unchanged but increased his target price to 1,110p from 1,050p.

RBC saw possible short-term catalysts for Glencore, but added that the outlook was 'mixed'.

The shares should rally further as the commodities trader unveiled further asset sales and operational improvements, with a 10 December update serving as one potential catalyst, Tyler Broda and Alexandra Slattery said in a research note sent to clients.

Indeed, the company was likely to announce more asset sales than had originally been targeted, which would help it to hold on to its investment grade credit rating through 2016 as long as the reference price for copper remained above a $2.10/lb.

A credit downgrade to 'junk' was not out of the question, although it would not be the end of the world for Glencore, the analysts added.

RBC initiated coverage on the stock at 'neutral' with a 100p target price.