Broker tips: Dowlais, Rio Tinto, Dr Martens

Jefferies initiated coverage of Dowlais - which was recently spun off from Melrose Industries - on Monday with a ‘buy’ rating and 155p price target, offering upside of around 21%.

Dowlais comprises GKN Automotive, GKN Powder Metallurgy and GKN Hydrogen, which sat under Melrose ownership since FY18, and were demerged in April.

"We see Dowlais as a high-quality auto supplier with attractive margin enhancement potential as the auto recovery comes, although we do not see it as overly dependent on volumes or cost recovery," Jefferies said.

"There is a strong management team in place that has led GKN Automotive through its improvement phase and as Dowlais transitions from the prior Melrose 'buy, improve, sell' umbrella to a standalone group, we see these businesses enhanced by a greater focus on long-term structural growth, without compromising on the pursuit of best-in-class profitability."

Deutsche Bank upgraded Rio Tinto to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ and lifted the price target to 6,200p from 6,000p.

The bank noted that this was its first upgrade in more than two years.

"With the shares now down more than 20% from the year-to-date high, we see attractive value underpinned by a high quality, cash generative business," it said.

It said consensus has turned progressively more bearish towards Rio over the past three years due to persistent concerns over the iron ore market and company specific ESG and strategy issues.

"We have trimmed back our near-term iron ore prices ($110/115/t in 2023/24 from ~$120/t), but remain more bullish than consensus (DB more than 15% ahead on 2024 EBITDA) and see 30% total return potential on a 12-month basis.)

Barclays cut its price target on Dr Martens on Monday to 175p from 210p.

The bank said: "Dr. Martens has disappointed investors again, and whilst we may be overlooking as yet unannounced problems, brand strength does seem robust."

It said the US distribution centre issues may be sorted, but execution of the US D2C strategy is now critical.

Barclays downgraded its FY24/25 earnings per share estimates by 12/11% taking it 16/13% below Bloomberg consensus.

Barclays maintained its ‘overweight’ rating.