Broker tips: Petershill Partners, Informa

Berenberg raised its target price on investment company Petershill Partners from 235.0p to 270.0p on Wednesday following the group's Q3 results a day earlier.

The German bank stated Petershill's portfolio of partner firms had continued to raise funding at a good rate, in its view, despite management highlighting that the industry fund-raising environment had remained slower.

Berenberg also noted that performance fees were strong in the quarter, and said it believes that a pick-up in deal activity, which should be enabled by base-rate cuts, could be a tailwind for performance fee growth.

"While we do not materially move our EPS estimates (and await management's guidance for FY25), a strong Q3 has made us more confident in the outlook for the business," said Berenberg, which reiterated its 'buy' rating on the stock.

Citi has reiterated its 'buy' rating for Informa after a "robust" trading update from the B2B publishing and events group this week, saying that shareholders should be reassured that underlying trends are strong.

Informa reported on Tuesday that overall organic growth trends over the first ten months of the year were in line with the first half, with double-digit organic growth guidance maintained. It also marginally raised its 2024 financial targets after accounting for the positive impact from the now-completed Ascential acquisition – offsetting a slight drag from FX.

"Looking forward, the group has indicated continued momentum into 2025E with 1Q Markets organic growth at 5%+, which is encouraging in our view, but not necessarily massively different from VA consensus estimates," Citi said.

"Overall, we don't expect material changes to consensus forecasts in 2025E, but think the results will reassure that underlying trends will continue to be strong - and potentially much stronger than much higher rated peers. Reflecting this, we continue to have a favourable view and rate the group as a 'buy'."