Broker tips: Wood Group, Jimmy Choo, Lonmin

Shares in oil and gas services company Wood Group rose on Wednesday as Jefferies initiated its rating on the stock at ‘buy’.

“The company, in our view, has executed a far more coherent growth/mergers and acquisitions strategy compared to UK Service peers, Amec Foster Wheeler and Petrofac and has the balance sheet to pursue further deals,” Jefferies said.

The broker said the company is geared to US shale activity returning and holds a market leading engineering offering through its WG Mustang & WG Kenny businesses.

However Jefferies noted that Wood Group is dealing with further margin pressures amid a slump in oil prices and expected low activity by operators, particularly in the US shale business where the firm’s upstream facilities construction offering is strongly correlated to well count

Jefferies added that the engineering business is working in a subdued market for new material offshore development projects.

“However, as we have seen from companies such as SUBC, your own costs can be aggressively managed in this environment and awards are still out there.”

Jefferies issued a target price of 750p.

Liberum upgraded Jimmy Choo to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ with an unchanged target price of 135p after the company’s trading update.

It said the update suggests Choo is showing resilience in a difficult market.

Shares in the luxury goods maker shot higher on Wednesday after it said it had made a good start to the year, with trading in line with expectations despite the headwinds facing the sector.

Liberum said the update was timely as the stock has been hit by wider concerns about the luxury market, with peers such as Burberry, Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss also taking a hit.

“LFL sales amongst the peers have been down mid-single digit in recent reporting. It is therefore welcome that management has provided comfort that the company is on track to meet full year forecasts,” the brokerage said.

“The shares have been driven lower, we believe, by a combination of concerns over the wider luxury goods market malaise and fears over a possible Brexit which has impacted most of the UK market. In our view the Q1 statement should be sufficient to show that a strong brand with a flexible business model can continue to thrive.”

Liberum made no call on Brexit but pointed out that Jimmy Choo has a natural hedge against any weakening in the pound: although it buys almost all of its stock in euros, it also makes over two thirds of its sales outside the UK so stands to benefit from translating dollar and euro profits back into sterling.

In addition, the brokerage argued the stock is oversold, down 30% year-to-date and 20% in the past few weeks.

UBS downgraded Lonmin to ‘sell’ from ‘neutral’ but lifted the price target to 140p from 110p, saying the valuation looks stretched following a strong share price performance.

The bank said Lonmin achieved good cost performance in the second quarter of 2016, with unit costs down 3% quarter-on-quarter.

“This is positive as labour reduction/cost-cutting initiatives start to bear fruit. However, we do not believe this level of performance is sustainable, especially as production declines into FY17/18E, and we expect costs to increase 8-10% per annum (versus company guidance of flat nominal costs).”

UBS reckons this will result in Lonmin being free cash flow negative in FY19, even if prices increase as it expects, and is likely to be a disappointment versus consensus.

The price target increase comes as the bank now bases it on a mix of EV/EBITDA and net present value - compared to NPV previously – bringing Lonmin in line with the rest of the South African platinum group metals sector.

UBS also initiated coverage on the South African line of Lonmin, at ‘sell’ with a ZAR30 price target.