Citi upgrades Diageo to ‘buy’, points to ‘cocktail of opportunities’

Citi upgraded Diageo to ‘buy’ on Wednesday and lifted the price target to 3,000p from 2,825p as it pointed to "a cocktail of opportunities".

The bank said that persistent earnings per share downgrades and concerns that the business model is structurally broken have driven PE relatives to long-run lows.

"However, with earnings/valuations metrics troughing in our view, and destocking headwinds likely to give way to positive earnings momentum in FY25E, we think an inflection point has been reached," it said.

"As such, Diageo’s July FY24E results should act as the clearing event which allows investors to revisit what remains an attractive compounding growth story."

Citi said that with investor positioning supportive, it believes the stock could re-rate +20% over the next 12-months.

At 1030 BST, the shares were up 1.9% at 2,511p.