JP Morgan stays 'overweight' on CCH, highlights firm's 'confident' tone on outlook

Analysts at JP Morgan reiterated their 'overweight' stance on shares of Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling despite the bottler's recent 'miss' on third quarter volumes.

In a research note sent to clients, analyst Fintan Ryan highlighted management's "confident" tone in a conference call with analysts as regards the company's fourth quarter and financial year 2020 outlook.

Indeed, as CCH explained, excluding a weather-induced hit to volumes, at a pace of 1.4%, organic volume growth held up, and price/mix accelerated from the 1.2% clip observed throughout the first six months of the year to reach 2.6%.

The company also held or gained market share in the majority of the geographies in which it operates.

"Overall we see the Q3 results (price/mix acceleration) and conference call commentary (strong start to Q4, positive financial year 2020 tone) as encouraging, and continue to find the valuation attractive (17.3x 2020 [price-to-earnings] vs 20.0 [times] sector) given the robust medium term growth outlook (12% [compound annual growth rate for earnings per share])."