Peel Hunt upgrades Moneysupermarket after share price weakness

The shares have weakened following good interims as the spectre of Amazon entering the market has been raised, although the nature and scope of its interest in insurance is far from clear, the brokerage said.

"For sure Amazon has the advantage of no inherent cost of customer acquisition, but at this stage there is no clear indication that it is intending to address a mature motor market place or to offer a broad-based panel for comparison.

“The potential for Amazon to disrupt is significant, but for the moment we are a long way away from a direct incremental competing motor service. We have previously seen Google investigate UK PCW services without material success. The attractions to international online companies of entering the UK financial services market place may be tempered by the regulatory burden that has to be addressed."

In addition, it noted that the Decision Technologies deal has completed, paving the way for more B2B partnerships to be pursued to expand the market for switchers and the new CFO identified.

Moneysupermarket’s shares are now trading on forward price-to-earnings levels, of 15x, not seen - other than for a couple of months - since 2014.

Peel Hunt left its 340p target price unchanged.

At 0930 BST, the shares were up 2.4% to 282p.