BEST OF THE BROKERS
TRINITY MIRROR
Deutsche Bank has cut its recommendation on the newspaper group from “buy” to “hold” with a target price of £40, and says it expects the company’s ad trading environment and structural challenges to remain severe. The broker also expects there to have been a widening of the pension deficit in recent months, and says that events at competitor News International make forecasting national newspaper performance very difficult.
SANOFI
JP Morgan Cazenove has upgraded the French drugmaker from “neutral” to “overweight” and increased its price target to €66 from €63. The broker sees rerating potential from increasing visibility on growth as patent expiries drop out, better resilience from its Lantus franchise, and an upside from its pipeline from the second quarter. The target price assumes just one of the three will occur, with a significant further upside if all materialise.
POLYMETAL
UBS has downgraded the Russian mining giant from “buy” to “neutral” and slashed its target price by over a fifth from 1,400p to 1,100p, after a fine-tuning of its production forecasts and assumptions of higher cash costs led to a significant earnings cut. The broker cuts its gold output forecast by 1-4 per cent in 2012-15, and increases cost assumptions by 15-22 per cent, leading to a cut in net income of 8-26 per cent over the same period.