RELX PLC (LSE:REL) shares rose 6% after it remained a 'buy' at both Deutsche Bank and UBS following full-year 2025 results, although both banks reduced their price targets to reflect sector de-rating and higher discount rates.
Deutsche cut its price target to 3,050p from 3,700p, while UBS moved to 3,600p from 4,570p.
Both argued that recent share price weakness, driven by concerns over artificial intelligence disruption, had created an attractive long-term entry point.
RELX reported 7% underlying revenue growth in 2025 and delivered 90 basis points of margin expansion, broadly in line with consensus expectations.
Adjusted cash conversion improved to 99% from 96%, reflecting strong cash generation and limited net merger and acquisition activity.
The group announced a £2.25 billion share buyback and continued its pattern of high single-digit dividend growth, which Deutsche said underlined financial strength and a commitment to maximising shareholder returns.
The German bank said the results presentation reinforced RELX’s proprietary data and content positioning, which he believed made the business difficult to displace.
It argued that the group’s scale and long-standing investment in technology and automation left it well placed to deploy new artificial intelligence tools to drive consistent like-for-like revenue and profit growth.
Deutsche left adjusted basic earnings per share forecasts broadly unchanged for 2026 and increased 2027 estimates by around 1%.
The reduction in its price target reflected a broader de-rating of business-to-business peers rather than company-specific weakness.
UBS analysts also described the analyst call as calm and confident, with management reporting no signs of artificial intelligence-driven disruption.
They highlighted strong new sales across the group, particularly in Risk, Scientific, Technical and Medical, and Legal.
Management pointed to strong adoption of Lexis+ AI, now used by multiple hundreds of thousands of customers, and to growing data complexity in areas such as autonomous vehicles as incremental opportunities.
UBS trimmed its 2026 adjusted earnings per share forecast by 1% to reflect foreign exchange headwinds, slightly higher finance costs and a marginally higher tax rate.
It continued to forecast underlying revenue growth accelerating to 8% in 2026, driven by Scientific, Technical and Medical.
UBS derived its new £36 price target using a sum-of-the-parts and discounted cash flow methodology, the latter valuing future cash flows by discounting them back to today using a weighted average cost of capital.
The broker increased its weighted average cost of capital to 8.2% from 7.1% to reflect heightened uncertainty around artificial intelligence.
RELX traded on 14.8 times forecast 2026 earnings, a price to earnings ratio that compares the share price with expected profits and stood well below its five-year average of 24.1 times.
Both banks concluded that sentiment, rather than fundamentals, explained the weakness and that the business continued to compound steadily through the artificial intelligence noise.
In early afternoon trading, the stock was up 6% at 2,176p.