Unilever (LON:ULVR) is spread too thinly in the evolving retail environment, according to Goldman Sachs, which has downgraded the consumer goods maker to ‘sell’ from ‘neutral’.
As Goldman predicted there’ll be weaker medium term organic growth for the company, its shares were among the day’s biggest fallers on the London Stock Exchange, losing over 3.5%.
“We see the company as negatively positioned with respect to the changes in the retail environment as the e-commerce channel grows,” analyst Mitch Collett said.
Esure (LON:ESUR) faces further downside, according to Numis, which has downgraded the car and home insurer to ‘reduce’ from ‘hold’.
Analyst Nick Johnson acknowledged that the insurer’s 15% drop in first half profit was in-line with expert consensus, but he has further reduced his forecasts and predicts a 6% fall in overall earnings per share in 2015 and he expects another 13% drop next year.
Credit Suisse put its recommendation of Dairy Crest (LON:DCG) out to pasture, downgrading to ‘neutral’ from ‘outperform’ because the milker’s share price has risen 17% amid a possible deal with Muller.
Although the bank apparently sees the stock cooling off enough to reduce its recommendation, it did still increase the price target to 620p from 580p.
BA owner International Consolidated Airlines (LON:IAG) was downgraded by Kepler to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’.
Morgan Stanley cut its view for inter-dealer broker ICAP (LON:IAP) to ‘underweight’ from ‘equal weight’.