Shares in Tesco PLC (LON:TSCO) were up for sale on Tuesday after the supermarket giant was on the end of another bearish note from Goldman Sachs.
Goldman analyst Rob Joyce highlighted the fall in UK like-for-like sales, which slipped to just 0.7% in the final three months of 2016 from almost 2% in the previous quarter.
Joyce also mentioned the pension deficit which spiralled to £5.5bn (2016: £2.6bn) due to the reduction in bond yields following last summer’s Brexit vote.
CLICK HERE to sign up to the Proactive newsletter
READ MORE: Last week's results from Tesco...
The analyst lowered his forecasts for the next three years on the back of lower incremental cost savings, higher interest charges due to property debt and higher tax guidance.
“However, the key concern for us remains free cash flow generation,” wrote Joyce in a note to clients.
“Even forecasting further working cap inflows and £100mln per annum to be generated from property value realisation, pension repayments, onerous leases and the SFO settlement mean we forecast average FCF for 2018-20 of £440mln.
“This implies a c.3% yield, unattractive versus the sector on 5.5% for calendar year 2018.”
Goldman is forecasting a pre-tax profit of £1.07bn for Tesco this year, on revenues of £56.7bn.
Joyce has the stock as a ‘sell’ with a 12-month target price of 150p.
Shares in Tesco were down 2.3% to 177p on Tuesday afternoon.