Sky (LON:BSY) has been buzzing today after a story at the weekend that Vodafone and Viviendi inquired about Murdoch-vehicle Fox’s 39% stake.
Those approaches were turned down but the story today is that the Murdochs themselves may take out the remainder of the satellite broadcaster at £18 per share.
UBS says the story highlights the potential strategic value of Sky to a number of different parties, something that is not reflected in the current share price.
The broker is a buyer and says investors have underestimated the upside to growth from new initiatives and the benefits of scale from the Sky Europe deal. The target price is 1,200p.
It’ll soon be time for all the City boys and girls go on their summer holidays, but before they leave there were few upgrades in the travel and leisure sector.
Deutsche Bank put its beach towel on Carnival’s (LON:CCL) deckchair, upgrading to ‘buy’ and lifting its target price for the cruise ship operator to 3525p up from 3400p (current price 3291p).
Analyst Richard Carter said he expected Carnival’s second quarter earnings to be above the upper end of its guidance.
Rail and bus group Go-Ahead (LON:GOG) has been upgraded to ‘buy’ by Nomura.
Numis Securities is now more bullish about pub group Enterprise Inns (LON:ETI) as it lifts upgrades to ‘buy’ from ‘add’.
Elsewhere distribution and outsourcing group Bunzl (LON:BNZL) was also upgraded by Deutsche, which now rates the FTSE 100 constituent as a ‘buy’ rather than ‘hold’.
Lifting the price target to 2000p from 1900p, analyst Sylvia Foteva says the German bank has “admired Bunzl's fundamentals for years” but a premium valuation has made it difficult for investors to find an ‘entry point’ until now.
“Bunzl is a cash compounder with a resilient business model and plenty of opportunities for consolidation within its multiple end markets,” the analyst said in a note.
In the financial services sector Standard Life (LON:SL.) is downgraded to ‘reduce’ from ‘neutral’ by Nomura.
Meanwhile Jefferies adjusted down target prices for Legal & General (LON:LGEN) and Prudential (LON:PRU), though both remain on the investment bank’s ‘buy’ list.Credit Suisse has left its rating on BAE Systems (LON:BA.) unchanged at outperform with a target price of 610p even the US Army has sued it for alleged overcharging for armoured trucks.
Damages may be up to US$132m if BAE loses.Some of the shine went off Gemfield’s (LON:GEM) as Numis and Peel Hunt both expressed disappointment with the result of its latest ruby auction.
Peel Hunt said it was a modest dampener on what had been a stellar year for the company, but the impact on its forecasts was limited.
Numis added that pricing seemed to have softened slightly since the last higher quality auction, which Gemfields put down to lower demand for certain darker tone and lower quality grades.
Even so, Numis says it likes the stock and outlook for coloured gemstones, but can see some short-term profit taking at these levels after the stellar run this year. Its target price remains 80p.
ReNeuron (LON:RENE) has announced a collaboration with Benitec Biopharma through to work on a delivery system for small RNAs in the gene silencing space.
Cenkos said the collaboration as an interesting strategic alliance in a rpdily developing space. ‘Buy’.