5th Apr 2016 13:26
LONDON (Alliance News) - Investec and Shore Capital nudged up their forecasts for Cranswick's recently-ended financial year, after the pork and poultry producer said it will achieve full-year results in line with expectations.
On Tuesday, Cranswick said continued positive trading during the final quarter of the year ended March 31 resulted in full-year total sales volume growth of 12%, underlying sales volume growth of 10% and corresponding revenue growth of 5%, each year-on-year.
In response to this news, Investec raised its pretax profit forecast for the full year by 1.5% to GBP64.3 million and by 1% in financial 2017 to GBP67.0 million, on what it called "good quarter-four momentum" and "benign pig prices".
The broker also raised its target price to 2,350 pence from 2,086p and reiterated its Buy rating on the stock.
Meanwhile, Shore Capital noted that Cranswick issued "another very robust trading update", leading the broker to raise its full-year pretax profit forecast to GBP64.5 million from GBP63.8 million.
Shore also noted that the UK pig price has stabilised in recent weeks, after having fallen throughout the year, adding that is expects prices to be broadly stable in financial 2017. Despite this, the broker said it still expects deflation to remain a headwind for Cranswick through the first quarter.
Shore left its financial 2017 pretax profit forecast unchanged at GBP66.9 million, and has a 2,166p price target on the stock.
Shares in Cranswick were trading down 0.7% at 2,151.00p on Tuesday afternoon.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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