
Nestle shares fall 4% after BofA downgrades to ‘underperform’, lowers target price
Shares of FMCG major Nestle India fell 4% to their day’s low of Rs 2,148 on the NSE in Wednesday's early trade after global brokerage firm BofA Securities downgraded the stock’s rating to an ‘underperform’ and also lowered its target price to Rs 2,140 from an earlier Rs 2,315.
The downgrade was driven by soft demand trends, cost pressures, and aggression from multiple players.
The global brokerage firm believes that the aforementioned factors make the operating environment challenging and should affect Nestle India near term. It further stated that the pricing can remain a key growth driver amidst sharp inflation in commodities like coffee, cocoa, etc., which impact 30% of the portfolio.
“We expect some volume recovery (on a low base) hereon, but overall growth remains modest. With a rapidly changing consumer landscape and competitive dynamics, the company will have to tightly balance growth & margin mid-term; we think operating margin is capped and can move a tad lower,” BofA said in its note.
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BofA also stated that it looks for any strategy refresh or shift in priorities with a number of leadership changes of late. The big change is expected to be seen in August as Manish Tiwary (ex-Amazon, Unilever) takes over as MD, replacing Suresh Narayanan, who is retiring.
Tiwary will take over at a time when the business is going through a soft patch and there are multiple changes in industry dynamics. A lot is expected, not only for growth revival, but also to address emerging issues/opportunities (health